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