GENERAL

INFO.

The “Notice of Electronic Filing” screen or the “Notice of Electronic Claims Filing” screen is generated immediately after the filing of a document is complete.

The notices are the verification that the filing has been sent electronically to the court’s database.  It certifies that the pleading is now an official court document.

It is also sent out by e-mail to all parties to the case (and some other registered users by request) for whom the court has an e-mail address. 

As a result of December 2001 amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedures, it is sufficient service of a pleading (except Service of Process) to anyone who has consented to electronic service.  All certified users of the CM/ECF system in the USBC for the EDKY have consented to electronic service when they completed the registration form.

PAPER

NOTICES

The court’s Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) will still continue to send by regular US Mail the same main bankruptcy notices (such as 341 meeting notices) that they have in the past, even if the “Notice of Electronic Filing” contains similar information.

VIEWING

THE

NOTICE

OF

ELEC-

TRONIC

FILING

Your first view of the “Notice of Electronic Filing” is when it displays immediately after you complete the final screen when filing your pleading.

As a registered limited user, you will also receive a copy by e-mail of each  “Notice of Electronic Filing” and “Notice of Electronic Claims Filing” for any Proofs of Claims or Reaffirmation Agreements that you file in the case.

Access to this notice is also available from a docket sheet, but if you are viewing it from within a docket report, there will be a PACER fee charged.

SAMPLE

NOTICE OF

ELEC-

TRONIC

FILING

WHEN

GENERATED

AFTER A

REAFFIRMA-

TION

AGREEMENT

IS FILED

NOTE:  As the filer of the pleading, you get NO “free peeks” on the notice which is displayed immediately after you complete the filing of your pleading.  (See further information about “free peeks” in the descriptions below.)  However, when you receive this same notice in your e-mail, then, as an e-mail recipient, you would get a “free peek” if you needed to look at the document you filed with the court.

SAMPLE

NOTICE OF

ELEC-

TRONIC

FILING

WHEN

RECEIVED VIA E-MAIL

FREE

PEEK AT PLEADING

PROVIDED

The first line of information informs the e-mail recipient of their right to “one free peek”.

This is a little misleading because although there are 2 and sometimes 3 hyperlinks on a notice, the only free peek is at the document filed, by clicking on the document number hyperlink.  Also, this free peek is only available for the first 30 days after a pleading is filed.  If you have not read your e-mail for over 30 days, you may have lost your  “free peek” at some pleadings.

NOTE:  By printing and/or saving the notice and pleading the first time you view it, you can always get free access in the future.  See instructions below regarding viewing and printing and/or saving the “Notice of Electronic Filing” and regarding viewing and printing and/or saving the associated pleading (if any).

INFO. RE:

WHO FILED

PLEADING AND WHEN IT WAS FILED

The next line of information is about who filed the pleading and the date and time it was filed.

NOTE:  This is what a “FILED” stamp now looks like. 

LAST MINUTE FILING

Technically, if you have a deadline to file something by today’s date, you have until 11:59 and 59 seconds to file that pleading and it will still be timely filed.  However, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE !!  A number of problems could arise if you wait.  Your computer could crash.  Your connection to the Internet could go down or be too slow.  The court’s connection to the Internet could be down.  CM/ECF itself could be down. 

See the new  “Administrative Procedures Manual” (Section II J) for further information on late filing due to technical difficulties.

CASE NAME

AND CASE

NUMBER

INFO.

The case name and the case number follow next. 

NOTE:  If you click on the case number hyperlink, a docket report will be generated for the case, after you have entered your PACER login.

DOCUMENT

NUMBER

The document number is also a hyperlink.

Clicking on the document number in the “Notice of Electronic Filing” that you receive via e-mail, gives the “one free peek” at the .pdf image of the pleading filed.

DOCKET

TEXT

The docket text is then displayed.

ASSOCIATED

DOCUMENT

MESSAGE

The next line is a message describing the information that will appear next on the notice.

NOTE:  “Associated” is not synonymous with “Attachments”.  If a pleading had been filed and if it had any “attachments”, both the main document (the pleading) and all the “attached” documents would be listed below.

PATH INFO.

Then the paths and document/security stamps of any associated documents are shown.

This is an example of the path information regarding the “Main Document” (the pleading).

This is an example of the path information regarding an attachment.

Both of the examples above are information about documents “associated” with the transaction.

EXAMPLE OF

ELECTRONIC

DOCUMENT/ SECURITY

STAMP

This long string of numbers is the “Electronic Document Stamp”.

This information is one of the many security measures that are part of CM/ECF.  A comparison can be run of the original document stamp and the current document stamp to help prove or disprove allegations that a pleading was altered after filing.

LIST OF WHO WAS

SERVED VIA E-MAIL

Near the bottom of the “Electronic Notice of Filing”, there is a list of persons who received an electronic copy of the notice.

LIST OF WHO

WAS

NOT

SERVED VIA

E-MAIL

At the very end of the notice, there is a list of those parties who did not receive an e-mail containing the “Notice of Electronic Filing”.   This example shows an attorney who is not a certified CM/ECF filer yet, so the court does not have her e-mail address in the system.

