Appellate crash: What we'd miss

If pop-culture entertainment is anything to go by, Americans really enjoy imagining post-apocalyptic scenarios. Part of the fun, perhaps, is to refocus perspective to better appreciate what exists now and contemplate what life would be like without it. The last installment of this column ominously concluded that at some point our state appellate court online systems are statistically likely to be attacked and possibly knocked offline. Last month's column also described cyberattacks resulting in downed appellate court computer systems in many places around the country, and the recent attack on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. If an attack were to happen to our statewide appellate system, what would we be missing? (Of course, a loss of service could happen for many reasons, not just ransomware attacks, and systems are taken offline periodically for maintenance.)

When LASC was working on getting its system back up, it created a portal for users to monitor 17 different public-facing court functions affected by the outage (e.g., online dockets, jury duty portal, etc.). The appellate court websites have at least that many useful functions. Let's explore them. This article will thus cover old news for appellate practitioners who are fully familiar with every nook and cranny of online appellate services; but those less familiar with what's available may pick up some valuable tips. Now is a good time for that exploration, given that the public-facing website was revamped and launched in May with a new user-friendly interface. (How many readers recall the original version, with the mustardy colored yellow background?)

To begin, the appellate websites provide basic information about the appellate courts: what they do, how they function, and their jurisdiction (e.g., if you're trying to figure out which appellate district covers a particular county). This is all appropriate for a website serving the general public, but lawyers want a lot more--and the websites provide it. The websites have profile material on every appellate justice (and former justice), including photos and short bios. The websites also provide links to recent court decisions, both published and unpublished. All websites also have calendars, showing which dates any particular appellate court will be in session. The Supreme Court's calendar also shows which dates the court will be conferencing.

On Tuesday afternoons, the Supreme Court's website posts Matters Scheduled for Conference, showing which pending petitions will have rulings after the Wednesday conferences, and Weekly Conference Results (and Weekly Case Summaries) are posted for each week going back to 2022. Briefs of Argued Cases going back to 2010 are available. A Forthcoming Opinions page also reveals what opinions will be issued each Monday and Thursday at 10:00 a.m.

The official Minutes of the Court are available going back three years, so one can see precisely what the court did on any given day. (For example, on my birthday last year, the court granted two extensions of time, granted an order for supplemental briefing, and transferred a case to the First District for reconsideration.)

The Pending Issues Summary page has current summaries of both civil and criminal issues pending before the court. Thus, if you wanted to know whether the Supreme Court was going to decide a case about Health & Safety Code § 1439.51--or any other statute of interest--you can easily find an answer.

The appellate websites also allow for watching live-streamed oral arguments, and the Supreme Court and many Courts of Appeal archive arguments for future viewing. The sites have current News and Announcements, and Self-Help Information. Of particular use to practitioners, the websites have links to judicial council forms, the rules of court, local rules, internal operating procedures, and administrative and standing orders. A Calendar page allows searching to see what cases have been calendared for oral argument on what dates. A Practices and Procedures page provides guidance on preparing and filing many types of documents, and provides answers to frequently asked questions. A Court Programs page provides information about court programs such as externships, court outreach, and settlement or mediation programs.

Drilling deeper into Case information, the website Welcome page (https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/) allows searching by court to find particular cases, allowing searches by appellate case number, trial court number, case caption, party name, and attorney (or law firm) name. See https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search.cfm?dist=0. Once a case is found, a universe of information unfolds. Every case has a Case Summary page, showing the caption, case numbers and court assignment, case type, filing date, oral argument date, and completion date. In districts with divisions, the division will appear. In the Second District, at the early stages of an appeal before a division is assigned, what appears is not a number but either the letter "p" or "a." Those are not divisions, of course. Instead, "p" means "pre-docket" (or "pending," as in "awaiting an assignment," which in civil cases occurs when the record or a substantive motion is filed). An "a" means that the case is ready for assignment, so the division number will appear soon.

The Trial Court page shows the case's underlying trial court details (court, case number, judge, and judgment date). Supreme Court dockets have a Lower Court page that shows both the trial court and appellate court information.

