Name: Demystifying State vs Federal Court Filing: A Core Step on the Litigation Pathway
Uploaded: 2026-03-19T19:16:07.020Z
Duration: 1 h 4 min 36 s
Description: Demystifying State vs Federal Court Filing: A Core Step on the Litigation Pathway

Transcript for "Demystifying State vs Federal Court Filing: A Core Step on the Litigation Pathway": Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. It's about 01:00 central, so we are going to get rolling here in a few moments. My name is Alex Braun. I'm the partnerships and ecosystem marketing manager at InfoTrak. And if you're not familiar with InfoTrak, we are, the complete litigation workflow automation platform that helps you file, serve, and sync documents to your case record. Today, we're gonna be, we're very excited to be presenting another episode of Paralegal Pathways, the, Paralegal Power Hour podcast or sorry, podcast, the webinar series hosted by Kelly Radnathy and Christine Castudios Suero. But, yeah, today in today's presentation, we are, looking forward to talking about demystifying state versus federal court filing. And, since in the spirit of all that, I'm gonna share a poll right away asking the audience where you do the majority of your filing, whether it's state or federal court. So I'll leave that up for for a few minutes as I kinda go over the the rules here. So as always, we we encourage a lot of participation in these events. We want you very active in the chat. So to help encourage that, we're going to be giving away three $10 Starbucks cards to the most active participants in the chat. To get these gift cards, you have to stay until the end of the session where we'll be announcing those top three. And just as a reminder, if you're not present, you can't win. Real quickly, I'm gonna also go over some of the controls here. So, if you are attending the webinar and you wanna participate, that chat panel I was talking about is gonna be default, your default panel on the right hand side. But you'll see you have some other options here too. You can also click the messages tab up top, to message anybody specific like, individually in the chat. If you wanna go back to any polls we've launched, you can hit the poll tab, and, we can keep that up for a little bit. And then, there's some supplemental documents that go along with this presentation that you can access in the docs tab. And we really encourage you, if you have questions for the speakers, to submit them in the q and a tab. We won't be able to get to them as you ask them, but we're gonna reserve some time at the end of the presentation for us to loop back. So anything that you wanna be shared with the speakers, put your questions in there. So, yeah, with that housekeeping out of the way, I will, turn things over to Christine and Kelly. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much, Alex, for that introduction. We are so excited to be here for episode two of the Paralegal Power Hour hosted by our fabulous partners, INNOTRAC. We are so excited to be here. As you know, Kelly and myself have done these presentations in previous years, and we're so excited for this year in 2026 for this very limited series. Right? We have a total of six. And for those of you who've joined us during episode one, you know that we kind of covered the state of the paralegal profession based off of a white paper that Kelly and myself were both paralegal educators and paralegal practitioners, that we had done a lot of research and collected a lot of data information about where we are as a profession, as an industry. And that white paper, which I believe is available in the docs tab today, kind of outlines where we are and where we're heading more importantly. Right? This is kind of a really unique time in our profession where we have technology, right, that is iterating so quickly and really having such great impacts on our workflows as paralegal professionals, and it is really exciting. Kelly and I like to look at it as, yeah, sometimes it can be scary, but we also invite it, to invite you to reframe it as an opportunity. Right? An opportunity to upscale, to learn, to, you know, even master, a new craft and really reframe your own career, which is part of this series. As Alex had said today, we are going to be discussing kind of this demystification on three areas, three broad areas. But today, we're focusing on this state versus federal court filings and especially those procedures that are very, very nuanced, jurisdictionally. Right? I myself am in California. Kelly is in Nevada, but we also are federal filers due to the nature of our work. And so that can cause a lot of confusion, right, when we are approaching our project plans, our workflows, etcetera. So in recapping, I want to, kinda go over what we're focusing on, not just in the series and today, but where we're really looking forward to in terms of, like, our sixth and final session this year in July. Because we're calling this the the it's the road to Nala. Right? Because we wanna see you in person in Denver, Colorado in July at the Nala annual conference because Kelly and I just realized that we're both gonna be there. And we think InfoTrak's gonna be there too, which is very cool. So you'll get to meet the people, the amazing people behind what powers paralegal power hour. So as I had said, we're exploring paralegal pathways. Right? Because a lot of us, folks like Kelly and myself, who've been in the industry for twenty plus years, right, Kel, that we are experiencing growth in our careers. And this pathway concept is our careers are not necessarily linear, and they're not just really kind of stagnant or capped out once we reach kind of the higher echelons, if you will, of the paralegal profession. But rather at this time, we're seeing opportunities on that pathway to grow into roles such as legal operations, management, in house opportunities. There are just a variety of pathways that we can take. And so with that said, I wanna see in the chat, you wouldn't wouldn't mind, I love asking this every session, how many years have you been in the profession? Are you a student? Are you still learning on your learning journey? I mean, we all are really. Right, Cal? We're kind of all in a lifelong learning journey. Are you kind of in your entry level in your first couple of years? Are you kind of like that mid person professional five to seven years? Are you kinda edging up into that senior paralegal role where you're, hitting like the, you know, nine nine plus eleven plus years in your career or even where you're like Helena and myself where you're hitting double, you know, the two decades now. So if you wouldn't mind, I would love to see who is here. And for those of you joining us again for episode two, thank you so much in investing in yourselves and joining Kelly and myself in exploring these paralegal career pathways. Also these, these durable skills that Kelly and I bring to all of our content, you know, in all of our speaking and teaching opportunity opportunities as well as, to really underscore that human centered practice. Right? Because a lot of this fear narrative that's going around from big tech and tech that's being foisted, you know, upon our workflows and, you know, how, we've heard from even big new media outlets where they're saying, oh, this AI is gonna decimate the paralegal profession. We're like, I don't think so. I don't think so. Because the practice of law is really still very much human centered and those inputs that the technology still requires even in the gen AI sphere still require human inputs and human judgment and validation in those processes, right? That human in the loop, human at the center of those workflows. So we wanna underscore that and really ground us in those key concepts as we move forward in our discussion today. And so for what we have been discussing, we wanted to remind you that you deserve clarity, right? Because that gives us confidence and competence in how we do our work, how we perform, right? How we are successful in our roles, right? You do not need