Draft Speech for Appellate Practice Section

I appreciate this opportunity to bring you greetings from the Court of Appeals of Georgia. The Court has very recently begun to accept electronically filed briefs. We are excited to be able to offer this new technology to the attorneys filing in our Court. So far e-filing has been a success. Just since December 1, 2009 over ____attorneys have registered on the system and over ___ briefs have been filed.

This new technology allows attorneys to file a brief up to midnight of the date due. The filing fee is payable by credit card for these e-filings. If you are registered in the system, you will be able to view the electronic filings of opposing counsel on any case in which you represent a party. Although the Court does not take responsibility for service, the e-filing system provides a courtesy notice of a filing and you can immediately view the document which is attached to the courtesy notice. We hope to add certain motions along with the corresponding court actions (or orders) to the system over the next month or two. Under the current phase of our e-
filing project we plan to implement basic e-filing which will ultimately permit you to file briefs and motions and the Court to issue orders and opinions. The Court plans to continue expanding the system as funds and its resources permit. In the second phase of the project we hope to implement a new docket for the Court, automate more of the internal Court processes, and begin to obtain lower court records electronically. Reduction in funding to the Court has delayed full implementation of the system as originally planned.

As you know, the state's economic situation has had a serious impact on all state organizations including the Court of Appeals. In FY2008, the Court had a reduction in force of 10 positions which affected all segments of our work since it included five attorney positions, two administrative assistants, two clerks, and one fiscal office employee. The Court has reduced operating expenses, including development funds for e-filing and a new docket system and implemented staff furloughs to meet the expected budget cuts for FY2009. Voluntary judicial furloughs have also been contributed. The state economic outlook for FY2011 remains bleak, and, therefore, the Court is quite concerned that further budget reductions will affect its ability to meet its obligations under the Constitution to process appeals within two terms and impact the Court's ability to obtain upgraded technology to assist it to meet that responsibility.

Fortunately for the Court, its workload has been relatively stable over the last few years with 3,260 filings in 2009. Even with this stability, the Court of Appeals remains one of the busiest intermediate appellate courts in the nation in terms of filings and opinions per judge. I invite you to review the court's caseload statistics that are available on our web page.

In addition to changes related to technology and filing in our Court, there are about to be changes in the bench of the Court of Appeals. Presiding Judges Johnson and Blackburn will be retiring by the year's end and two new judges will join us. In anticipation of these changes beginning with the April 2010 term, I have appointed Judge Phipps to be the Presiding Judge of Second Division and I have appointed Judge Barnes to be the Presiding Judge of the Third Division.

In conclusion, I want to assure you that despite changes in the Court composition and procedures, we want to assist attorneys practicing in the Court. We hope you will contact the Clerk's office if you have any questions or comments about the e-filing process or court procedures in general.