Mandatory e-filing, e-service start April 1

Beginning April 1, people involved in North Dakota district court actions will be required to electronically file and serve most documents.

North Dakota Rule of Court 3.5, Electronic Filing in the District Courts, governs e-filing and e-service. All e-filing must be done through the court's Odyssey® system.

E-filers should be aware that:

cover letters will not be accepted;
motions and briefs must be filed as separate documents, each containing the complete case heading and file number;
attachments and exhibits for motions and briefs must also be filed individually and separately;
proof of service documents must be filed as separate documents with complete case heading and file number (N.D. Rule of Court 3.1(h) requires proof of service to accompany documents submitted for filing);
the attorney's ID number and service e-mail must be included on each filed document;
all paragraphs in e-filed documents must be numbered;
e-filed documents must comply with N.D. Rule of Court 3.4, Privacy Protection for Filings Made with the Court.

Under new amendments to N.D. Rule of Civil Procedure 58, Entry and Notice of Entry of Judgment, the date of the judgment and the docket number (displayed in Odyssey® as the Doc ID #) must be included in the notice of entry of judgment. A copy judgment must be served with the notice of entry but may not be filed. Odyssey® has a separate service function that will allow service of the copy judgment without filing.

Court staff review all documents e-filed through the Odyssey® system and filings that do not comply with the rules will be rejected.

The North Dakota court system offers free training on use of the Odyssey® system.

The most widely used word processing programs, Microsoft Word and Corel Word Perfect, both allow for paragraph numbering as required by Rule 3.5. There are a variety of resources on the Web that describe how to use these programs' word processing functions.

March 18, 2013