to already know all of this. We don't expect you to be omnipotent. We don't expect that from you, but you need to be willing to learn and to be on this pathway. And we love that InfoTrack, again, really gives us this platform to have a community and to share ideas and information, especially when we are facing such quickness in the the development of the technology that we're facing. Cal, did you have anything else to add? And, Christine, thank you so much for, you know, starting us off on this, you know, great foot and also reminding us all that I think you say this said this before. We can't human, you know, take the human out of humanity. Right? Like, we have to keep the human centered in the delivery of our legal services, which means we have to keep the human involved in this technology as well. Right? But for some of us, clarity, confidence, competence kinda get muddy in that when we're dealing with new innovations and new tools that we know we need to implement in our pathway, but we don't know how to do it. So today, what you know, we're really applying these concepts, but we're really focusing on court filing because we know it's one of the highest anxiety workflows that we encounter in our profession. So with that being said, we wanna really kind of reflect on to begin with what is it that causes stress around this very simple, usually, should be straightforward, workflow? Well, this is a thing. You know? And the reason we wanna talk about this from a wellness scope is that there's factors of fear. There's shame. We're shameful. We're scared of making mistakes. Right? But any of us that have done any e filing, we know mistakes are bound to happen. But but that also causes us some pause beforehand because we don't wanna hit submit because we're terrified. We didn't do everything right. We didn't check off all the boxes. You know that perfectionist. Right? We are a field full of perfectionists. That's what the legal field is. And so when we think about that and how that perfectionist loop is actually slowing our workflows down and might be creating bottlenecks for us, which is, of course, increasing our stress levels. So if we can reduce that fear state a little bit, we alleviate some of the mistakes that are just happening simply because we're rushed, we're stressed, we're unprepared, or we feel unprepared. And because we feel unprepared, we feel rushed to get something done. So supportive tools that we might have, technology to really enable some of those efficiencies that we need to work in, this helps us alleviate the stress and, of course, also release some of the bottlenecking that happens in these daily operational tasks. Right? So when we look to partners, look to resources around us, partners like InfoTrack, right, who see our pain points, who see where the stress is really causing us pause in our workflows and creating deeper, further bottlenecks. They wanna help us. They wanna figure out a process and a routine that equals operational excellence because that's what we're all striving for. Right? So when we think about that, we look back and we say, okay. What is it that caused this stress? Right? Well, the rules vary greatly across jurisdictions. But, also, you know, there's people's lives at stake here. So a filing error could really, you know, destroy or damage a lot of different positions that as the operator, we may not understand. So one of those things in our ecosystem that we can really look to is looking at the training. Right? We need it to be practical. We need it to be applicable to what we're doing in our work day to day and helping alleviate the stress that those tasks actually put into our workload. So that workload pressure, all of I'm not sure if I'm just the one experiencing the gap there. just you. Okay. I think we did lose Kelly. I think she's on public Wi Fi, so she might have just hit a little bit of an interruption. I. don't know. Christine, if you wanna I do. over momentarily, we'll give Kelly a chance to rejoin. will certainly indeed. And I think I'll just pick up from what Kelly was talking about because, Okay. you know, just to alleviate some of that stress that can come from not understanding the rules because they may be as clear as mud. Right? Because the rules, again, as I had pointed out earlier, can really be nuanced jurisdictionally, not just by state, by county, by judge. So that can cause a lot of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and can be extremely problematic. And in some ways that we can alleviate some of that lack of clarity, right, is by templatizing. A lot of us already know this, right? We don't reinvent the wheel, especially if we're in a specific practice area. For myself, I am an ERISA paralegal. Most of my cases are filed in federal court. Many of you who've joined us before know that about me. I am a federal court junkie. I love it. Like, give me a mic about federal court, and I can go on for hours. Not that I will do that you today. However, I can because I love it so much, and I've learned so much in twenty years on how to kinda streamline and make myself more efficient because I'm a department of one as I have mentioned to you all. Right? We have very lean resources, and I have to be very effective in leveraging and optimizing those resources. So kind of allaying some of that fear is finding solutions. Right? And some of those solutions I had indicated would be, like, the templatizing and then also being very tech forward with quality control. We mentioned being, very much, partners with our technology companies because it only makes sense. When we can and I love this about InfoTrak that they give us opportunity to be beta testers. They actually seek our, the users, information, opinion, data, experiences, which is fantastic because we can tell them, hey. Guess what, InfoTrack r and d team? We have had issues with respect to x, y, and z. How can we trouble shoot this? Because when you put the seasoned paralegal workflow and mindset and experience, right, along with that technology, that is a beautiful thing. It's almost what I would say is magical. Right? Because you can really lean into those resources. And because they are validated and tried and true and trusted, we can really rely on that kind of second eyes and ears, if you will, on our workflows. For example, and I, you know, again, I always share this with a little bit of vulnerability because me too, right? When we talk about stress and anxiety, it happens. When I am suddenly, bing, now you're the state court paralegal, I'm like, okay. I'm the erst of federal court filer. Now I have to remember and, you know, calm myself and then put myself into that confidence mode where I say, I understand the state workflows. They are very much aligned with the federal workflows, but they are a bit, nuanced. So I have to, bring myself into my resources, my checklists. Right? Rereading the rules and making sure that I have tools that will help me understand what do those workflows look like and how did they change from my federal court practice, right, my filing procedures in federal court, now to state court, right, and kind of re centering myself around those procedures. So I know that I, when I was tasked just recently in the last month or so to file in probate court in Santa Barbara County. Anyone else failing me? Right? Going from federal court, Southern District here in San Diego, suddenly, they're like, here, we have a project for you, and it's in Parkway Court. And I'm sitting here pinging on text to, like, my whole, you know, twenty years worth of network, right, that I've compiled and aggregated over these years. And I'm like, can anyone help me? I have no idea. Talk about a fish out of water. I had no idea. I could read the rules, but these are things usually when the projects are given to me, I don't know if this happens to any of you, but they're given to me in a very compressed timeline. Let's say compressed. You know, where I have a very limited amount of time to get these things submitted and submitted right, And I don't