NOTE:  There is a difference between creditors listed on the matrix and creditors who have filed a pleading in the case.  NO CREDITOR who has only been listed on the matrix and who has not filed a pleading in the case will get this electronic notification.

EXAMPLE

OF NOTICE OF ELEC-

TRONIC

CLAIMS

FILING

In this example, clicking on the “Claim Number” hyperlink would allow you to view/print the Proof of Claim form and any supporting documentation (up to 50 pages)

EXAMPLE

OF NOTICE OF ELEC-

TRONIC

CLAIMS

FILING WHEN CLAIM HAS MORE THAN 50 PAGES OF SUPPORTING

EVIDENCE

EXAMPLE

OF MULTIPLE

DOCUMENTS

SELECTION

SCREEN

When the “Claim Number” hyperlink is clicked in the above situation, the following screen will display.

Clicking on the “1” Main Document hyperlink will allow you to view and print/save the Proof of Claim form and its supporting evidence (up to a total of 50 pages).  Clicking on the “2” hyperlink will allow you to view and print/save pages 51-100 of the supporting evidence.

CASE NO.

HYPERLINKS

IN A

NOTICE

Clicking on the case number hyperlink in a “Notice of Electronic Filing” or the “Notice of Electronic Claims Filing” shown above will open a PACER login window. 

This window will require you to enter your PACER login and password before viewing the docket sheet and there will be a PACER fee charged to view the docket sheet.

PRINTING AND

SAVING

NOTICES

AND/OR PLEADINGS

NOTE:  It is recommended that these notices, and/or the pleadings that they provide hyperlinks to, be saved and/or printed by the e-mail recipient during the “free peek”.  This way, any need to review the information in the future will also be free since you have the information stored on your own office’s computer/filing cabinet.

Click on the  icon to print the “Notice of Electronic Filing” and/or the pleading you are viewing.

To save a copy of the “Notice of Electronic Filing” and/or the pleading you are viewing, click “File” on the program’s menu bar.

Then, select  “Save As” or “Save Frame As” or “Save Target As” and save to any drive you wish on your computer.  Save the file using any name you wish.

FUTURE

ACCESS

TO THE NOTICE

OF ELEC-

TRONIC

FILING

If you did not save and/or print the “Notice of Electronic Filing” after filing your “Reaffirmation Agreement”, future access to the “Notice of Electronic Filing” is available through the electronic docket report. 

Click in the square next to  to put a check mark in the box.

When this option is selected, a silver bullet appears next to the document number of the pleading.

Clicking the silver bullet will display the notice, but you will be incurring PACER viewing/printing charges.

ACCEPT

OR REJECT

PACER

CHARGES

SCREEN

If you have lost your “free peek”, a PACER login screen will display when you click on a document number.  After entering your PACER login and password, a screen similar to the one below will display.

This gives you the opportunity to change your mind if you do not want to incur PACER charges.

MANAGING YOUR E-MAIL FROM THE COURT

When you first start receiving the e-mail from the court, it may feel somewhat overwhelming.  There are several ways in which you can “manage” your e-mail.

Many companies are setting up a separate e-mail address for court e-mail.  Then someone on staff goes into that in-box once or twice a day and does any necessary printing, saving, and forwarding of e-mails.  Just like someone on staff probably opened and routed the physical mail in the past.

Another option for those who are comfortable with computers (or for those who have a Systems person who can set it up) is to use your
e-mail program’s filter features.  Most e-mail programs have a way to sort e-mail.  Some programs like Microsoft Outlook call these “Rules”.  Other e-mail programs call these “Filters”. 

In most e-mail programs, “Rules” or “Filters” can be used to sort e-mail into different folders or they can be used to delete certain e-mail.  For example, if you do not want to receive the court’s e-mail that tells you that you filed a pleading because you already know that you filed it, you could set up your e-mail system to automatically route that e-mail to the “Delete” folder.

NOTE:  Be very careful if you choose to use “Rules” or “Filters” that you have tested them thoroughly before you activate them.  You may want to set up your “Delete” folder so that it doesn’t automatically delete items, but has to be manually “emptied”.  This way you would have the ability to retrieve an e-mail that was routed improperly because the rule or filter wasn’t set up correctly.

E-MAIL PROBLEMS

If you aren’t receiving your e-mail from the court, please contact our Technical Help Desk at (859) 233-2608 Ext. 127.

Prior to calling the Technical Help Desk, you may be able to resolve the problem with the following information.

Ø      Some e-mail services, such as AOL and Hotmail have “spam” filters which try to find and reject junk mail.  Unfortunately, if your service has a “spam” filter, it may think that court e-mail is spam.  Check with your e-mail provider regarding the spam filter settings to see if the problem can be resolved.

Ø      Some e-mail services have limits on the size of your e-mail mailbox.  Once you have reached your limit, your mailbox will no longer accept any more e-mail.  It also may not let you know that it is rejecting e-mail because it is full.  You may need to establish a system for archiving older e-mail to create space in your mailbox.  You can also contact your e-mail provider to see if size limitations can be removed or increased.

Ø      Court e-mail will be rejected if you have an “Out of Office” message setup.  Since it is nice to be able to use that message, you may want to consider setting up a separate e-mail address for court e-mail notices.   This way you can still use the “Out of Office” message, when applicable, in your normal e-mail mailbox.