The Los Angeles Superior Court (LASC) has announced new dates for the implementation of eFiling of legal documents filed in the Civil Division.
UPDATED 12/20/18: The most recent timeline from LASC has the following eFiling implementation plans:
| Permissive | eFiling in One Legal | Mandatory | |
| Probate | Available now | Available now | Since June 5, 2017 |
| Limited Civil | November 13, 2018 (expected) | November 13, 2018 (expected) | December 3, 2018 (expected) |
| Unlimited Civil | December 3, 2018 | December 3, 2018 | January 2, 2019 (expected) |
| Family Law | 2019 (expected) | 2019 (expected) | Unknown |
| Complex Civil | January 2, 2019 (expected) | January 2, 2019 (expected) | February 4, 2019 (expected) |
Please note that all dates are estimations only, and are still open to change.
Original post:
About Los Angeles County’s transition to eFiling
Los Angeles County Superior Court (LASC) launched electronic court filing earlier this year, gradually introducing one case type at a time. Probate law kicked off the transition in May and became the first mandatory eFiling case type in June 2017. eFiling has gone smoothly ever since, with no major challenges to hold it back.
Originally, Family Law was the next case type scheduled to become permissive for eFiling. But recently, the court notified us of a change in plans that will result in an eFiling delay for Family Law. Here’s what you need to know.
Your LA eFiling update
Instead of beginning eFiling in Family Law cases in August 2017, Los Angeles County has decided to delay the implementation of eFiling for this case type and will continue to accept physical court filings in the meantime.
In order to accommodate the complexity of Family Law cases, the court is taking additional time to make sure that their internal systems, especially the Electronic Filing Manager’s (EFM) systems, have the functionality that is necessary for a smooth eFiling experience, for both the filers and on the court side.
As of now, the LA court’s website lists Family Law eFiling as “Coming Soon.” It’s possible that there will be a more specific date in the next couple of months, but filers in Los Angeles County shouldn’t expect to see any mandatory eFiling dates before the beginning of 2018.
For other specific Los Angeles County court rules, review the court’s website.
Updated April 4, 2018
| Permissive | eFiling in One Legal | Mandatory | |
| Probate | Available now | Available now | Since June 5, 2017 |
| Family Law | August 2018 (expected) | August 2018 (expected) | One month later (expected) |
| Civil Limited | June 2018 (expected) | June 2018 (expected) | One month later (expected) |
| Unlimited Civil | August 2018 (expected) | August 2018 (expected) | One month later (expected) |
| Complex Civil | N/A | July 2018 (expected) | One month later (expected) |
Please note that all dates are estimations only, and are still open to change.
Time to start preparing?
Law firms filing civil and family cases in Los Angeles Superior Court still have several months before eFiling will be mandatory. For now, Probate remains the only case type where eFiling is required.
Once eFiling does become available filers can expect a similar workflow and set of requirements that currently operate for Probate matters. While specific rules aren’t yet available (we’ll share more information with you as soon as we have it), there are some general things you can your firm can do to prepare, such as purchasing and learning how to use PDF editing software.