really have anyone else on the team to assist, guide, or facilitate those workloads. It's kinda like figure it out. Right? And what Kelly says is, it's figureoutable. Hi, Kelly. You're back. So, I'm just kinda going on on what you had been sharing with everyone with respect to kind of allaying those fears. Right? And the stress and anxiety. And I I was sharing with everyone that I really, to our technology partners because they have, stop gaps or these fail safes, right, where they put these systems in. Where it's double checking your work using that technology that's embedded because they care about their users' experience. And they survey us, and they collect the data, and they improve. They're constantly improving their technology and dashboard and interface. And that's what I love about very forward tech forward companies that we partner with because it can really, one, allay those fears for myself when I'm moving from federal court to state court or vice versa. Right? And making sure that, oh, am I getting everything I need in order to get this project filed and this case facilitated. In probate court, because I had no clue what I was doing, thankfully, had two people in my network that kinda walked me through the process, but I also was using my info track. You know, my info track one legal is what I use in California, tech partner to complete that e filing. You know? And, I know that you've had issues like this yourself, Kelly, because you had to go from big law. Right? Your big, huge cases to a government situation where you're a little bit more lean, if you will, on resources. And when you are suddenly having to file in these state actions, because you're a federal court filer like me, especially in these larger, right, environmental cases that you've been on, etcetera. But when you have you had an experience like I have where you just suddenly been thrown into the deep end where you actually have to figure it out yourself? Oh, absolutely. And I you know, we laugh about it now because if we can't laugh about it, we would probably run fast from this profession. Right? And that's the thing. You know, we're constantly learning new things, that can help our colleagues out. So, you know, for me, it was, I was thrown into helping personal injury cases actually get pushed, towards the finish line. And a lot of our cases were going through LA Superior Court. And if anybody's really familiar with, the amount of litigation that our LA that the Los Angeles Superior Court holds, you will understand that they have, specific courts that handle certain areas of law. So in the personal injury, they have personal injury court. So you have a different court clerk that handles all the filing for your personal injury cases. And when you file something and it's not compliant for whatever reason, they send you a rejection notice with a stamp on it that just says your filing was rejected, and that's what you get. So the third party e filing provider sends you, emails you back that notice, but you don't have any information as to why your filing was rejected. And in order to get that information, you have to call the clerk's office. As you can imagine, in Los Angeles Superior Court, that could take several days to actually get through to somebody. And then they tell you, oh, it's, you know, some little detail. Like like you said, the line was, you know, 14 points away, and it should have been 12 points away. And it's like, oh my gosh. Really? You did you denied that. You rejected that simply because of this detail that literally has no no holding whatsoever onto what goes on in this matter. So a lot of times when we think about that, it causes stress. Right? I'm scared for this rejection to happen because how do I go how do I explain it to, you know, the attorney I'm supporting in this matter? But, also, how do we explain this to the client who now has to pay again, maybe those filing fees, the time for me, right, or the attorney to do this all over again? And is that you know, ethically, should we be really putting those costs and fees to the client when it was, in theory, our error? So this all causes a lot of stress for us, invisible stress a lot of times, and that's where we really get caught up a lot. And so, you know, how Christine's saying, we really have to lean in to those partners and resources around us because they are there. InfoTrack has done a lot of research and time into what are the pain points that these these offices are experiencing, and let's find solutions for them that doesn't increase their stress levels. So, again, really lean into those resources because without them, we we will be stressing out beyond belief. Keller, Right? looking at the chat, it's pretty funny because Kelly's like, Oklahoma is one of the only states that still requires the time it will take for you to get a rejection, to understand what the rejection was about, to refile this. Did this implicate anything such as a statute of limitations or anything of that nature? Problematic. Right? Like. really understanding, and I love I can't see it right now, but someone put in the chat that they really believe in this kind of lifelong learning thing. And just because you've been in the position the longest doesn't necessarily mean that you're the most equipped or knowledgeable, right, to provide that kind of guidance. So really understanding what resources are out there available to us so that can kind of, again, really, help us to deal with our workflows, especially in these changing times. But always to remember, you know, as we had said earlier, this human centered framing. Step away from that fear and shame. Look for curiosity, but understanding. When I had Kelly was kind of touching upon another rejection moment that I had too because it was a consolidation of cases in our state court. And I was like, okay, I've not done this. This is interesting. Let me look at the rules. So I pulled, you know, did my whole due diligence, pulled the rules of court, California rules of court, the local rules and the judge's rules. I'm trying to get myself situated, doing my little does anyone do this too for their attorney where you do a little memo to them and say, here are the procedural. Right? I wanna get a t shirt made, Kel, and I've been playing with you. Procedure is law. Procedure is law. I'm going to get a t shirt made up like that because guess what? Bad things can happen to your case when you don't follow the procedures. And guess what? There can be rejections on your documents. That happened in one of our cases where I literally saw how the rule said that when you're consolidating cases, it's now gonna be considered. And if the court allows for it, which I read and read case law that typically the court will allow for it, a judicial economy. So I was like, yay. This is gonna be easy. Oh boy, did I set myself up for that one. Because I created the caption sheet and did, you know, all my cases, and now the lead case is gonna be the lower numbered case and the subordinate case, the case that we're consolidating into that lower case in that particular department, also needs to be listed on there. It didn't say it needed to be listed directly following that lead case. It was on the caption sheet below it on the second caption with the second or the subordinate case caption information that was rejected. And I had no idea and I had to call and then of course our court hours for telephone are very limited now because budget, everything's kind of shut down or kind of, again, we'll say very, condensed, right, because of budgetary constraints. So I'm trying to figure out, like, what's going on? I follow the rules, and you're rejecting this. What is this? And I said when I finally got through the court clerk and they were asking their supervisor, I said, could you please just for my purposes of training and other folks who may encounter this and for the benefit? I have students that I train in introduction to law. This may be something that is instructed, a teachable moment for my students. Right? And