Filing

In civil procedure systems, filing rules can be mandatory . In a mandatory filing system, all documents of legal importance exchanged between the parties are also filed with the court, while in a permissive filing system, nothing needs to be filed until the case reaches a point where direct judicial management is absolutely necessary (such as the brink of trial).

  In contrast, the U.S. state of New York is known for its permissive filing system, which was modified in 1992 but still largely operates in its traditional form in certain lower courts.^[2]

Filing may also refer to submission of a form to a government agency, with or without an accompanying fee.

A newer phenomenon is electronic filing, in which lawyers simply upload Portable Document Format electronic documents to a secure Web site maintained either by the courtor by a private commercial service like This is convenient in that many courts can now accept filings at all hours, rather than only during regular business hours. Where e-filing is in effect, the filer is normally required to lodge a "courtesy copy" (that is, a conventional paper copy) at the chambers of the assigned judge by the next business day. The courtesy copy of the filing is merely used to decide the motion at issue and is discarded when no longer needed, since the electronic file is now the court's master copy of the case file.

A few progressive courts, such as the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, now work primarily with electronic files and have abolished the courtesy copy requirement for small filings below a certain number of pages.