www.court-rulings-only.com
The Supreme Court of the State of Arizona has ordered that attorneys
register an email address and that they place the email address on all
pleadings that they file in court.
The order can be read here. The purpose of the order is to permit
the clerks of court to economize on postage. The clerks will now email
minute entries to counsel at their designated email addresses.
This ruling poses both opportunities and challenges. The good news is
that attorney office staff will not need to scan incoming minute entries.
Possibly the incoming digital content can be imported into a word processor
to draft non-routine orders. The bad news is that staff will have to
print hard copies for paper filing.
I am a member of the State Bar of Arizona. I considered whether to use
as my email address the same email that I use in correspondence with
attorneys and clients. I use a law practice management system called
Time Matters. It functions as an email client. Receiving email
attachments in Time Matters is often a problem, because one needs to detach
the incoming attachment from the email.
I also had to ask who in the office would be receiving the minute entries
from the court. Would I want to have to log in to that staff member's
Time Matters email account in order to access incoming minute entries?
I realized that if I used my standard email address, that I would receive a
flood of minute entries from the court in the same inbox as my
correspondence with lawyers and clients. I might overlook an email in
the flood.
I decided to use an email address that would be separate and apart from my
regular email address. Then I realized that if I placed the new
separate email address on all my pleadings, as required by the Supreme
Court's order, other lawyers and pro pers receiving my pleadings would begin
to use that email address to try to correspond with me.
I decided to start a web site with a domain name that would leave no doubt
that the email address associated with it was for the Court to send me
minute entries and rulings - and for no other sender and for no other
purpose. Only time will tell if the decision is a good one.
Paul B. Bartlett
My other web site is
at
www.tucsonelderlaw.com