where I can say, hey. Guess what? This is what I learned. It wasn't anywhere in the rules. And like Kelly said, is this really material to the case? Did it warrant rejection? Well, apparently it did in this particular department courtroom, right, in courthouse. So we refiled it, you know, obligingly we refiled it. It was filed and we're now moving forward. But just having that kind of information available, right, can be very, very helpful. But really for me, not having kind of like this whole, you know, judgy being judgy towards myself. Like, how would you not know that, Christine? You're twenty years into this profession. You know? And just talking to myself like that. But rather kind of saying, okay. What did we learn here? How is it that we can improve this going forward so that we don't have this, again, clear as mud, right, these rules that are in place where we we need to know in order to get these these filings completed timely. Right? And so no judgment language. No assuming that everyone just knows this. I actually had an attorney one time say this to me, Kelly. Don't know if this ever happened to you, but this was like many, many years ago, probably over ten years ago. Didn't you learn that in paralegal school? I wanted to say, and I held my tongue because I was like, when I, because I sometimes will get assigned to new attorneys, right? And what we call baby attorneys, the ones that are freshly graduated from law school, and they've done all the hard work, they've gone to law school, passed the bar, and then they come into the office and they're like, what's discovery? I've not prepared discovery. And I'm sitting here like, oh, You know, Did you could equally turn the tables and say, what did they teach you in law school? Right. You know, because it's kind of like, what do you mean you don't know how to prepare a instead of discovery requests? Well, let me show you the templates. Let's walk through it and then we'll go over the procedural aspect of it so that our project plan can make it very smooth so that we all know who are the key players. And this again goes back to what? This human centered framing tile of what? Being the project manager. Being the human in the loop, I am the one who owns, right, the facilitation of that case so that I am making sure that we are all functioning and flowing timely and efficiently and we all have access to what we need. Pardon me. Mistakes are learning data. Right? What I said, it's a teachable moment. We're humans. There's going to be errors. Hello? Technology has errors too. Remember the hallucinated cases that I talked about, especially that Avianca one in New York, the first one where the lawyer got zinged for the, case hallucinations, right, false citations in his case briefs in the federal court in New York. Right? So we can't just sit here and keep pointing fingers at everyone. It doesn't work. It doesn't it's not helpful. It's not productive. Let's figure out a solution and move forward, right, where we are too constantly iterating our workflows and processes. Asking questions. I say this to my students. I think you do too, Cal. Right? Ask questions until you understand. Right? Don't just sit there and accept it and ask because this is also what I teach my students when we go over the IRAC issue rule analysis conclusion, the framework of how we legal professionals, especially lawyers, are trained to think in legal problem solving, I say to them, you know what? You really have to think thoroughly and considerately through these issues that we're faced with. Be it substantive, be it procedural in nature, but questions. Being in a safe space where you can ask questions to get clarification, right, clarity in how these workflows are going to proceed. So essential. So, so essential. So that is a form of self advocacy, Right? Because you want to be a functional contributing member to your team. Right? And we want that operational excellence. We want that customer service. We want the customers and the clients to feel right? Because essentially, they are their clients. They're paying the bills. We wanna make sure that they are satisfied with our work product and that they will return to us and that they will even refer us. There goes my business development hat, Kelly. Sorry. I'm gonna get off my soapbox. But, you know, also confidence that you are competent. Trust your power. Trust your power. Trust yourself that you have invested the time and your experience and all of this knowledge that you acquired. Even if you're one year, because I saw, you know, when folks were answering how long they've been in the profession. Some as, you know, was new as one year and until, like, our territory, Cal, of over twenty years. So wherever you are on that pathway, we always have something to learn. Always be learning. That's what I tell my students. So. with And it's pardon me, Christina. I'm gonna jump on you there. It is so important. What like, the message that you're giving here, right, is that no matter where we're at in our career path, we are constantly learning. Right? And that that is key. We have to embrace that because if we don't, we will not succeed in all of these different jurisdictions that we have to learn something new and to operate within every single time we're there. And for us, you know, seasoned, legal professionals, we have it ingrained in us that we double, triple, quadruple check the loo the rules. Right? Not just the federal rules. Right? Those are pretty cut and dry, like, pretty understandable. But it's it's those more local rules, the the more nuanced or the chamber rules where where we really have to, sort of read between the lines and that costs stress in itself. Right? But we also have to be able to elicit the information that we need to give to the decision makers in order to proceed with our filing or our tasks. And so when we're kind of looking at the differences between our state and federal jurisdictions, we see that just that alone, right, just the ecosystem we're working within, also the layers of it add to our stress levels. So if we can start to understand and really reflect on what these differences are and why we have them. Right? So I'm gonna kinda focus on the state side of this, and Christine's gonna go further into this in the federal in a few minutes. But, when we're looking at the state courts, we see that every jurisdiction is really operating very differently. And for instance, in Nevada, we have a lot of rural jurisdictions still. E filing is not an option. It's not even a consideration. We literally still have to take a hard copy document down to the clerk. They stamp it. If we don't bring a copy, we don't get a copy of it. They're not gonna copy it and scan it and email it to us. That's not going to happen. And so when you have a lot of people that are just filing with the court and maybe don't have an attorney or somebody that knows the process, nobody's getting documents in the case. Nobody knows what's going on. Only the way the only way you'll find out what's going on in the case is if you call the clerk or you actually go down to the filing window and you ask, hey. Was this document filed in this case? So we see that's causing problems. Right? These procedural rules are causing a bottleneck in itself. So we're not even considering filing platforms right now. Right? We just have to figure out how to communicate what we need for our clients or our team, and the court is trying to communicate with us, but we're having this breakdown. We're like, back in the old days of, you know, send a letter on the back of a donkey. Well, that's, you know, causing us problems. And we're seeing that the terminology that each one of these jurisdictions is using maybe varies as well. I think Cheryl was say or somebody in the the messages, the chat here was saying that. Right? You call and you ask the clerk about something because in this one jurisdiction, they call it, you know, motion practice, and you need to reserve the hearing in advance. And the court clerk's like, hey. We don't do that