Electronic civil case opening allows attorneys to open and file most civil cases via CM/ECF by populating information from the Civil Cover Sheet, rather than filing the documents in case 33-1. Please ensure that you meet the following requirements before opening cases in CM/ECF:
- The attorney has a valid CM/ECF login and password for the District of New Jersey;
- The attorney has the ability to pay filing fees online via credit card through pay.gov (unless no fee is required);
- The attorney is a member of the District of New Jersey bar.
IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS:
Step 1: Review the Attorney Case Opening Guide and Guide to Searching and Entering Parties, and
Step 2: If you do not see the attorney case opening links in CM/ECF, log out, clear your browser by clearing the browser cache and deleting all temporary files before reaching out to the helpdesk.
Help-Desk Information:
- Camden 1-866-726-0726
- Newark 1-866-208-1405
- Trenton 1-866-848-6059
- or write to ecfhelp@njd.uscourts.gov
Attorney Case Opening Procedures & References:
- Review the Attorney Case Opening Guide before opening a new case electronically, to assist with case opening and to avoid common case opening errors.
- Review the Guide to Searching and Entering Parties to assist with proper techniques and tips for enting party names into the CM/ECF database.
- When opening a new civil case electronically, prepare all case initiating documents and complete a Civil Cover Sheet before starting the case opening process:
Attorney Case Opening Sample Workflows