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Guidelines for Documents filed by Email or Digital Upload

Jul 8, 2020

A significant number of documents are now being filed with the Court by email or digital upload.  To facilitate the effective receipt, handling, management and use of these documents by Court staff and the judiciary, the Court has prepared the following guidelines, applicable to all documents filed by email or digital upload.   All counsel and parties are expected to comply with these Guidelines to the greatest extent permitted by their technological resources.

  • Where filing by email, the covering email must follow the protocol set out in the Announcement from Resolution and Court Services dated July 27, 2020.
  • Please keep in mind that for desk and Chambers applications, the Justice or staff member handling the matter will often not have access to the full Court file.Please include all documents relied upon, even if previously filed (for example, documents referenced in the preamble of a draft Order, pleadings, etc.).
  • Filed documents (whether uploaded directly or attached to an email) must be well organized, easily accessible, have descriptive titles that allow the Court to distinguish between multiple documents emailed or uploaded, be searchable, be of a manageable size and wherever possible, allow the Court to cut and paste text from the document.
  • The key criteria are:
    • Documents and files must not be password protected.
    • Documents must be PDF documents.
    • Documents must be searchable.OCR (Optical Character Recognition) should be applied before filing.
    • Where a document has attachments (for example, an affidavit with exhibits or a brief with attached authorities), the pdf file should be bookmarked.Bookmarks should include a short description for each bookmark (e.g.Exhibit 1 – Purchase Agreement).This allows the Court to move through the document in a similar manner to a hard copy index and tabs.  Separate documents should be sent as separate PDF files.
    • Where practicable, hyperlinks must be used to allow for efficient reference to authorities, evidence or other documents. Please note that hyperlinks must connect to open source reporting services (as hyperlinks to caselaw obtained through the submitter's legal services subscription accounts will not function for non-account holders).
    • Each pdf file must not exceed 100MB.
    • If you are also providing a paper copy to the Court, the page numbering in the PDF should match the paper copy.This avoids confusion.
    • PDF file names must be descriptive, particularly where a party is sending multiple files at the same time.An email with three attachments with file names “Statement_of_ Claim”, “Affidavit_ of_ X_Date” and “Draft_Order_Date” is much easier to use than an email with three attachments with file names “SCAN1111”, “SCAN1112” and “SCAN1113”.PDF file names must not exceed 25 characters and should avoid the following characters:! @ # $ % ^ * & ' ` ~ + = , . : ; ( ) [ ] { } / | \ ? < >. Where possible, use hyphen or underscore to separate words in pdf file names instead of spaces.

Unless otherwise expressly suspended or stated to be inapplicable, all of the filing requirements in the Rules of Court or Practice Notes for pagination, numbered paragraphs, page limits, indexes, and other such requirements apply to documents filed electronically.

The guidelines are permanently located here.