Use of the CM/ECF system will be available for optional filing effective April 1, 2008. Use of the CM/ECF system is mandatory for filings made by counsel in all cases effective June 1, 2008. It is optional for non-attorney filers, who must request leave of Court to file electronically in a particular case.
Yes. An Appellate Filer account is required to file documents through CM/ECF. It is also required to view documents in social security and immigration cases in which you are participating. Register for an appellate filer account at PACER Service Center Appellate ECF Filer Registration.
A CM/ECF password and login are required to file documents in CM/ECF. All CM/ECF registration is handled by the PACER Service Center. In order to register, go to: Appellate CM/ECF Filer Registration. The PACER Service Center can be reached at 800-676-6856.
Yes. Your CM/ECF account is an authorization to file in a specific court, and it is separate from your nationwide PACER account. You must register for every court where you intend to be a filer.
Upon motion and a showing of good cause, the Court may exempt counsel from the provisions of electronic filing and authorize filing by means other than use of CM/ECF.
When you register for a Fourth Circuit Filer account, the PACER Service Center provides you with a link to information about the Fourth Circuit's training requirements. Before approving your registration as a Fourth Circuit Filer, the Court requires that you familiarize yourself with the Court's CM/ECF System and procedures in one of the following ways:
(i) by attending one of the Court's CM/ECF training classes; or
(ii) by successfully completing the "Filing an Appearance of Counsel" and "Filing a Motion to Seal" modules found here: Electronic Learning Modules and the Policies and Procedures Review. After completing the on-line training and Policies and Procedures Review, submit the On-line Training Certification form .
Yes, the 4th Circuit is not allowing counsel to waive the training requirements based on previous electronic filing experience. The district court and appellat court interface is significantly different.
The Court must receive your appellate filer registration from the PACER Service Center and your training certification before your registration can be approved. Registration will usually be completed within a few hours of the Court’s receipt of all of your registration material. In exceptional situations, it may take a day. When your registration is complete, you will receive an email from the PACER Service Center confirming your registration. If you have an emergency and need to file immediately, contact the clerk's office at (804) 916-2767 for assistance and directions.
There is no charge to register or to make a CM/ECF filing. Please note that when you access documents through your PACER account, you are subject to the $0.08 per page charge. As in the district court and bankruptcy systems, filers and parties in the case get one “free look” at all filings when they view them from the Notice of Docket Activity, and we recommend that you print or download the documents at that time.
The system is always available (except for routine or emergency maintenance), and you should be able to file anytime. Filings completed before midnight Eastern Time are entered on the docket that day. If you experience difficulties, please contact the clerk's office during normal business hours at (804) 916-2767. Additionally, when the system will be unavailable for routine maintenance and upgrades, there will be a notice posted on the website 24 hours in advance of the outage.
The Fourth Circuit CM/ECF web page contains links to a wide variety of CM/ECF information, including the CM/ECF User Manual. You can contact the clerk’s office Help Desk at (804) 916-2767 for assistance with filing. Help is available from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. If you are having difficulty registering for CM/ECF or have questions about your PACER or CM/ECF accounts, you should contact the PACER Service Center at (800) 676-6856. If you need to modify or update either your PACER or CM/ECF accounts, you can do so at the PACER website (http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov).
Yes, but access should be limited and controlled since whatever is filed under that login and password is deemed to have the attorney’s signature on it.
A secondary account can be added at the time of registration for a login and password. If the account has already been created, you must update your account at the PACER website (http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov).
After attempting to log in to CM/ECF three times unsuccessfully, the system locks a user's account. Call the 4th Circuit ECF Help Desk (804) 916-2767) or the Pacer Service Center (800-676-6856) to unlock your account.
(a) Documents initiating cases in the court of appeals (such as petitions for review, applications for enforcement, petitions for permission to appeal, petitions for mandamus or prohibition, and motions to authorize successive post-conviction petitions) must be filed in paper form (origininal and 3 copies), rather than electronically. Upon the Court’s request, the filer must promptly provide the clerk with an identical electronic text version in Portable Document Format (text PDF).
(b) Appendices to briefs must be filed in paper form(8 copies; 6 if counsel was appointed), together with an electronic notice of paper filing.
(c) Criminal Justice Act vouchers and other documents relating to compensation and reimbursement for representation and for ancillary services and expenses must be filed in paper form, rather than electronically; these documents are maintained by the Court as financial documents separate from the docket.
• The clerk may request a paper copy of electronically filed documents as needed.
• Formal briefs must be filed electronically and in paper form.
• Appendicies must be filed in paper form only. File 6 copies (5 if counsel was appointed, 4 of any sealed volumes) with the clerk. Make the CM/ECF entry Notice of paper filing [appendix] and serve copies in paper form.
