Electronically Signed Declaration of Trust Template Made Easy

Electronically signed declaration of trust template

good afternoon everyone my name is Sam Dupree I work for the Oregon judicial department and I'm gonna be talking a little bit about file and serve and efile updates today so we have a lot of people on this webinar so what I was going to do is I'm going to go through the the chat periodically or the questions piece so if you have questions just type them in there and I will go through them is a fairly regularly I'll try and do it at the end of a particular topic that I'm talking about we did this yesterday and I think it worked out fairly well so just if you have questions just be sure to type them into the question box there so we've made some some changes recently first of all we had planned on upgrading file and serve on the 10th so later this week and we ended up postponing that until June we're looking at likely around the 18th 19th 20th something in that range we'll be sending out more information as we finalize that date in addition filers can now submit our electronically submit efile or declarations they've been signed by non filers so what that means is declarations that are electronically signed by represented parties clients or non party deck Laurence in addition filers are now temporarily allowed to e-file trial and hearing exhibits for remote trials and hearings so we'll go over that as well so this piece will take roughly a half hour and then I have some other things assuming we have time that I'll go through just a couple of tips and tricks and file and serve and if you have questions about different things at that point in time I'll do my best to to answer them as well so first of all I want to cover East signatures so this is something that a work group was actually been working on for quite some time they proposed it to the UTC our committee and yeah the UTC our committee they reviewed it in on last October and they were gonna recommend approval and I put it out for public comment and the the chief reviewed it given the the current pandemic and the need to try and encourage social distancing throughout the state and she ended up adopting this out of cycle so what it is is it allows those non filers so people who aren't filing documents to use electronic signatures that are created through electronic signature software so long is that electronic signature software has what is called a security procedure in order to to verify that the signature is that of a specific person so there are quite a few different electronic signature software's out there there are dozens and dozens and there quite a few of them actually would comply with this requirement we tied it into our RS 84 which is Oregon's version of the Uniform electronic transactions Act so if you see some websites saying that their software complies with that Act it is very likely that it would also comply with this rule and in addition I just wanted to point out a couple of things so you have the the s slash that filers can currently use and it's just for filers when they're signing documents that does not change at all you can continue to use that however that's not something that a represented party or non party deck Lorent would be able to use in addition affidavits under the rule must still be assigned conventionally so in inked and scanned and then submitted I know that the the Oregon law Commission is looking at a proposal to allow a notarization and that's something that could possibly come up in a special session we are keeping our eyes on that and if that change is made we will definitely take a closer look at it and see what we can do so just a little bit more about ecig matures they really vary across the board based on the software that's used some allow the you to scan your signature and upload it and then you can use that other ones like the top middle one here you can try and draw your own signature through their program well tell you that it's not terribly easy to do and then you have ones that essentially are a stamp or you type your name in which are the bottom three so especially the middle one it looks fairly informal but it actually still complies with the requirements really what a lot of these things do a lot of these different software's do is they create audit trails and I'll show you a few of those in a minute here those audit trails will keep track of when a document is sent when it's looked at when it's signed you know the email address that it was sent to the IP address that was used in signing it so it's a little audit trail that sort of validates the process that it goes through and something that you can hold on to so there are also electronic signature electronic certificates on the document itself so what those really do are they it's a certificate that states that the document hasn't been tampered with since a signature has applied to ever been applied to the documents some of them are a little bit more involved but generally that's what they do if you have an audit trail and an electronic certificate on there I think you're gonna be in good shape as far as the rule the new rule goes so next I just wanted to touch on the the filer certification and retention requirements so the the previous certification requirement remains the same the Heller still has to certify to the best of their knowledge that the purported signer signed the document it was just moved from UTC are 21.1 202 UTC are 21/0/9 Oh in addition to that the requirement for retention return requirement for ink signatures is the same as it has been it's still no less than 30 days for ink signatures that are imaged I just bring this up because there is a new requirement created for these electronic signatures so what it says is that these electronic signatures the filer must retain these until the entry of a general judgment or other judgment or order that conclusively disposes of the action what this is meant to do is require filers to hold on to these until the end of the Circuit Court case it provides the opposing party a chance to object to these since this is new technology there's still a little bit of apprehension around it so it provides that that safeguard and if it's challenged the court can hold a hearing and it allows the filer to present evidence which includes that audit trail or electronic signature or certificate as evidence so I'm gonna move out of here real quick and give you a look at a few different examples of these certificates and audit trails by the way we are not endorsing any of these particular products but these are ones that had free trials that I was able to go in and I use in order to assign some documents so this is one of those audit trails that I was talking about it has when the document was sent where it was sent from who it was sent to the actual message that went along with it the the IP address as well I'm and then up here has a little bit more information about the original signature but then this is the the bottom piece of it was the the person I sent to Peter it has the email address was verified what text was added the date it was added the IP address used by that person exactly what they use so you can see I ended up using a phone for this one and then when it was signed as far as the the date and the time so one thing to point out to this does not have one of those electronic certificates but it is still designed to create that extra level of security that security procedure that would that the purported signer actually signs the documents so here this one actually has one of those certificates so I'm gonna click on the signature panel and it'll tell you the signature is valid the document has not been modified since the signature was applied it includes an embedded timestamp and that'll be you'll have a little bit more details in here as well and some of these have timelines as far as when they're considered valid it's generally a very very long period of time so this was one of those electronic signature softwares that allowed you to type your name in see still you can't really do much with it if I were to go in and wipe the certificate and the signatures they could be gone but then you have this audit trail which is also title of certificates that says who signed it when they signed it what email they use to sign it and the IP address and then at the bottom it says completed by all parties on May 15 2019 and this is another one that's out there too it's a really the same idea who the sender is the recipients email addresses the ID in this act so he has a more detailed view of what happens so you log in her I logged in I viewed the documents I accepted I clicked assign confirmed it so there are quite a variety of these types of things out here so here's another one where the request was sent out it's a much less detailed but it was signed it has my email address the IP address and then when the signature was completed so we have a question about being able to use nuance so we had a question about that and exhibits yesterday I'm not terribly familiar with nuance but I will take a look at it I don't think that program would be a barrier to having an electronic signature with a security procedure I mean the I we're not endorsing any one product in doing this it's just making sure that there's some sort of procedure there that allows you to or indicates that be the purported file or the purported signer actually signed the documents so another question is who is preparing the actual East signatures so it would be the Dec Laurent is the person that would put the e signature on the document the signature software would allow you to either drop in your document and send it to the declaration for them to review and sign or they would allow you to sometimes create a document within them and send that document out to be signed right I'm not seeing any more questions so I am going to move on to the next part of the presentation by the way if you do have questions still feel free to type them in and I will get to them so this next part is about efiling exhibits for moat trials and hearings so this is something that was allowed under the amended CJ o 20006 and it's section sub seven and it is temporary until further order of the chief justice so it is permissive so you do not have to file these for remote trials and hearings although we are encouraging you to do so it would help you as far as not having to bring things to court and I think it's a fairly efficient way of doing things I'm hoping that after this pandemic moves through we'll assess this process and see if this is something that could be done for the long term but right now it is a temporary process and I want to point out too for the key signatures piece of that that is also permissive I forgot to mention that earlier so you don't have to use a signature software you can still have people sign in ink and scan that in if they're non filer deck Laurent's but if you want to use some sort of electronic signature that's that was the process that you would have to follow so 4e filing these remote are these exhibits for remote hearings and trials these are only for exhibits that can be converted into PDFs so for exhibits that can't be converted to PDFs you'll need to coordinate that with the local court they you and that you have your hearing in front of and that includes audio video or physical exhibits another thing worth noting is sometimes there could be an exhibit that would be larger than 25 megabytes which is the limitation for a single filing if that is if that becomes an issue I would contact your local court and ask them what they want you to do it may be that they would want you to break it up into separate documents if possible or there may be some sort of other way that they would prefer that you delivered that document to them so there are some requirements for this piece the first of which is that they the cjo requires filers to submit these as one document unless the local court orders otherwise or the document would be larger than 25 megabytes in addition it requires the filers to electronically link the index and I will go through how to do this in a couple of moments here it also requires you to add bookmarks to the documents and when you're filing these you have to use the exhibit filing code and select the confidential filled document or document security for these so the reason why we want you to select confidential is that we we really have two options right now public or confidential and some of these exhibits will have things like account numbers they may have social security numbers or other things your clients may not want getting out there so that's why we went with selecting that the the documents should be confidential because it would not only be available to you and attorneys that have access to OE CI it would also be available on our public access kiosks so that means though when you file this with the court and it's marked confidential the