All attorney appearances and submissions are governed by Local Rule of Civil Procedure 83.3. LRCiv 83.3(a) states in part that, ". . . An occasional court appearance or filing of a pleading, motion or other document as associate counsel at the request of an attorney of record shall not require the filing of a notice of association."

The ECF login and password for each registered user serves as that attorney's signature for purposes of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for all other purposes under the Federal Rules of Civil, Criminal and Appellate Procedure and the Local Rules of this court. An attorney should not permit his or her password to be used by anyone other than an authorized agent and is responsible for all documents filed with his or her password. LRCiv 5.5(g) states in part, ". Documents signed by an attorney shall be filed using that attorney's ECF log-in and password and shall not be filed using a log-in and password belonging to another attorney."

Based on the above, we believe the answer to the question you raise is best left to the discretion of the affected attorney of record.

No.

Yes, in part.  Effective 12/1/16, Rule 6(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was amended to remove service by electronic means under Rule 5(b)(2)(E) from the modes of service that allow 3 added days to act after being served.  Rule 6(d) now says:  "When a party may or must act within a specified time after being served and service is made under Rule 5(b)(2)(C) (mail), (D) (leaving with the clerk), or (F) (other means consented to), 3 days are added after the period would otherwise expire under Rule 6(a)".  Three (3) days are no longer added when service has been accomplished by electronic means.  If a party is not served electronically, then the 3-day mailing time would still apply.

Electronically submitted orders must be included as separate attachment to the motion or stipulation. Following the filing of the motion or stipulation, a proposed order in WordPerfect or MS Word format and pdf version of the motion or stipulation must immediately be sent to the court in a separate, non-ECF generated e-mail message. The proposed order must not contain any form of signature line or block for the judge. The proposed order, as well as a pdf version of the related motion or stipulation, should be attached to an Internet e-mail message and sent to the e-mail address of the assigned judge. The subject line of the message should contain the case number and title of the case, and the text of the message should reference the document number assigned to the motion or stipulation assigned by the ECF system when it was electronically filed. A typical e-mail message subject line would appear as follows: "Proposed Order in 2:05cv12345 Smith vs. Jones, et al." Please see Section II.G.1.c. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual.

You may check to see if a person is a registered user by going to "UTILITIES" and clicking on "MAILINGS", "MAILING INFO FOR A CASE." After entering the case number, the ECF system will display how each party will receive notice of electronic filings. The information will include their e-mail address or mailing address.

In order to confirm that the user is the attorney of record in a Social Security or criminal case, the user must enter ECF login and password (not PACER) when the login screen appears to view the document via the Notice of Electronic Filing.

Effective, Monday, December 1, 2014, all presentence disclosures made by the Probation Office in criminal cases assigned will be accomplished through CM/ECF.  The notice of assignment, initial disclosures, as well as the final presentence report, will be docketed in ECF and counsel will receive a NEF (notice of electronic filing) when the documents are filed.  Because most of these documents are sealed, counsel must access their copies through ECF, as they will not be available in PACER.  Click here for instructions on opening these documents.

Since migrating to NextGen Central Sign-On via Pacer, attorneys may update their primary e-mail addresses in Pacer only: 
1.    Log into your Pacer account at www.pacer.uscourts.gov
2.    Click Manage Your Account then Maintenance
3.    Select Update E-Filer E-mail Noticing and Frequency
4.    Apply changes to the selected Courts and click submit
5.    Clerk’s office staff will process the update

Secondary e-mail address may continue to be added or modified in CM/ECF under Utilities, Maintain Your Email:
1.    Log in to CM/ECF at https://www.azd.uscourts.gov/ (click on E-Filing/CM/ECF) and enter your Pacer credentials 
2.    Click Utilities and Maintain Your E-mail
3.    Click add new e-mail address or click on an existing e-mail address to make changes
4.    Ensure your configuration options are correct for each e-mail listed 
5.    Click Submit All Changes until receiving confirmation that your account was updated

***Pursuant to Section I. C of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual, in addition to your primary e-mail address, you may register up to two (2) additional secondary e-mail addresses. E-mail addresses exceeding this limit may be removed by the Clerk’s Office.

*** Although you are able to add cases of interest to your profile on this screen, please be advised that pursuant to LRCiv 5.5(i), a Registered User may subscribe to receive Notices of Electronic Filing in an unsealed case in which the Registered User is not a party or counsel of record by filing a text-only Notice of Request for E-Notice event on the electronic document. Upon receipt of the Notice of Request for E-Notice, the Clerk’s Office will add the case of interest to your profile.