Yes. The clerk will scan all pro se filings, including any pro se briefs received in paper format, and will attach these pro se documents to the relevant docket entry. A Notice of Docket Activity will be sent when the clerk’s office files the document, and you may view it by clicking on the link in the Notice of Docket Activity. Documents are identified on the court’s docket sheets by hyperlink to the docket entry number. All scanned pro se documents will be accessible through PACER.
A Notice of Docket Activity is a notice that is generated automatically by the CM/ECF System at the time a document is filed electronically. The notice sets forth the time of filing, the name of the party filing the document, the text of the docket entry created by the filing, a hyperlink to the PDF document filed, and the name of the participants required to receive notice of the filing.
The clerk’s office reviews all attorney filings as part of its quality control procedures. In the event the deputy clerk finds an error or needs to modify the docket text for the event and the filing, the deputy will make the changes and send a new Notice of Docket Activity to the case participants. If you receive a second Notice of Docket Activity for a filing and cannot determine the reason for the second Notice, please call the clerk’s office at (804) 916-2700.
7. Does my document need a certificate of service?
Yes. A Certificate of Service is required for all filings. Make the Certificate of Service the last page of the document. See section II(D)(2) - Preparing Certificate of Service, of the CM/ECF User Manual for more information on Certificates of Service.
When the opposing party or attorney is not a participant, you must serve them in traditional fashion. See Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 25. To ascertain if a party or attorney is participating in CM/ECF, use the "Attorney Service Preference Report" within CM/ECF.
9. Is “s/” acceptable for electronic filings?
The name of the Filing User under whose login and password the document is submitted must be preceded by an “s/” and typed in the space where the signature would otherwise appear.
PACER gives you the options of a daily summary or individual event noticing. The default is individual event noticing, but you can change that by updating your account information at the Pacer Service Center under “Filer Account Update.” If you prefer a daily summary, select “Daily Summary” instead of “Each Transaction” on the “Notice of Docket Activity Frequency” option.
File the motion using the event MOTION FILED and select the appropriate relief (e.g. FILE AMICUS BRIEF or INTERVENE). In the text box, type in the name of the party who is filing the motion and upload the motion. The clerk’s office will review the motion and add all potential parties and their attorney(s) to the case.
Step-by-step, interactive on-line training for filing an appearance form is available through the Electronic Learning Module for CM/ECF Electronic Filing on the court’s website.
Each attorney who wishes to be added to a case should file an appearance of counsel. The clerk’s office will review the appearance of counsel and add counsel to the case.
File the motion using the event MOTION FILED and the relief SEAL. If the motion is seeking to seal a document that is not already on file with the Court, file the document using the event SEALED DOCUMENT FILED after filing the motion. If the motion is denied, the Court will strike the document.
You cannot delete events or documents after you have committed a transaction to the docket. If you have made an error (filed in the wrong case, submitted the wrong version of a document, etc.), call your case manager at at 804-916-2700 for further instruction.
No. Remote electronic access to documents in Social Security cases and immigration matters is limited to the attorneys or parties other than orders and opinions in the case in order to protect the privacy of the individuals involved in those cases. You may inspect these files in person in the clerk’s office. If you are a party or attorney in the case, please note that you can access documents in these cases only through use of your CM/ECF Filer ID and Password and that you cannot access them through your PACER ID and Password.
Documents requiring signatures of more than one party may be electronically filed in any of the following ways:
(a) submitting a scanned document containing all necessary signatures;
(b) representing the consent of the other parties on the document;
(c) identifying on the document the parties whose signatures are required and submitting a notice of endorsement by the other parties no later than three business days after filing; or
(d) any other manner approved by the Court.
In Acrobat 8, choose Tools>>Comments & Markup>>Highlight Text Tool.
Select the text to be highlighted. This would be the text that was redacted in the redacted version of the document.
Once all highlighting is complete, save the document. You may want to save this under a name that identifies this as the sealed version of your document.
How to Redact Items in Acrobat 8: Acrobat 8 Professional is the only version of Acrobat that can be used reliably to permanently redact information once a document is in PDF format.
To view the Redaction toolbar, go to View>>Toolbars>>Redaction.
Choose “Mark for Redaction” from the toolbar.
Select the text or section you wish to redact by dragging your cursor over the text or section.
Once all text or sections have been chosen, click “Apply Redactions” in the Redaction toolbar.
After you apply the redactions, the “Examine Document” function will appear. This allows you to find additional hidden text, metadata, etc. and remove it.
Be sure to rename the document upon saving using a name that identifies this as the redacted version of your document . This way you’ll have a redacted version and an unredacted version. Acrobat 8 will prompt you to rename the document when you save it, but will not rename it for you.
Once you save the document, the information that has been redacted is permanently deleted.
If you don’t use Acrobat 8: You can redact information by deleting the text in the word processing version of your pleading. In order to mark the text as having been redacted, you can add the phrase “text redacted” in the place of the redacted information. You can then convert the pleading to PDF format for filing.
CM/ECF has many security features and has passed an evaluation by the National Security Agency. However, Filing Users agree to protect the security of their passwords. Contact the PACER Service Center and the clerk immediately if you learn that your password has been compromised.
WordPerfect versions 9, 10, 11, and 12 include the capability to convert text documents to PDF by clicking “File” on the toolbar and then “Publish to PDF”.
Microsoft Word does not include PDF conversion software. You may use Adobe Acrobat Writer or download free PDF conversion software from any source of your choosing.
Interactive on-line training on converting Word or Word Perfect Documents to PDF is available at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ecfcbt/dc/cccnvtpdf/. Please note that employees of the Court cannot convert files to PDF format for you, nor can they accept emailed submissions and post them for you. If you have problems uploading a document, you may call the Help Desk at (804) 916-2767.
Some users report that they cannot load the CM/ECF application because the application seems to freeze at the black “CM/ECF WARNING: Closing this window will immediately close the appellate program” screen. In nearly every instance, the reason for this is that the user’s computer does not have Java Version 6 loaded as a software application. You must have Java Version 6 on your PC in order to run CM/ECF.
If you do not have Java on your computer (or if you aren’t sure if you do), go to www.java.com. You will note that there is a question/link next to the “Free Java Download” button which asks “Do I have Java?” If you are not sure whether you have it, this link will run a diagnostic check on your computer and let you know whether it is already loaded. If you need to download or update Java, simply click the “Free Java Download” button and follow the directions on the subsequent pages. The Java Version 6 download is free, and the program takes only a few minutes to load.
You must have any internet pop-up blockers disabled in order for CM/ECF to work properly. Also, the Google Toolbar, which is installed with Java, must be removed for your system or you will encounter problems with CM/ECF.
After a successful login, the CM/ECF menu could take up to 2 minutes to load. If after 2 minutes you still don’t get the CM/ECF menu, call the PACER Service Center at 800-676-6856.
The following hardware and software are needed for CM/ECF:
1) Personal Computer: You will need a personal computer running Windows. Currently, Java6 is not available for the Macintosh platform. As a result, Mac users cannot use the CM/ECF filing system. There are two options at the current time: (1) obtain a waiver of electronic filing from the clerk’s office or (2) run your Mac as a virtual Windows PC using software such as Vmware Fusion for Mac. Please note that software such as Fusion only works on Intel-based Macs. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but it is beyond the court’s control. This problem does not affect the court’s ability to send you electronic notices, and Mac users should still register for CM/ECF so that they can receive notices.
2) Word Processing Software: Word Perfect, Microsoft Word or any other word processing software that will allow you to convert text documents to PDF.
3) Internet Service Provider and Web Browser: CM/ECF has been certified to work with Mozilla Firefox versions 1.5 or higher and Internet Explorer versions 5.5 or higher. Any internet pop-up blockers must be disabled and the Google Toolbar must be removed from your web browser for CM/ECF to work properly.
4) Email Account: You may register more than one email address for receipt of Notices of Docket Activity. The address(es) must be regularly monitored, as your only notification of case activity will be via email. Notices of Docket Activity will be sent from the Court’s ECF System. Counsel must ensure that the spam filter operation on the network and computer receiving the email are set to allow notices from ecfnoticing@ca4.uscourts.gov. The size of your email account must be sufficient to receive Notices of Docket Activity from the ECF System. ECF- related email may exceed the size allocated for free email accounts. In general, an account with storage space of at least 100 megabytes is sufficient.
5) PDF Conversion Software: WordPerfect versions 9, 10, 11, and 12 include the capability to convert text documents to PDF by clicking “File” on the toolbar and then “Publish to PDF”. Microsoft Word does not include PDF conversion software. You may use Adobe Acrobat Writer or download free PDF conversion software from any source of your choosing including, www.adobe.com, www.cutepdf.com, www.pdf995.com, or www.pdfstore.com. Interactive on-line training on converting Word or Word Perfect Documents to PDF is available at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ecfcbt/dc/cccnvtpdf/.
6) Scanner: Use a scanner ONLY if you do not have access to an electronic version of the document that would enable you to prepare a text PDF. Paper documents should be scanned into PDF image format at 200dpi with a “black and white” setting.
7) Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6: Java6 is required for CM/ECF to operate on your computer. It is available at www.java.com. Select “Do I have Java” link and verify that the result is Version 6 Update (1, 2, 3 or above). If you do not have Version 6, the website will prompt you to download Version 6. Java6 is not currently available for Macintosh. See the information related to Macintosh computers in item #1.
This problem seems to be related to Adobe Acrobat and how the document was saved. From your computer, open the pdf file for the document you are attempting to file. Click on "File," "Save As," and then save the document to replace the existing file. Now go back to CM/ECF and file your document. If the document still can't be filed, open the pdf file, click the print button and select the pdf printer from the pulldown screen of printer options. This will create a new pdf file of the document and you should be able to file it. If the problem persists, please call the Help Desk at 804-916-2767.