here. What do you mean? Right? You pick a date and tell us when we need to have the motion right. So and knowing all of those the terminology and the differences. Right? What are the mechanics of service? What is the process serving requirements in this jurisdiction? And neighboring jurisdictions vary greatly. So how do we do that? Well, for me, I know I've leaned on partners like InfoTrak to be like, hey. I need to serve somebody in this rural county in a state I've never practiced in. I'm gonna rely on you for your expertise and the mastery of what you've done there, partner, InfoTrak. Thank you. And then I can really focus on what the judge specific preferences are in that jurisdiction because I've partnered with somebody who excels in the service space, and I feel confident and competent in that. So in state court, it is almost essential now as a modern paralegal that we rely on the resources that are on our periphery in order to make things happen efficiently. And because of that, it's allowed us to really curate this perfected workflows for our federal court support. Right? Because we want that to just flow easily as opposed to knowing that in the state court side, we have these layers that we have to get in order every for every single filing, for every interaction with the court because it's always different in each jurisdiction. Whereas in federal court, Christine, I think you're gonna go into this a little bit. Federal court, we have this consistency. We have a standard that applies across the jurisdictions, and that helps us stay in the lane for our practical application of what we're doing. So, Christine, what what would you say are kind of the biggest differences that you see on the practical of things between state court and federal court filing? Well, I want you to look in the chat or two. You see this? We are not you are not alone. We are not alone. Look at this. I'm not even kidding you. Cheryl brought it up first. Right? Because she was like, look what happened to me in a district that we don't particularly know very well because we don't practice primarily in that area. You know, you call you finally have to get through the clerk. And like you said, Cal, with motion practice, they're like, what are you talking about? You know, it's clearly posted, you know, on our website or the judge's rules. No reservations needed. And let me tell you. Let me tell you. It does vary because we do some southern district federal court here. We do some, Central, which is in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. And even the judges at one time when I did a memo, you know, the cop, I sound like that. One time, I think the one time I did a memo, okay, for the lawyers, and I said, look. This judge on his rule says right here, I copied and pasted it in the email because I just do memos via email now, not formal. And I said, look at this. It says, if you do not file, you're filing by 5PM. It's late, not going to be accepted. And I said, don't wait until 04:30 to give me something because I have to do my due diligence and run through the, you know, making sure I'm got eyes on it. I'm site checking. I'm making sure it's all formatted properly and in accordance and compliance with the, you know, federal rules, the local rules, and then the judge's rules and every rule, you know, and I have to do that in thirty minutes. Come on. Let's be a little bit more realistic here. I mean, I can. I can, you know, when push comes to shove. However, that's not really a great workflow. Right? Because we wanna build in this cadence, this way that you fluidity that we work with each other. Right? It's like a dance. We make sure that we are, in lockstep with one another so that we have this beautiful work product that's going to be stamped with a chef's kiss and seal of approval. Right? We wanna make sure that our work product is solid. And so, this is why it's very important, one, to always make sure that you're looking at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, and you're snooping around and checking and don't discount the power of your community and network because you're like, hey. Anyone else, the federal court filer or state filer, Are there any amendments to the rules? Anyone know of any classes that are going on where you can give me kind of like a rundown cheat sheet, you know, to tell me about like what are these rules and how do they maybe impact my workflows and how I can embed that. Because here's the thing too, because we have rules based calendaring. Do I trust that 100%? Oh, oh, no. No, no, no. Why? Because I know that it's failed me once and that had scared me to death and I was like never again. And so I'm double checking the technology and I'm like, oh no, no, we're not playing this game because we wanna make sure that we are, because ultimately who signs that attestation that when they are barred and admitted to that that jurisdiction, that court, right, to practice? That's the lawyer. And that trickles down to us as the support professionals. Right? The learned experienced support professionals because we supposedly know these procedural rules. That is the attestation the attorney say when they are admitted to practice before that tribunal. They say, yes. I have read and am familiar with these rules of this court. Right? And so that means we have to figure it out. And sometimes, yes, that means calling the clerk because, again, the rules are as clear as mud. Right? And we don't know what to do. And we and, yes, I see that chat in there too because that's happened to me. We can't give legal advice. Well, it's a thing called ex party communication because there's fair play and we can't give one side, you know, a tipped advantage over the other. So I get it, but at the same time, when it is problematic to the procedural workflow, that that is of concern, you know, because how are we supposed to figure it out? Just wing it and then pray that we don't get a rejection and then when we do, redo it until we figure out what it was if we are lucky enough to get more than a one liner on the rejection reason. These are the kinds of things where it's really instrumental not only to, yes, we must lean into our tech partners, but also your community. Right? And then I tell my students this when I start going into the because I teach civil litigation within my introduction to law class because I'm extra like that. I tell them. I say, look. When we get into this trial preparation and presentation, I said, eight weeks throughout the entirety of the case. We are not being overly friendly. We're being professional, but we are keeping a nice professional relationship with the clerk. Why? Because when I have to go in and do tech spec layout and do all the mapping and tech and everything for my trial presentation so I know what's available, what are we gonna use, what's plan b and c and d in case the tech fails. Right? Because, oh, yeah, I've had to use Elmo, not the cute, fluffy red animal. Right? No. The camera, you know, where we are the the the court camera where we've had to resort to Elmo because we're like the tech field. We can't do our fancy bells and whistles presentation. Man, I am like on my soapbox today, Kelly. But here, let me get back to the point with regard to these common themes that we see in federal practice. I told you, give me a mic and forget it. I'm gonna talk to you for hours about federal court practice. I don't want this to be a complaint session because I want it to be something where we can actually learn. This is instructive. We can take away. We can inform our tech partners, and and then we can also inform each other. And this is what's so wonderful, and I'm so thankful to Alex and team and Lindsey and Sophie and everyone on our team that's, you know, powering this Paralegal Power Hours because they give us a platform to communicate with one another and to share these things, right, These tidbits of invaluable information because then you become the indispensable rock star of your team. Right? Because you know you know those nuances