California courts and county recorders have greatly increased electronic filings with the onset of COVID-19. This change has pushed old school attorney service companies into the modern era. For those new to eFiling, hearing that your local courthouse has mandated eFile only cases can cause a headache, but luckily, eFiling takes less than five minutes! eRecording is often quicker than that, as it is a simpler process. E-filing streamlines document processing and reduces opportunities for human error.
A big COVID-19 change that is likely to remain is our industry’s increasing use of eService. Amendments to original eService rules took effect on April 17th, 2020. Now any party represented by counsel MUST accept electronic service of a notice or document that could be served by mail, express mail, overnight delivery, or fax. Before serving a party by eService, the serving party must verify the correct electronic service address. This order will remain effective until 90 days after our Governor declares the COVID-19 state of emergency has lifted, or until revised or repealed by the Judicial Council.
To make workdays go smoothly in our contact-reduced era, I suggest utilizing your Customer Relationship Management System (CRM is usually a part of your process serving software). Our workdays are requiring us to become more software dependent than ever. We have virtual meetings, scheduled phone calls, dozens of emails to send, and online submissions to make. Despite quicker filing times, when something goes wrong with a filing it can take longer to receive a human answer. It is a good rule of thumb to set follow-up reminders and jot down important notes in CRM as they come.
An ongoing challenge caused by the pandemic are massive case backlogs from court closures. This means reaching a clerk by phone in certain counties is nearly impossible. Calling a courthouse, selecting multiple numbers only to be disconnected is frustrating to say the least. My recommendation is to first check the court website to see if there is an “Ask a Question” widget. These are becoming more and more common as telephone numbers are removed from websites. As we adapt to an industry with less in-person interaction, we may find that some questions truly do not require a phone call and time previously spent at the courthouse can be used elsewhere.
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