*** Pursuant to LRCiv 83.3(d), an attorney or unrepresented party must file a Notice of Change of Address/Firm Name/E-mail Address in each active case. The Clerk’s Office is no longer able to update attorney information. All changes to attorney profiles must be done through Pacer. 
 

See Section II., I and J of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual before filing a sealed or ex parte document.

The entire group of exhibits may be submitted as one attachment to the document but must not exceed ten (10) megabytes with a resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi). The first page of the attachment should be an index of the attached exhibits. The number of attachment associated with a single entry shall not exceed ten (10). Please see Part II.N. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual.

Out of state attorneys who wish to appear in this district must submit a formal application to appear pro hac vice. For a copy of the application form and detailed instructions on appearing pro hac vice in the District of Arizona, please click here to visit the Attorney Information section.

A summons for each defendant (excluding fictitious parties) in civil actions can be submitted for issuance after receiving notice confirming a civil case number and judge assignment. Attach the summons to the “Summons Submitted” event located in the “Service of Process” category. The Clerk will issue each summons and return them to the filer electronically.

Paper courtesy copies for the judge are required for certain document types as listed under Section II.D.3. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual. To verify electronic filing, the Notice of Electronic Filing must be appended to the last page of the courtesy copy. The courtesy copy must be either post-marked and mailed directly to the judge or hand-delivered to the judge's mailbox located in the courthouse by the next business day after the electronic filing. Courtesy copies are to be provided in paper form only and should not be e-mailed. For further information, please see Section II.D. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual.

Since migrating to NextGen Central Sign-On via Pacer in 2022, attorneys are no longer able to update passwords via CM/ECF. All registered e-filing accounts are managed through Pacer.

Visit https://pacer.uscourts.gov/ and click on Manage Your Account. If you need to reset your password, click Forgot Your Password? You must be able to access the e-mail account to receive the password reset link. If you cannot access the e-mail account, you will need to contact Pacer at (800) 676-6856.

Section II.C.3. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual addresses multiple signatures on stipulations and other papers. Specifically, the filer of any document requiring more than one signature must certify that the content of the document is acceptable to all persons required to sign the document by obtaining either physical or facsimile signatures, or authorization for the electronic signatures of all parties on the document. If physical or facsimile signatures are used, the document must be scanned and electronically filed in PDF. If electronic signatures are to be used, the signatories should appear as "s/Jane Doe," "s/John Smith," etc. for each electronic signature.

Often the print settings within Adobe Acrobat are set such that print scaling enabled. Print scaling will shrink the printed content of a PDF document so that a "best fit" on paper is achieved, and this often results in a visually reduced font size when the PDF document is printed to paper. In order to print a PDF document such that the font size matches that of the original document, you will need to disable print scaling within Adobe Acrobat. To do this, when attempting to print a PDF document that is being viewed in ECF, from the printing dialog window change the setting that appears in the "Page Scaling" field (this is found within the "Page Handling" section of the printing dialog window) to read "None", and then click on "OK" to print the document. Once the print settings are changed so that print scaling is disabled, Acrobat will "remember" this setting such that it does not need to be selected in the future.

No. You must have a software product that produces pdf files that are compatible with Adobe Acrobat 4.0 and above in order to e-file in ECF.

The system will "time out" after a designated period of time. If you are attempting to file a document with multiple attachments, the transaction may take longer than this designated time. You can minimize this by reducing the resolution of your documents and/or combining the attachments into larger files, not to exceed ten (10) megabytes. The number of attachments associated with a single entry shall not exceed ten (10). Please see Part II.N. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual.

As long as the software product is compatible with Acrobat 4.0 and above, there should be no problem with using the software to convert documents to pdf for eventual e-filing.

No certificate of service is required when a paper is served by filing it with the court’s electronic-filing system. When a paper that is required to be served is served by other means, a certificate of service must be included with it or filed within a reasonable time after service. See Section II.D.3. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual for more information.

Yes, click here.

Since migrating to NextGen Central Sign-On via Pacer in 2022, attorneys are no longer able to use their Court issued login and password from CM/ECF. All registered e-filing accounts are now managed through NextGen Central Sign-On via Pacer.

If you have not yet merged or registered your e-filing account, log into your Pacer account and click Manage Your Account – Maintenance. Under the Attorney Admissions/E-File Registration section, select E-File Registration Only. Complete each screen and submit until you receive notice that your registration was submitted successfully.