of those tricky, you know, judge's rules or the departmental rules and the local rules and then, of course, the the larger, court rules. So or the, rules of civil procedure. So, yes, what I prefer, okay, and I'm no shame to the state court practitioners, but I love federal court filing. Why? Because it's clearer. I won't say it's crystal clear. Right? I won't say that, but I will say it is clearer because they spell things out for you. One of my peeves, I don't know if anyone else feels me on this, but we get a scheduling order in federal court. Yay. They put an order together and they give us the deadlines. And you know what? In state court, oftentimes, not all judges do this, but oftentimes, I get it, the dreaded per code. Oh, that is just so annoying to me because I'm just like, man, this rules based calendaring system better work, but I'm gonna spend time, you know, double checking those deadlines because we have to know nuances like, oh, that MSJ date doesn't move even though the trial gets kicked out. And how many times has your trial gotten kicked out, Cal? Oh my gosh. We've had to. get right? We've had cases on the books for, like, years. There's no fast track anymore, you know? I remember when they tried to do that in San Diego and they're like, we're gonna do this fast track system, get you in and out in a year, and we're like, yeah, that's not really gonna happen because it's so backlogged, you know, because we're like, well, this is gonna be an attempt in futility. Let's see if this works, you know, and again, it's because there's so many variables that are impacting that. There's a lot of and Kelly and I are very passionate about this with access to justice issues, which results in self represented litigants, right, which also contributes to these backlogs and the court's adjudication of matters. There's various issues too with respect to budgetary constraints with the court where they're running lean too. Right? And so there are a lot of variables that impact this, but that centralized rules, at least that is something that I can look forward to. The federal rules of civil procedure, my local, you know, Southern district rules, and then the departmental rules. But then I have two judges. Right? Then I have the presiding and the magistrate. So I'm constantly keeping track. Right? I feel like I'm that person. Have you seen that hell where they're spinning the plates? That feels like me. Like, I'm constantly trying to figure out, like, what is going on? And I have multiple cases in different venues. So I'm constantly having to figure that out. So I really, really lean into my technology and resources to assist my practice in that way. That CMECF, right? That's the equivalent of your e filing platform, your selected electronic service provider, ESP and state courts. Because sometimes they do have that free version, which is so clunky, or they have these other options where they are court approved electronic service private providers such as OneLegal, InfoTrak. Right? These are folks that we are a trust in utilizing their platforms to get our work done. These standardized procedures, formatting and service, and also electronic communication because you have to have a really good reason not to e file in federal court because it is, like, compulsory at this point. Right? I'm gonna say mandatory, but they they can't really make it mandatory and self represented litigants. Right? Or certain you know, if there's a barrier or some something that is of good excuse, right, or reason to the court to permit that outside of, you know, their, CMECF, which is case management, electronic case filing system. And so, all of us across the country who are federal court filers are very accustomed that and I can move easily and seamlessly typically from like California's federal courts to another state's federal court system. But yeah, I would definitely underscore this. Federal court emphasizes precision and consistency. It really I in in my practice and observation at least, I've seen that we have more efficiency, like the case is more streamlined in the way that it is adjudicated and heard and even the timeliness. Although I have seen a little bit of time delay in booking some of our motion hearings, I have seen in state court where some of the motion hearings can't even be booked for six months out. I was like, oh, this is starting to look like the healthcare system. You know, where you're trying to get a doctor's appointment and they're like, oh yeah, it's March. We have an availability in August. You're like, okay. So what happens in the interim when we have this very important issue that we would be bringing before the court with respect to by way of emotion? Right? So, you know, again, just that to me with respect to federal court filing, Cal, it's going to be that kinda, more clear and, more consistent in the procedures. You know, and I Christine, I love that you brought that up and kinda centered on that point because I also work in federal litigation in in the federal courts. But we handle inmate litigation, which are federal civil rights and constitutional claims. And because these the plaintiffs in these matters are usually incarcerated individuals, They don't have access to, you know, printers or the efilings or any of those things. So the burden lies on defense counsel in order to give you know, provide these documents. So when we're talking about efilings and and, you know, access to the information that's held within the court's docket, right, the federal court's docket, and as the professional who knows how to utilize that, it's very beneficial for me, but I have to make, accommodations for our opposing party because they don't have access to those resources. So when we start thinking about different areas of law, even in the federal court practice, right, in in procedures, in the consistency looks different when we talk about different kinds of actions. And we see that playing out in the chat, right? Somebody talking about bankruptcy and I'm like, Did my gosh, you see somebody just say they might? pigeon? Cal, did you see. that? So we referred to it as sending the carrier pigeon. I love our people. Humor, Totally. it gets us through the day. Right. I mean, and it's true. Like, if we couldn't laugh about some of these things, we you know, it would be detrimental to our careers, and to our teams. Right? So it's really interesting when we look at it. Yes, we can narrow the states. Right? So even using the example of Nevada, I'm twenty five minutes from the border of California, which means in almost, you know, half or more of our cases, we're contemplating both jurisdictions, procedural requirements, also rules of practice. Right? And again, like I've said earlier, we may not even be utilizing e filing. So we have to know how to navigate in all of those different spaces, delays, bottlenecks, understaffing, overworking, under resourced, right? The courts look different in every single area. So how do we get ourselves to actually being streamlined, right? Especially when we don't know what we don't know, right? And you think about that, how Christine was talking about this access to justice. We're very passionate about this. But how does somebody who's seeking asylum, how does somebody that's seeking immigration know where to go for this information? Right? So access to resources in highly politicized spaces is also an issue. Right? And that can help us to understand the picture of what we need to look for to help clients get to a place where the workflow serves them. Right? And that's where these efiling partners, these these people on the ground, the organizations on the ground like InfoTrack, right, trying to figure out how we make our work better and increase our efficiencies. Right? So, Christine, how do you what do you use, your workflow mapping to help in the filing space? Right. And thank you for that, Cal. And what I referred to it earlier as is my project plan. Because I'm constantly even if it's not necessarily written out, I'm mapping. I'm constantly