Civil E-Filing
RULES AND PROCEDURES FOR ELECTRONIC FILING AND STORAGE OF PLEADINGS, DOCUMENTS AND EXHIBITS IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
In accordance with Louisiana law, the Louisiana Clerks of Court (hereinafter referred to as Clerks of Court) and Louisiana Clerks Remote Access Authority (hereinafter referred to as LCRAA) hereby establish a system to accept electronically transmitted pleadings, documents, and exhibits.
The Clerks of Court and LCRAA hereby implement the following rules and procedures for the electronic filing and storage of electronically transmitted pleadings, documents and exhibits to be filed therewith.
By use of any Clerk of Court online system, the Registered User agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement.
The Registered User agrees that the electronic data, copies thereof, and information accessed pursuant to this agreement will be obtained solely for the Registered User’s use in the ordinary course of business and that Registered User shall not engage in the business of reselling data. Registered User shall not sell, mortgage, encumber, donate, give, assign, transmit, or transfer the electronic data or copies of any data obtained pursuant to this Agreement without the express written consent of the Clerk of Court.
Any document which may be filed by conventional filing may be electronically filed with the Clerk of Court unless otherwise required by law.
All pleadings or document to be filed in an action or proceeding instituted or pending in a court and all exhibits introduced in evidence shall be filed in accordance with Louisiana law.
If a document is electronically filed, the electronic document constitutes the official court record of said document.
Electronic filings will be accepted by the Clerk of Court in a pending matter regardless of the form of filing of previous or subsequent documents in a case.
Each Submission shall be in PDF format. Adopted May 12, 2025
Each PDF file shall not exceed the filing limitation of the filing software or system of the receiving jurisdiction and should have a resolution of a minimum of 300 DPI.
PDF filenames shall: a. Contain only alphanumeric characters which are part of the Latin1 General character set; b. Include no special characters. c. Be 50 characters or less.
Each PDF file shall be transmitted without any security feature restrictions such as password protections or encryption.
No Submission may contain package PDF files.
No Submission may contain PDF files embedded in PDF files.
No Submission may contain embedded multi-media video, audio, or programming.
The filer is responsible for all documents filed, and any fees or costs incurred.
The filer shall refrain from including, or shall partially redact where inclusion is necessary, any personal data identifiers from all documents electronically filed, including exhibits in accordance with Louisiana Law.
Submission of any pleading, document or exhibit filing constitutes a certification by the filer that the Submission complies with all applicable laws relating to the form applicable to documents filed in legal proceedings. (For example, where the law requires documents to be signed in ink, certified or notarized, the filer further certifies that all pleadings, documents and exhibits in the submission are unaltered copies of the original documents.)
Filer acknowledges a pleading or document filed electronically is deemed filed on the date and time stated on the confirmation of electronic filing sent from the system if the Clerk of Court accepts the electronic filing. The original of any filed document or exhibits shall be maintained by the filing party as required by law.
The Clerk of Court shall store and maintain all pleadings, documents and exhibits received electronically as required by law. Adopted May 12, 2025
Litigants and attorneys who file pleadings electronically, shall sign pleadings in accordance with law.
Signatures on an electronically filed document shall have the same legal effect as any signature(s) on a conventionally filed document as provided by law.
E-Filing will be available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, except on occasions when it is unavailable due to system maintenance and causes beyond the control of the Clerk of Court, including but not limited to power failures, force majeure, natural disasters, malfunction, and/or failure of equipment, program, or system. The Clerk of Court does not guarantee e-Filing will always be operable.
The Clerk of Court may reject an electronically filed document for nonconformance with this Rule or any other Louisiana law or Uniform Rule of District Court including insufficient advance deposit funds.
If an electronically filed document is rejected by the Clerk of Court, the filer shall receive notification of the rejection along with a reason for the rejection.
Registered Users shall comply with all applicable Louisiana laws and all Rules of Court, including but not limited to the following:
a. Username and password are to be kept secure and never be disclosed to any unauthorized user.
b. The registered user shall assume responsibility for those persons having access to the username and password.
c. Antivirus software shall be installed and maintained on all computers used to access the Clerk of Court Online System.
Civil E-Filing
E-Filing is now available for electronically filing civil suits.
RULES FOR CIVIL E-FILING
When signing up for Clerk Connect, please complete the account management info with your name and mailing address. We have to have your name and mailing address to properly credit your advance deposit. If you failed to fill in this info when signing up, you can update this by clicking your name in the upper right-hand corner of the Clerk Connect subscription page. You must fill out the “My Name”, “Account Name”, and “Mailing Address”.
PDF file formats are the only supported file formats at this time. Any other file types will be rejected and your submission will not process successfully.
Your PDF files should not be password protected. If you try to submit a password protected PDF, it will cause errors and your submission will not go through.
You may upload additional files as attachments to each document you are filing. Any fees based on page count will consider the attachments. For example, if your document is 5 pages and you add 10 pages of attachments, the fee will be calculated based on 15 pages.
You must indicate on Step 5 if service is needed.
The "Submitter Reference #" field is optional. This field has been designated for customers use as a means to track your submission internally within your organization. This field allows for input of numbers, letters, and special characters.
The "Notes" field is optional. Please use these notes as needed to relay any information you desire to the Clerk of Court staff to see during review of your submission.
Your credit card will be pre-authorized for an amount 20% more than the estimated charge to cover any corrections the clerk may need to make regarding your submission. If the final charges exceed your pre-authorized credit card amount, your submission will be put on hold, and you will be notified with instructions on how to enter a new payment.
Please note: there is a processing fee added to credit card transactions by the company that provides our e-filing program.