The electronic filing system for U.S. District Court is separate from U.S. Bankruptcy Court and, therefore, a separate login and password are required. Your PACER account can be the same.

a. The civil cover sheet should be submitted as an attachment to the complaint. If a notice of removal, the supplemental cover sheet should also be attached.

b. Include your e-mail address on your title page.

c. Date your document.

d. Sign your document with s/(your name).

e. Proposed orders shall be an attachment to the motion or stipulation and must also be e-mailed to the judge's chambers.

f. Select the correct event for your document. Check "Other Documents" for frequently overlooked selections.

g. Adding the word "SEALED" to your docket entry does not seal your entry. See Section II., I and J of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual before filing a sealed or ex parte document.

h. A document to be filed should be converted to PDF from your word processing program, and the PDF file must be text searchable. Documents which exist only in paper form may be scanned into PDF for electronic filing. To be sure you are filing the correct document, always open the PDF before attaching it to your entry.

i. Dual entries are sometimes necessary. The same PDF can be attached but two entries will be needed. Example: Response to a Motion for Summary Judgment and Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. This will be e-filed as a response first and then as a motion.

j. File documents in the new criminal case, rather than the magistrate case, after an indictment has been filed.

k. If you are filing a two part motion, be sure to select both events. Example: For a Motion to Continue Trial and Extend Time to File Pretrial Motions you would select "Continue" and "Extend Time to File Pretrial Motions" from the "Motions" list, using control-click to select the second motion.

ECF Document Scanning Tips NOTE: Per LRCiv 7.1(c) and the District of Arizona ECF Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual, only those documents which exist only in paper form are to be scanned into PDF format prior to e-filing. All other documents must be converted to PDF directly from a word processing program, and be text searchable. 1. Use 300 dpi resolution for scanning documents. 2. Set image type to black and white bitmap, text (image only), or line art. 3. Do not use Textbridge or OCR software, which scan the document to find alterations or to recognize words for later word processing. For filing purposes, we need only an image of the document. 4. Use black ink if possible. Blue ink and pencil do not scan well. If necessary, make a copy of the document before scanning it, and darken with the copy machine settings. 5. Request depositions on portable media (such as a floppy disk, CD, or flash drive) and convert them to PDF using a word processor. 6. Use PDF writer software such as Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional on the scanning computer to simplify the scanning process. In Acrobat, scan documents directly to PDF files by clicking   File  ... Create PDF ...From Scanner from the men u bar, or Create PDF...From Scanner from the tool bar (Acrobat 6/7/8), or File...Import...Scan from the menu bar (Acrobat 5).   7. Check the size of a scanned document before uploading it to CM/ECF. The size limit is 10 MB (ten megabytes, or 10000 KB) per document. To check the file size, locate the file in Windows Explorer and either right-click on the file and choose Properties, or hold your mouse cursor on the file name and it will display the size after about a half a second. If you use Adobe Acrobat to create the PDF file, with the file open in Acrobat, press Control-D to view the file size on the Acrobat document properties screen. 8. Estimated number of pages in a 10 MB scanned document: a. Plain text, correspondence, pleadings, etc. 60-250 pages b. Tables, charts, extensive graphics 8-40 pages c. Condensed transcripts 20-30 pages 9. If a scanned document is larger than 10 MB, use PDF writer software such as Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional to extract/remove pages from the document to a separate file, resulting in two files. This prevents re-scanning the document.

ECF users in the District of Arizona have the capability to search for filing events. The Event and Menu Search utility, labeled Search, is available from the main blue menu bar. When clicked, a small pop-up window appears, and the user can enter text for searching. Once the user enters text in the search box and clicks the Search button (or Enter on the keyboard) the results are displayed on the screen, with the search string characters highlighted. Each item is a hyperlink to the corresponding menu item or event, so the user can access the menu item or event directly from the search results screen. The search function ignores the order of the words entered for searching.  For example, search for “amended notice of appeal” will find event Notice of Appeal - Amended.  In general, the less text entered in the search box, the more events and/or categories will display in the search results screen. Note:  The Search functionality is available for ECF users only (not PACER users).

This screen allows you link to the document you are filing to a previously filed, related document. By clicking the box next to "Refer to existing event(s)?" the system will provide a list of documents already filed in the case. You can narrow that search by entering a date or document number range. You would then click the box next to the document you wish to link to. You may bypass this screen if there are no previously filed documents to which your filing relates.

Documents can be filed as late as midnight, Arizona time.

All registered users of the ECF system are reminded that the e-mail boxes designated for each judicial officer are to be used exclusively for lawyers to e-mail proposed orders in accordance with Section II.G.1.c., of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual. Absolutely no other form of communication should be directed to the court via the chambers e-mailbox.

Registered users are also reminded that, pursuant to Section II.D.3. of the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual, courtesy copies of certain filings must be submitted to the court in paper form, and may not be e-mailed to the court. Mailing addresses for all judicial officers may be found on our website.
 

There is a link to the "Sample Certificate of Service" in the Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual.