THE SHADOW CURSOR: Statutory Electronic Service

“Come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean, am I tough, organized? I can’t even balance my checkbook!”

– Sarah Connor, in The Terminator

New to civil practice this fall is statutory electronic service. The Civil Practice Act (CPA) now allows post-complaint pleadings and documents to be served by email to consenting parties or their attorneys. O.C.G.A. § 9-11-5.

But electronic service should not “terminate” good docket control.

An electronically served document (ESD) must include the words “Statutory Electronic Service” in its subject heading.

The three-day extension to respond to a document or notice that is mailed also applies to ESDs. O.C.G.A. § 9-11-6(e).

Post-complaint discovery requests probably can be served electronically. However, a notice to produce (NTP) under O.C.G.A. § 24-10-26 deserves special attention. The cryptic language of this statute and the fact that it’s not codified in the CPA suggests that the better practice remains to serve an NTP by certified mail or personal service, à la subpoenas.

To ensure redundancy and docket control of ESDs, a law office manager should consider implementing three procedures:

• Create an email rule that assigns any email with  “Electronic Service” in its subject heading a high-priority status, copies that email to a special “hot” folder, forwards that email to designated recipients, and even generates a noise through a computer’s speakers that attracts attention to the significant new arrival.
• Include more than one email address in the notice of consent to electronic service. Assigning, say, a Google or Yahoo! account in addition to the office’s regular email service will create an automatic backup of all ESDs directed at the office that a crashed server might not preserve. And remote access to the ESDs will also be easier.
• Abate any spam or virus filter on the redundant email service to minimize the chance of “termination” of an ESD. A law office should not be lowering its spam or virus protections on its regular email system out of fear of eternal spamination of an ESD. But this will also require human intervention to check the redundant account at least twice a day.

The more ringing of virtual bells and blowing of virtual whistles to address ESDs the better.
But the Terminator movies also taught us that bells and whistles can’t replace the human toughness and organization that saved John Conner from the cyborgs.