your opposing counsel or opposing party would not be able to see it so you would either have to eserve them with the documents through violence serve or you would have to provide them with the the proposed exhibits in some other way so I'm going to go through to speak or let this to see if there are any questions real quick on that part so there was just one on electronic signature software and where it's available I you should be able to find a any number of them out there just by typing in not into Google I know I mean you have quite a few different vendors out there that advertise that they are compliant with the Uniform electronic transactions Act and I think even if you type that in you would probably get a lot of hits a lot of the the big vendors Adobe included I think have their own version of it there are some better I believe offer it at free to no cost ya have to do a little digging and I would sort of bet those on your own just as far as what the the signature software does so just back to exhibits bookmarking a PDF is a fairly simple process so you will open the PDF you'll click on a bookmark icon it's highlighted in blue on that picture it's also on the right right next to the words there if your document is already text searchable you can highlight the beginning of the exhibits and then just click that add bookmark and it'll add one in there for you it's a fairly quick and easy process and what we're asking you to do is add one bookmark for each exhibit that you submit to the court and I will go over this in a minute and show you how to do it and then creating a linked index using document links this is a little more involved process it sounds more daunting than it really is I'll show you how to do it as well you'll go in select view tools edit PDF and then you'll select link and add / edit web or document link all you'll have to do is go and locate the first entry in your index by the way when I talk about an index sort of what we're envisioning is that there will be an exhibit list up front essentially and for the exhibits that are listed there you'll that will be the index the exhibit list so you'll go to that exhibit list drag a box around the specific line for the exhibit that you want to create a link for you yeah you would from the create link box select the link type I like invisible rectangle there are other options you can't make it visible as well then you select the link action most are already in the default of go to view once you get through that page all you have to do is scroll down to where the exhibit is and then click set link so we are going to go through this there is one about courtesy copies through file and serve so if you provide a courtesy copy through file and serve that's sort of outside of the the court confidentiality process so that would allow the party to view those exhibits they would receive a copy of those exhibits so here I have my trial exhibits which happen to also be the uniform trial court rules for the electronic filing on the left-hand side here we have the bookmark icon I'm just gonna click on that it opens up to this screen and to add a bookmark since I already have definitions in there I'm just gonna go down to 20 100 200 and click right here new bookmark and that's all there is to it so you can click back there to go to definitions here to go to the local rules of court or not permitted and then if I wanted to assuming this let me highlight it highlight the next one I mean it does take a little time but it's a fairly intuitive process so once you have them all bookmarked you can go through and navigate the document through this screen so if you're in trial it'll allow the judge to go back and forth between the exhibits you're referring to a lot easier than if they had to scroll through the documents and next I'm just going to show you how to hyperlink and let's roll up here we go so this is that exhibit list that I was talking about up front in the documents don't pay attention to my header I know it doesn't comply with a lot of the rules out there just very basic but all you have to do here you go to view down to tools edit PDF and open once you have this heart open there's a link right here in the middle of your screen you click that and it's the first option in the drop-down add edit web or document link and please ignore those so all you have to do here is highlight what you want the hyperlink to be so if I wanted it to be UTC our 2102 oh I would just highlight that and it gives you the option for invisible or visible rectangle make sure that go to a page you is right there and then hit next and all you have to do is scroll down to where the exhibit starts and select or inset link and then to continue doing it you just keep going hit next go down to 21.0 307 link next and 21.4 or o4o set link so this allows you to and what once I get out of this piece it allow me to navigate back and forth in the document just by selecting that and you can have both open so you can go back up and what I really should have done is bookmark the top of this make for easier and you can actually click and drag these so you can reorder them and of course it didn't click and drag the one I wanted all right but the idea behind this is still the same you can click on definitions go back here click on filers go back to the the table of contents exhibit list here or you can use the bookmarks so are there any questions on this piece so the question that is in there is do we need to use both the document link and bookmarks yes the the chief justice order requires the use of both be the document linking and bookmarks let's see may help a little bit alright so I'm gonna go back to the presentation now and this second half of the presentation is just gonna focus on some some tips and tricks and file and serve and just a couple of quick updates so if you have questions continue to type them into the questions peace I'll go back to it so we have the file serve upgrade was postponed I mentioned that was until mid-june the only real change is the addition of case subtypes as a filing option some people have asked exactly what case subtypes are they there they allow us to generate statistics that are specific to a subset of a a case type so an example of that is consumer debt collection cases in either small claims or civil contract actions there are also some regarding minor and adult protected proceedings there aren't a lot of them so just like we will send out a list I believe there are roughly a