Nevada Judiciary

The Nevada Supreme Court has taken a major step to cut down on the number of its paper documents by implementing an electronic filing system.

Effective today, Feb. 23, the Supreme Court will begin accepting electronic filings, or e-filing, of all criminal cases at the Court.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to expand e-filing to include all civil cases later this year.

The new process is expected to save time and money for the Supreme Court, as well as for attorneys and their clients. No longer will attorneys with criminal appeal cases have to ship or deliver supporting documents to the Supreme Court.

In preparation for the move to e-filing, Supreme Court staff conducted training sessions this year and late last year for a total of nearly 200 attorneys and support staff at both ends of the state. Training was conducted for three days in Las Vegas, two days in Reno, and one day in Carson City. Training will also be offered at the Family Law Conference in Ely in March and a training DVD that includes information from the earlier presentations is in development.

“E-filing will allow case documents to be received, processed, and considered by the justices more rapidly than ever before,” said Chief Justice James W. Hardesty. “Because Nevada does not have an intermediate appellate court, the Nevada Supreme Court must consider all appeals. Consequently, we are one of the busiest Supreme Courts in the nation with more than 2,200 cases filed annually.”

“Since cases must be reviewed by multiple justices, as well as staff, the electronic filing of documents will allow all justices to receive the documents at the same time, rather than having paper documents rotate from one justice to another,” Chief Justice Hardesty said.

The e-filing process for criminal cases generally will begin with District Court clerks electronically filing notices of appeal with the Supreme Court. Attorneys will then have the opportunity to e-file court briefs and documents rather than send paper copies.

Attorneys will also be able to initiate certain cases, such as writ petitions, by e-filing them directly with the Supreme Court Clerk’s Office.

The e-filing actually is an expansion of the pilot program begun in March 2008. The pilot program was limited to criminal fast track cases in which all parties were represented by public lawyers. It focused on Clark and Washoe Counties, but included White Pine County and Carson City because those jurisdictions – where state prisons are located – are served by the State Public Defender’s Office.

For attorneys to access the new e-filing, the URL is https://efile.nvsupremecourt.us/login.jsp. A new account request can be submitted by clicking on the “Request Account” button from the main screen and typing in the required information on the subsequent screens. For additional formation, the Supreme Court Clerk’s Office may be contacted at 775-684-1600.