IMPORTANT NOTICE:

PAYMENT PROCESSOR CHANGE – JULY 31, 2023

In the continuous pursuit to streamline and automate ACS operations, we will be changing to a new Payment Processor to simplify the payment processing fee structure.

The transition will take place on Monday, July 31, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. PST

Please know that the security of your payment information has been our top priority through this change, and our payment processors are current with all data security industry standards. We are working with both our old and new payment processors to make this transition seamless and secure.

In light of this transition, please note the following changes that may impact you:

• Beginning Monday, July 31, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. PST, when you login to your ACS account, you may be prompted by our portal to re-enter your Credit Card or Bank information. If this happens, we kindly ask that you re-enter your payment information as this is the safest way to address this issue.
• The charges on your credit card or bank statement will show being from Attorney’s Certified Services but depending on your bank it may display slightly different.
• We will no longer accept debit cards as a form of payment and will only accept credit cards or ACH payments moving forward. If you are using a debit card as your payment form when the switch occurs, it may affect your account, therefore please update your payment information accordingly.

Click here for a step by step guide on how to make changes to your account and update your payment guarantee.

If you experience any issues or have any questions, please contact our accounting department at accounting@attorneyscertified.com or give us a call at (888) 514-5067, ext: 105.
We thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Access Permitted To Only Those Persons Required To
Appear In Person At Any Santa Clara County Superior Courthouse

Due to the dramatic rise of COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations in Santa Clara County, Presiding
Judge Deborah A. Ryan issued an order limiting courthouse entry to only those persons required to appear
in person, effective immediately.

Courthouse access is limited to:

Persons appearing in person for a court hearing. This will generally include and be limited to
parties, their attorneys, witnesses subpoenaed to testify, and jurors.

Persons appearing to submit a pleading in person for filing who may enter only to place the
pleading in the drop box and must leave afterward.

Persons seeking assistance with the Self-Help Center/Restraining Order Help Center for:

Pleadings related to the prevention of domestic violence, gun violence, civil harassment,
elder or dependent abuse, workplace violence, school violence, and juvenile dependency
restraining orders;
Pleadings requesting emergency child custody and visitation orders or child safety issues;
Pleadings requesting emergency guardianships; and
Pleadings related to evictions, restricted to emergencies.

No other persons are permitted entry without good cause, including access to the Clerk’s Offices and public
restrooms. The Court will continue to be processing e-filing documents. People who are not e-filing will be
allowed access to the courthouse to use the drop box as noted in the order. Access is provided to court
proceedings by phone. Courtroom Public Access Telephone Lines.

To view the court notice and other resources, please click here.

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF CONTRA COSTA
Public Information Office
mediainfo@contracosta.courts.ca.gov
925-608-2607

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 13, 2020

URGENT RELEASE: COURT CLOSURE DUE TO CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)

In response to the unique and continuing public safety challenge presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the numerous public health orders suggesting or requiring that public gatherings be limited:

The Contra Costa County Superior Court will be closed at all locations for approximately two weeks beginning Monday, March 16, 2020. Court locations hope to re-open at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 1st, 2020. Please check the Court website – http://www.cc-courts.org – for updates.

While the courts will be closed for most court cases starting on March 16, jurors who have been ordered to appear in court for criminal trials on Monday, March 16, must report to the court as ordered. At that time, the judges in those cases will provide guidance as to any further proceedings.

The Court appreciates the careful balance that must be maintained between the timely administration of justice and the protection of public health and safety. At the Court’s request and as permitted under Government Code section 68115, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court has issued an emergency order providing that, at least until April 1, 2020, the court closure will have the effect of being a public holiday as far as statutory or other timelines are concerned.

• If you have a hearing scheduled during this period, it will be reset to a later date. Notice of the new hearing date will be mailed to you or your attorney.
• If you are scheduled for jury service during this period, your service will be rescheduled. Notice of the rescheduled date will be mailed to you.
• Any in custody arraignments will be handled in Martinez, but all courthouses are closed to the public. Juvenile in custody arraignments will be handled in Martinez though closed to the public. Counsel will be permitted at all arraignments.
• If you need to seek an emergency protective order and/or a temporary guardianship, please contact your local police agency who will seek an appropriate order on your behalf.
• If you need to contact the juvenile or criminal arraignment departments, please call 925-608-1199.

Importantly, this closure is not in response to a specific notice of exposure at any Court facility or to any Court staff. Instead, it is in an abundance of caution to help limit the spread of the virus and the potential for future exposure.

