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Nope. That’s a clerical/ legal assistant task.
My rule at my my firm is that support staff need to take care e-filings, but the ultimate responsibility of the task getting done within a deadline falls on the attorney overseeing the case.
Every single attorney has to know how to properly file whatever they’re filing & they have to know all relevant deadlines. This keeps everyone accountable and also doesn’t just entirely dump all the responsibility on one person.
Paralegals are responsible for filing but if the attorney is unable to get the documents to the paralegal to file within their work hours, the attorney handles the filings. Most paralegals will still work a little late to help out but if it’s going to be really time consuming, attorneys handle it after hours.
It's the paralegal's job.
Firstly, I will NEVER EVER stay past my scheduled time to file, draft or do anything. My attorney knows the time I leave and knows to provide me anything that needs to be done at least an hour before I have to go. Secondly, in my firm both the legal assistants and paralegals know how to e-file, our work is just divide differently on when we will do it. I have an attorney who is very self sufficient and will e-file his own work and draft his own documents, open his own files etc and I love that for me. A lot of attorneys feels like it’s just not there job or below there title to e-file which is honestly insane to me because if your assistant and paralegal are out and you have no one to do it, then what? Every attorney should know how to e-file. Period
My business staff e-files - never counsel.
At our firm, e-filing is generally shared, but I end up doing it a lot because I’m the one who’s most familiar with the system.
Our secretaries do but I am looking to learn how to. If anyone is willing to share resources!
Many federal court websites have online tutorials on how to e-file documents in their court systems.
I did a lot of E-filing even was hired as paralegal but they always gave me non-billable work more than billable. Ended up with the comment that you are not producing productive billable work..
I have to write it (law and motion), get the exhibits, the attorney declaration and anything else required….tab it, book mark it and pass it off to the LA to get the attorney signature and get it filed.
I prefer to do it all, so that way I don’t have to wait on an attorney to futz around with it and keep me waiting until midnight.
It usually the assistants job because it is not billable.
Majority of firms it’s a paralegals job it’s rare an attorney will file but I know some who can and have
In my firm, it is the legal assistant’s job but the paralegals know how to do it and help sometimes. As to staying late, no. The attorneys communicate and ask if you can please file something after 5 for whatever reason. If I don’t have any plans after 5, I don’t mind filing it and neither does the legal assistant. Specially because we just take the computer home and filing is pretty simple. If there is no one available to help the attorneys, they have to do it. One time the attorney had to file something and he had never filed anything in federal court before, he looked up a YouTube video and filed it.
Being as I was the only one in my office that knew how to e-file I was responsible for all e-filing.