1. What Is the EFS?

The Electronic Filing System ('EFS') was implemented in the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts on 1 March 2000. This was after almost 3 years of testing with a selected number of law firms in the pilot phase. Initially only a limited number of court documents were required to be filed via the EFS. Thereafter the system was extended to other court documents in several phases. At present all court documents that are involved in civil litigation matters have to be filed using the EFS.

The EFS was originally proposed as a profession-wide system for the filing and service of documents by law firms, and for the Courts to have an electronic document storage and retrieval system. It would pave the way to a paperless court system. The EFS was to be a system with both electronic filing capabilities and electronic hearing capability. It offers the following four services:

• Electronic Filing Service - to file electronic court documents
• Electronic Extract Service - to obtain electronic copies of court documents filed
• Electronic Service of Documents Service - to serve electronic court documents on other law firms
• Electronic Information Service - to view information concerning a particular electronic case file.

Documents that were previously filed in paper form had to be scanned and converted into pdf format[1] using only Adobe Acrobat Versions 3.x to 6.x. The EFS system rejects pdf documents created using other software or containing unacceptable embedded codes for security reasons. This was also to ensure that the pdf documents could be read using the Adobe Acrobat Software[2] used by other law firms and by the Courts. Pdf was chosen because the electronic documents are easily recognisable as 'paper-like'.

From when the EFS was implemented until April 2003, over 1.5 million documents and 20 million pages were filed using the EFS. When it was first implemented, the EFS was considered to be 'state of the art' and has won the prestigious National InfoComm Award for innovative use of technology in the Supreme Court in 2002[3]. Further, in a report dated April 2003 by Accenture on e-Governments around the world, favourable mention was made of the Supreme Court's 'innovative solution in the justice arena'[4]. The EFS is the world's first nation-wide paperless court system.

2. Paradigm Shift In Litigation Practice

The EFS has provided the Courts with a fully electronic civil registry. Documents are filed and stored electronically, thereby saving physical storage costs. Case files are retrieved electronically, bulky files no longer have to be moved around and court registries no longer encounter the problem of missing or misplaced files. More importantly, the EFS has removed the need to manage long queues forming at the Courts' registry counters for the filing of court documents.

For the law firms, the EFS has built up the confidence of the legal profession in the use of IT as a business tool. Out of the 778 law practices in Singapore, 380 are connected to the EFS. 64% of all lawyers in Singapore have electronic access to the court systems through the EFS.

With the EFS, court documents can now be submitted for filing 24 hours a day. In 2002, 37% of all documents filed through the EFS were filed after registry hours[5]. Law firms are also able to serve documents on each other electronically at any time. Inspection of documents and extraction of court orders can be done through the EFS without lawyers having to make on-site inspections at the Courts.

The EFS has also provided other value-added services for lawyers, such as CaseWatch and SMS alerts. CaseWatch is a service which alerts lawyers when a suit is filed against a party they are keeping track of.

The implementation of the EFS had caused the legal profession in Singapore to take a huge step in the adoption of IT. It has been said that the EFS has made lawyers jump from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. In the age of the Internet, this is a significant strategic advantage in an increasingly globalised world.

3. Impact of Changes from Paper to Electronic Documents

a. For the Courts

The EFS was developed as a document management and workflow system for the Courts. Thus, for the Courts doing away with paper documents and paper filing has:-

1. Reduced the need for the Courts to handle cash during the fee collection. With the EFS, collection of fees are credited/debited through Inter-Bank GIRO system.
2. Increase productivity for the Courts. This is achieved through streamlined automated workflow and automatic case tracking and monitoring features of the system.
3. Relieve the manpower shortage problem faced by the Courts. With the EFS, staff are supported by the automated workflow system that enables them to be more productive.
4. Enable Courts to play a pro-active role in case management so that the life span of court cases can be shortened and the number of outstanding cases reduced.
5. Resolve problems of paper handling for the Courts. As stated above, some problems of paper handling are non-filing and mis-filing of documents, long turnaround time in retrieving required documents and the ever-growing demand for physical space. With the EFS, all documents will be stored in the system and most up-to-date information can be viewed by more than one person at any one time.
6. Improve case file security and confidentiality. With the EFS, it is easier to implement restricted access to the electronic case files.

b. For the Law Firms

For the law firms, things were not so rosy. The EFS front-end system used at the law firms office had no document management system, unlike for the Courts. While using the EFS had many advantages to law firms, for many law firms the problems associated with this outweighed these advantages.

Examining first the advantages of doing away with paper documents and paper filing for law firms:-

1. Ability to file court documents 24 hours a day. More than a third of documents are filed electronically to the Courts by law firms outside normal registry hours. This allows the law firms to utilise staff for other purposes during office hours.
2. Better case and document management when integrated with dedicate legal practice management software. With proper integration, data can be pulled from the EFS into the dedicated software doing away with duplication of data entry. Not only does this save manpower, it also reduces opportunities for human error to creep into the system. However proper integration is not an easy task.
3. Accelerated turnaround time for cases. While this probably increases work-related stress, the faster turnaround time also means that the law firm is able to bill a client for a matter faster.
4. Better internal workflow within law firms. The use of the EFS has forced many law firms re-examine their internal work processes. Weak or un-necessary processes are improved or done away with altogether. As an example, instead of asking clients to photocopy or telefax documents, these documents could be scanned by the clients and transmitted electronically (usually via e-mail) to the law firm. Another method is to have the client telefax the documents to a telephone number that uses a telefax software to store the documents electronically. This eliminates the need by the law firms to have the documents re-scanned.

However, using the EFS does not mean that law firms have done away with the paper documents. All law firms in Singapore, without exception, in fact run 2 parallel systems: the electronic one and the paper one. The result is that all the advantages listed above are not fully realised by the law firms. This means that law firms will have to manage both the paper documents and the electronic ones. This means that in addition to practice and procedures concerning the paper files, procedures concerning the electronic documents have to be implemented as well. This translates to no cost savings but in fact increased costs to law firms.

The increase in the cost of litigation is one of the earliest and most significant impact of the EFS for all parties involved: the law firms, the litigants and the courts. To the law firms and the litigants, there are the increases to the filing fees for court documents and the additional per page transmission charges. For the law firms, there are (i) the additional costs in maintaining 2 parallel systems; (ii) the time consuming task of preparing and scanning the documents for electronic filing; (iii) the increase in time spent in completing the electronic templates that capture information concerning the documents [6]; and (iv) the acquisition cost of the required hardware and software and specialised training for the staff to operate the system. For the courts there is the major cost of developing, acquiring, implementing and maintaining the EFS.

4. 2003 Review of the EFS

Because of the issues with EFS, in April 2003 the Honourable the Chief Justice appointed an EFS Review Committee to conduct a thorough review of the EFS. This review was to ensure the continuing relevance of the system as the needs of the Singapore legal sector and the technology evolve. The Review Committee submitted an internal report of its findings and recommendations to the Chief Justice on 16 June 2003. After further consultations with the various constituents, the Chief Justice accepted the recommendations of the Review Committee on 7 August 2003. Pursuant to the Chief Justice's acceptance of the Review Committee's recommendations, an Implementation Committee was established to oversee the implementation of the recommendations made by the Review Committee.

A survey of law practices conducted by the Review Committee confirmed the several process and cost issues with the EFS. The Review Committee also found that due to the large volume of data being transmitted, the EFS transmission speed is not always constant. If transmission terminates mid-way, the law firm is required to re-file the documents.

For the Courts, the Review Committee found that Assistant Registrars and Deputy Registrars regularly use the EFS during chamber hearings to call up documents and record proceedings. However, both Judges and Judicial Officers are not using the EFS extensively for trials in open court. Due to the dynamic process of a trial, most Judges and Judicial Officers have found it more efficient to rely on hard copies of documents.

Generally, the common problems faced by users of the EFS at the Supreme Court and Subordinate Courts are the instability and intermittent slowness of the system. This is especially so in the Subordinate Courts where there is a larger caseload[7]. The system instability and latency[8] of the EFS has meant that Judges and Judicial Officers have not been able to gain as much in terms of productivity and efficiency from the EFS as an online litigation tool, as had been originally projected.

As stated earlier, the majority of law firms indicated that the EFS has increased the cost of litigation. The Review Committee found that the troubling cost item of the EFS fees is the transmission fee of $1 per page charged for documents transmitted to the Courts. Litigants who use the service bureaux pay even more: they pay 15% more in fees and an additional manual handling charge of $20 per document [9].

The Review Committee recognised that the technical, design and costs problems had to be addressed. A systematic programme must be put in place to resolve those issues, which must be done in consultation with the end-users of the systemL the law firms and the Judicial Officers. Meanwhile, the most pressing issues of costs were resolved swiftly when in October 2003 rules were implemented to bring down the charges.

The Implementation Committee proposed a two-pronged approach to develop the EFS towards its desired state. First, whatever that can be resolved of the technical, design and costs issues in the present system, should be resolved in the short to medium term. Secondly, in the long term, the EFS should evolve towards a new and better version that would build upon the experience gained in developing and operating the present system and take advantage of the latest technology.

5. Lessons Learnt

The conveniences of the EFS, eg cause book searches and electronic service of documents, need to be balanced against the additional costs and processing time required for filing. There are technical latency and system instability problems that need to be addressed. Overall, the costs of the EFS system have outbalanced the tangible benefits that have been derived from using the system.

Constant consultation with the end-users (the law firms and the judicial officers) of the system is required to ensure that problems are addressed and resolved as early as possible. Periodic reviews of the system are necessary to ensure that the system takes into consideration the evolution of technology and the changing practices of its users.

The EFS has not achieved its stated goal of a paperless court system. But it is the aim of the Review Committee to deliver the blueprint for a new and improved version of the system to move away from a paper-based paradigm. The Review Committee, in its report, had expressed their hope that the EFS revamp, and in due course EFS Version 2.0, will with the support of the legal profession, the Judiciary and the service providers, perform a key role in supporting the litigation process.

[1] PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Documents stored in pdf resemble 'paper-like' electronic documents. All EFS documents are stored in pdf format.

[2] A special EFS plugin tool was required to read the EFS annotations used by the Courts to annotate the electronic documents.

[3] It won the National Infocomm Award awarded by Infocomm-Development Authority (IDA) on 23 April 2002.

[4] eGovernment Leadership: Engaging the Customer: dated 8 April 2003 at page 40. A copy of this report can be found at http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/industries/government/gove_capa_egov_leadership.pdf.

[5] Between 9:00am to 1:00pm and between 2:00pm 4:00pm on weekdays and 9:00am to 1:00pm on Saturdays.

[6] Accuracy of the information is important because any error will result in the document being rejected and fees being deducted. In the paper paradigm, this task of data entry was performed by the Courts' staff.

[7] The Subordinate Courts handles about 90% of the civil cases filed and about 65% of the documents filed by law firms.

[8] System latency is the protracted delay between the time a user requests for a document from the EFS and the time the document is presented on the monitor screen.