The Recorder recently published an article featuring Gordon & Rees San Francisco partner Don Willenburg, who discussed mandatory e-filing in California’s First District Court of Appeal. Willenburg is the only practicing lawyer on the Court Technology Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to California’s Judicial Council for improving the administration of justice through the use of technology.
In the March 3 article, Willenburg said the First District has been working on the e-filing project in particular earnest over the past year. Gordon & Rees and others have spent several weeks testing the new system, which goes into effect on March 17. The First District is the first California appellate court to make e-filing of virtually all documents mandatory.
“[T]he first priority was to get people e-filing and reduce the administrative burden on the courts that really don't have nearly as many people as they used to or as many as they ought to. It's sort of off-loading what used to be duties of the clerk to the people who are filing,” Willenburg said in the article.
Willenburg leads Gordon & Rees’s Appellate Practice Group. His practice includes appeals and writs in a variety of substantive areas of the law, including environmental and toxic torts, employment, construction and commercial matters. Appointed to the Court Technology Advisory Committee by the State Bar of California for his “demonstrated experience in law and technology issues,” Willenburg has served on the committee since January 2010.
To read the article, click here.