mapping from the very moment I am assigned a case. I'm already, like, going through my little checklist in my head. Like, is there a statute of limitations that I need to be concerned You know, like or is there something that where are the immediate deadlines, and how do I need to get that on one on calendar and get ready and prepped? Am I doing all of my back end research that I can start drafting, or what do I need to do to get the case prepped so that we are ahead, right, of those deadlines? So that intake or that document preparation process or that that piece of that process is of mission critical importance. Right? We need to make sure that if the mission is to make sure that the client's case is moved forward and progressed timely and efficiently, that I'm doing that very that my due diligence in that intake and document preparation process happens at the get from the beginning. Right? I'm already scoping and figuring out, okay. Let me pull all the rules. Let me do my memo. Let me look at all the documents. I'm gonna do analysis on it. Like, if we're plaintiffing a case, I'm looking at what are the claims. Right? What are the causes of action that we're alleging against the defendant? Where is that evidence gonna live? I'm already you know what, Cal? In the first phase or milestone of my case planning or this work filing workflow map, I'm even already starting to look at the at trial. And I'm like, oh, where's the evidence? Where does it live? How do I track that evidence? You know, I'm already that prepared because I know we're this is not the the systems are tried and true, and they're going to, they're going to, replicate. Right? And so, in all of our cases, we can use these templates to help us along and facilitate our cases, but also that that process. Though there are nuances within the departments and the different courts, when you attack those early, that can really help your workflow. Right? And making sure, like, when you have enough time buffered into your process for these finalization of documents, right, these formatting things, oh my goodness. When I have motions for summary judgment, that's where I'm like and the attorneys bless their hearts. They try to do a lot of the, word processing, and they don't know all of the tools that I know have been trained on with respect to, like, these mac rows and codes where I can actually embed on the back end. Like, got assigned oftentimes, have what we call local council in other jurisdictions. Like, for example, I worked with someone in Illinois, and he was not familiar with our rules here in California. And so he would send me his content, and he would try to, you know, format it. And I said, please just send it to me raw. It's much easier if I format it on my end, on my templates where I have these codes embedded. Right? So that I can run tables of authorities. I was gonna use my acronym TOAs and TOC's table of contents because oftentimes these federal courts, anything over 10 pages requires those table of contents into table of authority. So for folks who still manually do that, don't do that. Learn the way. Learn the way. This is not the way manually doing things anymore because it can just be infuriating, one. And two, mistakes. And three, there's no need. There's technology that can really do that for you. And so that attorney, I still am convinced that he thinks I'm magical. And you know what? He even told my attorney. He said, you know what? She's really good. And I'm like, well, this is twenty years of practice makes progress. Yeah. Because I have been practicing for twenty years on how to get it right and get it done efficiently, but also the signature and exhibit assembly. Think about those witnesses, right, Cal? Oh my gosh. If you have to get signatures on declarations and things of that nature, is your client or witness available for that? And verification, Right. someone was talking about discovery. That's adjacent in a whole another conversation in and of itself because it's outside of the filing filing procedures, right, requirements of our cases. But discovery is where we spend most of our time as paralegals. So that and then those suddenly will, result in, like, motions to compel and other related procedural filings. So that is something to think about. Right? This e filing submission, review and quality control, confirmation and acceptance, this is where we, every milestone in that procedural workflow map, right, Cal, we are the ones who are making sure and doing this what we call QA and QC, quality assurance and quality control at every single step. And then also calendaring next steps. When I was training with someone that was working with me, I said, this is what we call closing the loop. We are always looking for the next triggering event or action item. What happens next? Because we don't just put it in the file and leave it be. That's not how the cases work unless they are dismissed or settled. Right? And then sometimes those even come back. So, you know, we we really have to be mindful about that filing workflow map. But, you know, like you said, Cal, working with our technology partners on these common causes of filing rejections. Right? And this is very useful because people that are, you know, like the InfoTrax of the world, they do collect this information, like, where are these rejections coming from? And then they try to, again, improve their processes, how they are assisting us in technology to go through our cases and our checklist, if you will. So when you have and I don't know if some of you on today have the the integration where I think InfoTraC embeds into, like, Clio or other other law practice management software. But the manual data entry, if you can do it once and do your due diligence and check and make sure and QC on that end, and that is where everything is used to populate your templates, populate, you know, these electronic filing platforms, that can really mitigate that, can't it, Cal? Because we're not manually entering, manually entering and there's a fat finger thing going on, you know, or you misread something or you copied and pasted and pasted the wrong you know what I mean? Like, that is something that we definitely, definitely need to pay attention to is the things like the incorrect case number or even caption or the wrong court or division. There's a missing signature or attachment. Right? There may be fee issues. What if there was a fee that was required to be filed with that? You know, and there's those fee schedules that they are posted on the court's websites and you weren't aware because they do it differently in that particular court or superior court. So that could be problematic in your case, right? Also the wrong document type. Are you trying to file something that is not acceptable? And some federal courts get very specific about the way that you're formatting those PDFs. Is it a certain type of PDF? Are there hyperlinks within that? You know, are you, including, like, bookmarks? What are the requirements of that court and of that department, right? And so of course, looking at even like the page limits, right? Is this permissible? If they say 25 pages or 20 pages max, don't be trying to squeeze in, you know, and mess with the font, and then you're not in compliance with the font and, you know, other requirements for pagination, etcetera. That could be very, very and plus that looks really doesn't look really well on the person, the practitioner that's filing that. Right? Because it doesn't show that you can really pull over rules, which really, you know, we don't want to have that kind of, we don't wanna have that kind of, reputation. Right, Tom? Well, great. And yeah. I mean, it's funny that not funny, I guess, but understanding that, you know, all of those layers that Christine was just talking about, advocating for ourselves and positioning ourselves as sort of that subject matter expert on our team. Right? And if we implement and integrate ourselves at the front end, so think about early case assessments, how we're doing issue spotting