New Approaches in Quality Control
The Clerk's office announced modifications to the quality control of attorney e-filings. Docket clerks are now responsible to review all attorney filings in addition to docketing paper documents and documents produced by chambers. Correct docketing is essential for the CM/ECF workflow processes in chambers. For example, if a motion is filed under an incorrect designation, it might not show as pending or if a memorandum is not associated with a motions, a chambers motion report will omit the document.
Initially, quality control consisted of correcting attorney docketing errors by modifying docket entries or re-docketing documents. After a few months' experimentation, quality control evolved to delete documents with docket entries instructing counsel to re-docket correctly. This had the advantage of educating counsel by allowing the attorney or staff member to correctly docket the filing. However, the deletion of the document link made the document unavailable to other counsel and chambers.
In the future, quality control docket clerks will email counsel regarding the docketing issues and will not delete document links. Hopefully, the twin goals of correct docketing and filer education will be enhanced by this approach. Revisions to the administrative procedures will reflect this change.