dozen so and they they don't apply all over the place there in specific areas and specific case types this lets you know a couple of things we're working on and we're working on updated guides and lists and file and serve we're working on cleaning up codes you understand there are a lot of codes available out there we want to try and tailor them to the specific case categories as best we can so just bear with us we are going to try and make it more user friendly then another thing we're going to be working with courts on is just consistency in the review process so they're just a few pointers that I just wanted to talk to you about and show you real quick that may help you a little bit so one thing that I have to mention is you you have to add your own contact information to the case it's not something that's done automatically like it is for pacer and when you're filing into a case believe it's you TCR 21100 requires you to add your your service information to the case so justjust please do that that is one of our biggest complaints that we get from attorneys is that opposing counsel hasn't entered their information so just keep that in mind in addition one function that I think is very useful that not everybody is aware of is the ability to serve parties through file and serve without actually filing anything so that does not provide any information to the court you have to have some ridiculous administrative rights on the record end or on the vendors end which is Tyler technologies in order to even be able to see it so just keep that in mind it's really just going to whoever you want to serve not also discussion you make sure it complies with any statutes or rules out there regarding service I know there are different requirements for service on different types of documents and different postures of a case but what this does is it'll serve the person assuming their contact information is in the case and it gives you a knotted trail of that so it was sent to my email address as my firm I verifies that it went through and it has the date in the time that I looked at the document and then it opens the link so that could be very useful for you depending what you do and then another thing I wanted to point out is templates violence serve allows you to create a template for your filings so if you are filing things regularly like a specific case type or you work for a particular entity and you're always filing on behalf of that entity in a particular case type you can go in and you can create a template that will save you time in the long run you can do location case category case type party information even the the filing code and you can add in the fees so I just wanted to go in and demonstrate that for you I'm gonna do that both in our silverlight version which is our slightly older version and our html5 version which is the slightly newer version so you can see how it looks in both actually i will check and see if there are any questions right now so one question is what do I mean by serving parties without filing so uh I'll describe that as we're going into file and serve but the idea behind it is that you can it sends the party the document but you're not filing it with the court and it's just another way of serving them you can I know that in some instances you can provide copies of what you're filing through email this is just another way of doing it you can do it through file and serve I'm just gonna pick up I left off on Homer Simpson Venus Landers just takes a moment to load well this is just like any other subsequent filing here and this is the Silverlight version you can select efile right here on in the middle and you can select service so you can do one you can do both um that's really up to you if you select efile it's going to the court if you select service it's going to the parties that you designate to to serve so let's say I just wanted to serve still allows you to select a filing code which I think it's a little strange but let's see move things around a little bit here gets my affidavit click-and-drag and then you can just go to service and it's not something that's gonna be filed with the court it's something that's automatically done the court doesn't have to accept it so and it does require that the other person have already entered their their contact information into the case so I was filing on behalf of Ned Flanders I can serve Homer but if I was filing on Homer's behalf I could not serve Ned but you can go to the summary and just click Submit so now I'm gonna go through and show you how to do this in the other version here actually we can take a quick look at the receipt so this is pretty similar to what you would see with the normal filing but then you have the e service details down at the bottom and this will update as it's served and you'll have the date and time opened right now it says not sent not opened that will update and then just to go over into the Silverlight version or not sorry HTML fYI version and I'm not actually gonna file into this because this is our production site but I can still show you how it's done so you're in your normal subsequent filing view here and all you have to do is go on the left-hand side and filing type it's automatically set to e-file but you can do efile serve a file and serve so you can collect select service you don't actually have to select a filing code which is what I would expect out of this there won't be any fees associated with it and we can go in through this as well - it's like my affidavit right public save changes save changes summary and it'll let me select who I want to serve so could select any party that it entered their their contact information and one thing to keep in mind too is that you don't want to enter somebody else's contact information for them unless it's you or your client or the entity that you work for because under the rules once you enter that information you're also responsible for maintaining it and if you there's always the potential that you would enter in an email address that it's not preferred by the opposing party so just keep that in mind so I'm just going through some of the questions right now so the question is how will the serve document reflect an OE CI once it's filed is it the same as a filed document will reflect in the register of actions so it will not be an OE CI and it will not be reflected in the register of actions if you just choose the serve option if you have either option that includes efile in it then and that will be filed with the court it will be reviewed by staff and it will be in the register of actions in OECD neck or it's case management system so if you just select serve all you are doing is serving the opposing party so next I wanted to go in and just show you templates real quick so in the html5 version if your screen looks like this you would go to actions you go down to templates and you can go in and create your own template I have several that I've created um you can do this if you continually file like if your jobs to file small claims actions if you file juvenile dependency petitions um if you have several different types of filings that you file constantly whether it's protective order petitions or even domestic relations or complaints and contract cases or claims and small claims cases really doesn't matter exactly what you do there so it'll and it allows you to select newer existing cases so it doesn't have to be for new cases you can select a location this is actually something that you can go back in and change once you enter the template to try and file with it do small claims you can enter in party information Homer Simpson file a lot of small claims cases you can even go in and select the code as well as any optional fee services associated with that code so here filing these early regularly click continue and confirm and you have a template so now if I wanted to go in and file a case you go to actions use template and all of that information I just entered in is already in there and I would have to type in Ned Flanders or whoever it is I'm suing but I didn't save the code for some reason well I will go in and possible I didn't save that piece of it then you can also do this on the the Silverlight site fairly similar process going to templates side one I already created but you can create click create new templates on the right hand side here actually this is something that I can show you about the in the new case subtypes so right now I'm in a test version and as you can see if you're using Silverlight this is the exact same version you're using with the addition of this case subtype option so you could add the case subtype it's not available in every case type if it is available it'll pop up and show you that there is an available case subtype but it's also not a required field in your template when you're going in to file you can change the county so we're just gonna go through like we're filing here see ya oh that's not what I wanted ain't it and then if you're using the scroll on my mouse alright you can enter the contact information through this as well here it actually did save the filing code and the optional fee surface that I selected previously so you can also the party associated and if you're filing the same thing over and over again it's just something you can do to save time something that I highly recommend don't think I have anything that says claim Mon it will go with Titian since its initiating documents go to service and you can actually also through these templates add your service contact information so that's what I have done through this one my service information is already in here and I don't have to go in and add if you do this I'd still recommend the first couple of times making sure you check to make sure your contact information is there but it is a way to save time as far as that goes as well so you review it there's no yeah service here and at this point your file on one thing I did not check yeah it's already on e-file so we're good all right so I'm just gonna check and see if anybody has any questions so one question is when you use online service who would be the the serving person and how would we know the person has been served so I'll go in I think I did one of these earlier so I'm gonna check real quick so you're looking in the Silverlight version you would go into your previously filed documents oh that's that one actually wasn't served sorry I have not submitted that one all right so this is one that I submitted it says served right here and you can go in to view filing details scroll down to the bottom and you can see that it was sent to my email address it was served and you can see the date and the time that I actually clicked on and opened the documents over here it says it was transmitted has the Associated parties so that that's really how you would get your essentially receipt for a service so another question is somebody was just concerned that there was no record but but there is a record that that's what the record would be is that receive that filing information they could go in and and print if you need it to so another question was can other filers in your firm use your templates and the answer is yes and because I'm in a webinar this is not letting me exit out of this screen so what we're gonna do is go back in the normal way here so if you have templates it allows you to select favorites that's the default you can also select the ones you've created as well as the ones that your firm has created so if your firm has any additional templates those would be available as well then going in to the html5 version you can see when you move this around real quick so you'll be able to see the templates created by your firm and your favorites are just the starred ones so me just check and see if there's anything else in the PowerPoint I had not covered so we also just want to point you to uh if you have questions policy on generally how things function I can usually help you out Tyler is our vendor they're the one that actually provides you access to accounts I don't have access to that and can help you out if you're having different access or functionality issues so I would encourage contacting them if you're having issues if it's something policy related you definitely contact me if it's something just and how-to and you don't want to contact Tyler I'll do my best to help you out but Tyler is there they are typically available more hours than I am so I just want to let you know that they are there if you have questions so thank you very much if there are no further questions I am going to end this webinar I appreciate everybody spending time with me at the end of the day going through all of this and if you have any questions just feel free to follow up especially if they're a signature or efiling related to the remote hearings and filing exhibits now I'll do my best to to help you out there so have a great rest of your day and stay safe out there