at that front end, and we can utilize that space to really look at, well, what evidence do we need to win a trial? And when we're planning for trial, we're also planning for appeal, right? Like what Christine was saying, we're planning for the next steps. So if we have safety nets that are gonna help keep us all like, considering all of these moving parts, the checklists are our number one default tool. And that's something across the board I think you're gonna see from all legal professionals. Right? We have checklists for a reason. They are a safety net to make sure we don't miss any of those little details that are gonna get overlooked at times. Right? We standardize the naming convention. So we don't have people just naming things willy nilly, and then we can't find it when we have two minutes to actually get the thing filed before it's gonna be late. Right? We actually implement peer reviews and accountability checks, quality control, quality assurance right into our workflows. So it's not an added step that we have to have in the end. It is part of our process to begin with. Those templates, like Christine was saying, right? We utilize these tools to populate automatically our templates based off of a program that the data entry also said, oh, wait. I think you spelled this name wrong. Oh, wait. You put in a different client matter number. Did you need to do that? Right? It's telling us ahead of time before there's an issue. And what that helps us with is we know where to go to contact the clerk, right? We don't have to go in a million different places because it's always the same place we put that information for every single case. And the same with judges, right? When we know we're working within this certain chamber, we have trial in front of a certain judge several times a year. We keep a library of the information we need, and we share that with everybody that needs it. Right? And this is where these resources, our best practices, we have to dialogue about this with our colleagues, with our teams, because we have to understand that these innovations, these tools, these technologies that are coming to us, it doesn't substitute the human judgment needed. But what it does is it creates efficiencies for us so we can actually apply our judgment efficiently and effectively. Christine, is there something on here where you're like, what do you think is your best resource, I think we need merch. I think we need merch, Kelly, because I just thought of another T shirt. Keep calm? and paralegal. I'm just saying. And you know what? My god. InfoTrak. You're welcome. You should have merch for all this. Right? Keep calm and paralegal. Right? Because we are the calm in the eye of the storm. It's not helpful when everyone's a mess and in chaos mode. It's not helpful. Right? The goal is not perfection. It is calm and ethical action, human centered. And with that, Kelly, we thank you. And on behalf of Kelly and myself, we thank you so much for sharing your time today and investing in you. We really hope that you will join us for our next episode three following this demystification content and series. Right? And, I will turn it over to Alex to kind of wrap us up here, but we thank you again. Right? You are capable. You deserve clarity, training, and support. Please do reach out to us and stay connected. All right. Thank you, Christine. You should have just seen a survey launch so you can kind of provide your feedback on the session for Christine and Kelly. They definitely brought it today. Very passionate about this topic. So, yeah, I also did mention wanted to leave some time for q and a, and I do see that we have a couple oh, a few session a few questions that popped into the chat. So give you a moment there with a survey. I believe I can leave it up, you can if you flip to the q and a or once I once I launch some questions, it should load up in one screen. You should be able to go back to the survey if you want to. But, please do fill fill that out. I'm gonna get right to the questions, and, let's start from the, beginning. would it be helpful if I stop sharing the screen, or should I just leave this, up so people I grab I should be able to take it over straight away. Okay. So there we go. good. Cool. I think we're good. Yeah. So first question for Vanessa is, is it normal in most states that you have to prepare the proposed order for the judge? Yes. Yes. And yes. I'm just gonna say yes. And it it's because, the the courts what I think this is just my opinion. But I think it's because the courts often are understaffed or under resourced themselves. And so some of these things, they want the parties to actually iterate the terms that they need for the judge to make a decision on. So a lot of times, those types of operational necessities are pushed back on counsel or the parties involved. Christine, is that the same idea you have there? Yes. And they want it usually in some word or editable format so that they can edit it. Right? Because we just give them basically the bones of. what we are asking for relief. Yep. Okay. Great question. Next question from Alicia. I can take this one. Is this session qualified for CLE? No. Unfortunately, this one is not, CLE eligible. We will have, a bunch of CLE eligible, sessions at LegalUp, which is a conference virtual conference we have in, May, so we'll be sending along some information about that if you're looking to pick up some CLE. I will move on to the next question from Brandy. Do you have a federal court checklist that you can share with us? That is a great question. I can probably dig out one of my existing templates that I share with my students and share that out. That can be something that we can do through info tracking and send out resources after today's session. Awesome. Great idea. Yes. I one I can add to that too. We do a back end once. You take your trial date, and it builds back a hundred and twenty days in a spreadsheet for you. So we'll happily share that those resources. Now remember, that's with the caveat that you're gonna check with your local court and your court steward. Right? I feel like one of those infomercials. Caveat, you have to. check where you're? situated in the rooms. Alright. I love it. Cool. These are great. questions. think that's it. for questions. Our other question was more of an answer to the proposed order one, so, we can probably end there. But I just did wanna mention that we are, now two episodes in our twenty twenty six Paralegal Power Hour schedule, building up to the NALA conference in Denver in July. So, don't miss the opportunity to register for the other sessions. We got four to go. And to do that, look at that pin chat up at the top of the the chat area. If you go to the Paralegal Power Hour website on infotrack.com, that's where you're gonna be able to register for all the upcoming sessions and get any downloads related to to the previous episodes and recordings of the previous episodes if you missed those too. So don't forget to bookmark that page. And, I think. that we doing any giveaways this session, or are we gonna hold that till. next? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes. We we we just, do have three, I. gotta look out for my peeps. And, yes, thank you for for reminding me. Okay. So I'm gonna load this up. We had a lot of people who were close, and I will remind people this is not scientific by any means. But our three winners, I will post in the chat right now as Vanessa oh, she didn't really post the way I wanted them to, but as Vanessa, Cheryl, and Andrea are our three winners for this session. I know a lot of people were very close, so don't forget to register for the next session. We'll be giving away more next time. Definitely want to, want to congratulate everybody for their participation in the chat. This was awesome. Very lively discussion. And, Agreed. yeah, that's about it. Thanks so much for attending today's session. Have a great rest of your week, and I hope to see you all next month. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone.