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Attorney Case Opening

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