Contact: Matt J. Malone, Public Information Officer

As always, we will notify you of any new updates from the Court. To see the official notice, please click here.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a member of our customer success team at orders@attorneyscertified.com or (888) 514-5067.

Thank You,
Chad Barger, President
ACS Management Team

** NOTICE – MANDATORY E-FILING – KERN COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT, FAMILY LAW DIVISION **

Dear valued client:
Please be advised that effective Monday, March 2, 2020,  Superior Court of California, County of Kern will require mandatory electronic filing (E‑File) by all represented parties in Family Law filings. Self‑represented litigants, while strongly encouraged to E-File, are not required to do so.

You can find more information about this at the Kern County Superior Courts website: https://www.kern.courts.ca.gov/

As always, if you have any additional information or concerns please contact your ACS Support Team.

Thank You,

Chad Barger
President / CEO
(888) 514-5067

Dear valued client:
Please be advised that effective 1/2/2020 Orange County Civil has implemented a new eFiling requirement (Local Rule 314A). To allow filers to meet this new requirement we’ve added a new Document Title field in the LegalConnect portal when uploading a document. Per the court’s requirement this field should give the full document title and include the ‘Related to ROA # __’ information when relating to a Law and Motion document.

Please review the Notice from Orange County Courts with more information.

As always, if you have any additional information or concerns please contact your ACS Support Team.

Thank You,

Chad Barger
President / CEO
(888) 514-5067

Dear Valued Client:

A meeting was held on July 10, 2019 at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles attended by representatives of the Los Angeles Superior Court (“LASC”), Journal Technologies, Inc. (“JTI”), which is the Courts Electronic Filing Manager (“EFM”), and Electronic Filing Service Providers (“EFSP”) which include ACS.

After the meeting, LASC published this FAQ (Revised 7/18/2019) on the Courts website, along with a helpful Tips for an Effective Electronic Filing handout. The purpose of this recap is to inform our clients of additional topics that were discussed in the July 10 meeting that were not addressed in the FAQ published by LASC, which include:

Return of Signed Proposed Orders

In the FAQ published by LASC under #49 and #50, the Court states that signed copies of proposed orders will be electronically transmitted back to the submitting party by the EFSP. However, the issue discussed at the meeting was that signed copies of proposed orders were not being transmitted to the EFSPs. The reason was that clerks were uploading the signed proposed orders to the Courts Case Management System (“CMS”) but not into the EFM. Therefore, JTI did not receive the upload and was unable to send back the signed orders to the EFSPs.

The resolution was that Court Operations would be working with JTI to build an automated process to upload signed orders from the CMS to the EFM so that JTI can send the files back to the EFSPs, who can then make the signed orders electronically available to submitting parties.

Until the resolution is implemented, the current process is for the Court to continue mailing copies of the signed orders to the submitting parties. When accepted, the signed order will also be uploaded to the CMS and made available on the Courts Register of Action (“ROA”). Moreover, if the filing of the proposed order is rejected, the reasoning will be sent to the EFSP.

Although the Courts FAQ says otherwise, we believe this information is helpful and we wanted to inform our concerned clients so that you understand this is a feature the Court is currently working on and that ACS will still receive your signed orders.

Refund Process for Fees

In the FAQ under #38, the Court advises parties to request refunds using Form LACIV-150, which can be mailed, delivered in-person, or electronically filed. However, in order to electronically file the form, the filer must pay a fee.

The Courts finance team will be working with JTI to build a new process for EFSPs to submit refund requests without additional fees being charged. This will include a new form.

Fee Waivers

We were informed that Court clerks have been trained to check for fee waivers, however, it is ultimately the responsibility of the filer to self-certify that they qualify for a fee waiver by checking a box and filing FW-001 Request to Waive Court Fees with the appropriate documentation. Otherwise, the clerk will process the filing while charging the fee.

In addition, the EFSPs in attendance at the meeting requested that the Notice Filing Review Complete (“NFRC”) file sent by JTI specify when transactions contain fee waivers instead of populating the fee with a $0 value. JTI created a ticket so that they can work on adding this information in the future.

Backlog

The EFSPs inquired into the backlog of pending orders that appear stuck in the Courts queue. The Court advised us they were unaware of this backlog and JTI advised that they are working on the transactions that were stuck with this status. They are currently working on a fix.

Outages & Workaround to eFiling

The Court also informed the EFSPs that clerks are not always aware when there is an outage preventing parties from eFiling. JTI advised that they do send emails to clerks from their help desk. The EFSPs suggested that JTI also include a banner on their portal when outages occur so filers are also made aware of the outages.

