United States District Court

     Eastern District of Louisiana

     Notice to the Bar

Beginning October 19th, complaints and other initiating documents in the Eastern
District of Louisiana must be filed electronically.  Together with e-filing
your Complaint or Notice of Removal, you will also pay the filing fee on-line
and have your prepared summons signed, sealed and returned to you
electronically.  

Attorneys have been e-filing other pleadings for quite a while now, and they
confirm that it has resulted in great savings of time and expense.  Many of
you have asked when we would extend these benefits to initiating the suit as
well, so we know you will be pleased to welcome this next step in the
electronic filing process.  As with other filings, the system will accept new
suits 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To assist in your preparation for e-filing of new suits, we are offering a
number of training opportunities and documentation:

On October 27th, the Eastern District of Louisiana and the New Orleans Chapter
of the Federal Bar Association will present a free seminar entitled "New
Mandatory Rules for Electronic Filing of New Complaints, Removals and Other
Initial Filings." Topics to be addressed include filing the initial complaint,
filing a notice of removal, handling emergency relief, paying filing fees,
issuing summons for service, and determining case assignment. The seminar will
take place in the Ceremonial Courtroom (5th Floor) at the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, 500 Poydras Street, New
Orleans, Louisiana. To register, please contact Camille Zeller at 589-7990 or
download the ECF Seminar Registration at
http://www.nofba.org/files/ecf-seminar-registration.pdf .

For a limited time, the court will also offer hands-on training at the
courthouse for you and your staff.  Please sign up for one of these classes at
your earliest opportunity using
http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/registrar/caseopeningregistrar.pl .

If you have a new complaint to file prior to your attendance at one of these
classes, you may view our on-line training modules at
http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/cmecf/cm_ecf_training_modules.htm .  Another
helpful resource is our Attorney Training handbook for electronically filing
new complaints,
http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/cmecf/Elec_Case_Opening_Atty_Guide.pdf.  

Please note that these training opportunities are designed for those attorneys
who are already Filing Users and have an e-filing ID and password.  While the
live classes do qualify for one hour of Louisiana CLE credit, you will not be
issued a login ID and password at the conclusion of those classes.  If you do
not have a ID and password, you must complete the CM/ECF E-Filing Basic
training (which includes filing of new complaints and qualifies for 2 hours of
CLE Credit) by clicking
http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/registrar/registrar.pl or complete the
full on-line tutorial, http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/Tutorial/ecf2d/ .

We know you will enjoy the convenience of filing your new suits directly from
your office or home computer.  We look forward to seeing each of you at one of
our training classes, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, please
do not hesitate to contact us at 504-589-7788.