e-Service via the e-Filing Portal – E-Mail and Certificate of Service Questions

I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from readers asking if there still need to do service by e-mail for a document being filed and served through the e-Filing Portal… The Supreme Court is expected to do an update to Rule 2.516, but who knows how long it will take… in the meantime, as long as you verify that the e-mail addresses you need to serve are reflected in the e-Filing Portal service list, then no, you don’t need to serve them by separate e-mail. I would strongly encourage that you DOUBLE CHECK the list against your existing service list to ensure everyone is accounted for. There are limitations in the e-Filing Portal service list as far as how many e-mail addresses you can serve, MAKE SURE everyone is on that list, if they aren’t – add them – if for some reason you cannot add them, MAKE SURE you serve them by e-mail.

Also, don’t forget if you are dealing with a Pro Se party you may still need to serve them in the usual way.

Additionally, your certificate of service may need to be updated… while there isn’t an official change to Rule 2.516 to address this yet, its also expected…  You could change the language to something along the lines of “I CERTIFY that the foregoing document is being served on [DATE] via an automatic email generated by the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal to: [service list].

The Florida Bar has a fantastic article addressing many of these issues which you can read by clicking HERE