The Court also provided a workaround for customers when an outage prevents new orders from being submitted timely. The Court stated that physical documents be submitted to Department 1 for Ex Parte motions for the Court to decide to set a different filing date. The EFSPs in attendance advised the Court that currently there is only a form titled “Exemption from eFiling” which is insufficient and requested that another form be made available for when outages occur. The Court accepted this request and stated it will provide an update at a later time, along with a new process and form. In the interim, the Court asked that paper submissions be made to Department 1.

We are providing you this notice so that you are aware of upcoming resolutions that will address some of your concerns. We will notify you of any new updates from the Court.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact a member of our customer success team.

Thank You,
Chad Barger, President

ACS Management Team

Dear Valued Client,

We understand that the LASC eFiling implementation has been an experience to say the least, and has caused numerous concerns for you due to the new eFiling system as well as Court related procedural issues.

At a recent meeting, the Court acknowledged the ongoing challenges facing attorneys, EFSP’s (Electronic Filing Service Providers) and the Court itself due in large part to the sheer size of the Court, legacy Court data issues, and users learning what the Court is requiring. They will be working with us and other partners to come up with processes to help mitigate these issues. But overall their position remains steadfast that most of the issues reflect a learning curve faced by both the legal community on how to properly submit eFilings into the Court, as well as their 150 court clerks who are continuing to be trained.

The Court provided the following feedback in response to areas of concerns raised with us by some partners.

1. Financial Issues
A. Fee waiver – The Court acknowledged that it was a configuration error that was causing fees to be assessed on filers, even if a valid fee waiver was on file or was submitted. They have fixed the problem and are working with JTI (Journal Technologies Inc. – the courts eFiling system creator) to refund any unwarranted fees to Fee Waiver filers as soon as possible. The Court has asked that the EFSP’s be patient and let their filers know that refunds will be issued soon. Stay tuned.

B. Refunds – We asked for a more formal and ideally streamlined process to be created to enable EFSP’s and filers to submit refund requests. The Court agreed and said that they would follow up with us to communicate the new process once they are ready to implement. Stay tuned.

2. Cases with Mismatched Data (Previous Physical File vs. New eFile)
A. Validation errors – The Court acknowledged that they have a data validation issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. They are even talking about relaxing certain data requirements when a user is trying to submit an eFiling in order to reduce both errors and rejected filings.

B. Enhanced Support and Escalation process – LASC provided service providers a contact at each specific court location to investigate and hopefully resolve any data- or case- related issues preventing a user from submitting an eFiling. The Court’s goal is to have a response within 72 hours on how the filer should proceed.

3. Rejections
A. Failed submissions for technical reasons – The Court said that if a filer gets a rejection for technical reasons (metadata validation issues, gateway errors, etc.), then parties should physically file an ex‐parte application for relief. They recognize that the process of filing such an application would be a resource constraint on the court and the filer, but as of now that is the only option available.

B. Clerk issues – The Court acknowledged that part of the reason for the high rejection rate is that this is a new process as well for their 150 clerks and that further training is needed. The Court also let us know that they are internally reviewing the most common rejection reasons, rejections that don’t seem to make sense, and the practices being followed by the clerks.
The rate/cause of rejections, processing turnaround times, and pending/aging intervals are as follows based upon ACS/LASC performance statistics:

eFiling Rejection Rate: The overall case rejection rate since eFiling was first launched by LASC in November was 28%. However, over the past few weeks this rate has been greatly reduced.

Here are some of the top reasons for rejections that you may want to share with your customers:

Data entry error by filer – 40%
*Incorrect or abbreviated Party information
*Wrong Court Location selected
*Wrong document type Filing Code selected
*Attorney Information incorrect
Document uploaded is corrupted – 35%
*Missing or incorrect information
*Run-on document
*Missing signature(s)
*Party Names on document not a CMS match
Ineligible for Filing – 10%
*Other documents must be filed first
*Case has been dismissed

*LASC Processing Turnaround Times:
-70% of transactions have been processed by the Court within 1 week
-86% of transactions have been processed by the Court within 2 weeks
-14% of transactions took 2 weeks or longer for the Court to process

*Pending/Aging Intervals:
-65% of pending transactions have been with the Court for a week or less
-19% of pending transactions have been with the Court between 1 and 2 weeks
-16% of pending transactions have been with the Court for greater than 2 weeks

In the coming weeks and months, you should expect continued performance level improvements on all fronts.

For additional information or a case specific question, please call our Customer Support team at 888.514.5067 or send an email to efile@attorneyscertified.com.

For more information from the court, please click here to access the courts website.

Increasing operating efficiency for your business is our top priority. Thank you for allowing us to serve you.

-The ACS Team