E-filing Can Be Awesome

Our sister blog, 600 Camp, has posted a PowerPoint presentation by Lyle Cayce, the Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. For anyone who has slogged through the hyperlinking of legal authorities and record citations in an appellate brief, it’s a glimpse into the future (or as they like to call it in the Fifth Circuit, “the present”) of e-filing. As Mr. Cayce described during last week’s appellate conference in Austin, the Fifth Circuit has commissioned software that automatically converts the parties’ electronically filed briefs into fully hyperlinked e-briefs for the judges, their staffs, and even the parties themselves. As a result, every citation is automatically converted to a hyperlink that can take the reader directly to the cited material, whether it is in the record or on whichever legal research service the user prefers. Kudos to the Fifth Circuit for figuring out how to make e-filing simpler and better for everyone involved, and let’s hope that the Texas courts will be headed that way as well.