A Briefs page shows what appellate briefs have been filed. A Parties and Attorneys page lists the parties and their counsel (with address information). The Disposition page indicates information on the outcome: e.g., affirmed or reversed, on a particular date, in an unpublished or published opinion (with citation), and listing the authoring justice and other participating justices.

Even more useful is the Docket page, which shows every filed document in chronological order. This is the one to bookmark--with a simple click you can check an appeal instantaneously. The Future Scheduled Actions page (available on most, but not all, court websites) is also very useful, showing what the Court of Appeal expects to happen next (e.g., respondent's brief due on a specific date). Reading appellate dockets is not always simple; be sure to consult an appellate specialist for explanations of cryptic entries.

Now's a good time for a bit of a digression about reading appellate case numbers. These numbers begin with a letter that indicates the court: S stands for Supreme Court, A indicates the 1st District, B the 2d, C the 3d, D the Fourth District Division 1, E the Fourth District Division 2, F the Fifth District, G the Fourth District Division 3, and H the Sixth District. The six numbers following the letters sequentially progress as cases are docketed. When decisions are posted, there is sometimes a letter after the case number. M means "modified" (e.g., a new opinion after rehearing); N means a second modified opinion; A means an "amended" opinion either after a rehearing or after remand or transfer from the Supreme Court.

So far, all of this is information that users must "pull" from the websites by visiting them, but there is also a "push," feature: An E-mail Notification page allows signing up for emails from the court by simply inputting an email address and case number. This email notification does not cover every possible development, but it does provide alerts about the most important events: e.g., filing of the record, an extension of time, a brief, calendaring of oral argument, a disposition, availability of an opinion online, a remittitur, or a grant of review by the Supreme Court.

All of the foregoing electronic services are incredibly useful for handling an appeal, but none of them are truly essential. Remember, there was a long (antediluvian) time when appellate practice did not involve using the Internet at all. Information and documents flowed via phone calls, mail, and messenger services, and these methods are what courts have had to resort to when their systems crash. The most important--and tech-dependent--part of modern California appellate practice is e-filing. This takes us to a completely different computer system.

Unless a party is exempt, all appellate filings must be made using the TrueFiling electronic filing system. Unlike the court websites described above, TrueFilingTM is not a product of the California Judicial Council. Instead, it is a private company (ImageSoft--they really like embedded capital letters, apparently), based in Michigan, that--as enthusiastically explained on its website--"is every attorney's, clerk's, Judge's and self-represented litigant's one-stop-shop for 24-7 digital case filings. Developed in partnership with courts, for courts, TrueFiling is an intuitive foundation for electronic case management that seamlessly integrates with existing court case management systems to achieve a more efficient, paperless case flow." TrueFiling is used by courts in Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and, of course, California.

Thus, TrueFiling is a completely independent system that requires users to create an account to use. This also means that e-filing in California is not like federal court e-filing, where users directly access the court's system to file documents. Instead, TrueFiling is an electronic filing portal and California appellate e-filing is a multistep process: A document goes from (1) the lawyer's computer system to (2) the TrueFiling system, then to (3) a TrueFiling subsystem called OnBase. In OnBase, submitted documents are reviewed and either accepted for migration to the court's Appellate Courts Case Management System (ACCMS) or rejected. If rejected, a notice is sent from TrueFiling. OnBase serves as both the court's document management system and the archive for all case filings. Finally, accepted documents are transmitted to (4) ACCMS, where court clerks can docket the filing. If any one of these four separate systems gets hacked, the system breaks down.

As a for-profit company, TrueFiling has tremendous incentive to keep its systems secure and running. California's appellate courts are no less motivated to ensure that their websites and ACCMS run smoothly and safely. For this reason, the court has a detailed Continuity Of Operations Plan (COOP). Let's all hope we never have to endure any emergency that will require us to learn precisely what's in the COOP (e.g., how to return to paper filing, etc.). With any luck, the cyberpirates will remain cooped up or focused elsewhere. If any of our appellate systems are hit, however, you now know what services will fly the coop.