No Strings Attached - eFile with Rapid Legal in These California Courts
As always, the great state of California is ahead of the curve when it comes to innovations and technology. In this case, it’s electronic legal document filing — there are a number of courts in California that no longer require documents to be delivered by hand.
The New Normal
The push away from physical court filing is nothing new — it’s well-publicized that electronic court filing (eFiling) has become the preferred or even mandatory method for filing court documents. However, once this ball gets rolling, it’s going only going to pick up speed. Sooner or later eFiling is going to be the rule instead of the exception, and at that point you’re going to need an expert with plenty of experience in meeting these electronic document filing standards.
Start becoming prepared for the change today. Rapid Legal is the natural choice — we were there at the very beginning of the eFile movement, and we’re proud to have been an early adopter. We’ve developed the skills and the expertise to provide aid in eFiling in 36 of California’s counties, and we’re adding more all the time.
Counties Where Rapid Legal Can eFile for You
The list of where Rapid Legal can provide your legal office with eFiling services is expansive. Here are the counties our comprehensive electronic document filing systems service:
- Alameda
- Butte
- Calaveras
- Contra Costa
- El Dorado
- Fresno
- Imperial
- Kern
- Kings
- Los Angeles
- Madera
- Mariposa
- Mendocino
- Merced
- Monterey
- Napa
- Nevada
- Orange
- Placer
- Riverside
- San Benito
- San Bernardino
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- San Luis Obispo
- San Mateo
- Santa Barbara
- Santa Clara
- Santa Cruz
- Sonoma
- Stanislaus
- Sutter
- Tehama
- Tulare
- Yolo
- Yuba
Rapid Legal is a certified Electronic Filing Service Provider (EFSP). Rely on us to eFile your California court documents quickly, accurately, and as painlessly as possible!
Wrap up
How do you choose the right attorney service provider? It’s important to ensure that you choose the best company for your needs, as it has to be able to provide you the quality level of filing and serving services that you, as a legal professional, require. This can easily become an exhausting process.
For a closer look at how Rapid Legal has both the skills and the expertise to provide you the court eFiling, physical filing and process serving services you require, check out our complete offering.
It’s All Local To Us — Rapid Legal’s No-Boundary Legal Services
Whether you need a process server to drop off paperwork with someone across the United States or just file your legal document in the court before the end of the day, Rapid Legal is the expert in providing no-boundary legal support services.
Whenever, Wherever, Whomever
When we say it’s all local to us, we mean it. No matter what you need done, the only step you need to take is to upload your documents to our secure servers. Our California court filing services mean never having to worry that your courier gets your documents to the court clerk in time. Meanwhile, our process serving is 100% nationwide, so you can just leave it in our hands and we’ll handle it for you. Whether you need service of process down the street, across the state, on the opposite coast, or anywhere in between, we’ve got you covered.
How does Rapid Legal manage to provide such no-boundary legal services? It’s because we work smarter, not harder. We’ve been on the forefront of electronic document management for a long time, and we’ve learned how to leverage technology to help legal professionals save both time and money. This has enabled us to provide not only nationwide service of process but also our comprehensive legal document filing service for courts across California, both for courts who accept electronic filing (eFiling) and those who require physical document delivery. We’re quick, we’re accurate, and we’re reliable.
Wrap up
Here at Rapid Legal, years of experience, combined with cutting-edge electronic records management technology, have come together to create a perfect storm of efficient, courteous, and affordable service. Never struggle to get your documents filed or served again.
Common Reasons For Court Filing Rejections - And How To Avoid Them
You’ve done your due diligence. You’ve dotted every I and crossed every T, proofread it what seems like a dozen times, gotten it into the proper hands well before the deadline — and still, the court rejects your filing. What gives? What are you doing wrong?
The truth is that court filing rejections are much more common than you think. Every instance is different, but here are just a few of the most common reasons the court might reject your next filing.
Wrong Case Number and/or Location
It’s important to note that the case number of the filing appears in multiple locations – the filing itself and on the document. If even one of these numbers doesn’t match the other, the court is going to reject the filing. Yes, even if the case number on the filing is the correct one.
Meanwhile, another very common mistake is to file your documents in the wrong court altogether. This is less of an oversight issue, considering the relative complexity of the court system. However, there are some tools out there to prevent this from happening. If you’re filing a new case in Los Angeles, for example, you can check the Filing Court Locator before you submit the documents. A simple ZIP code check can save you or your firm some serious time and/or money.
Faulty Documents
Beyond issues like incorrect case numbers or literally filing the documents in the wrong court, there are plenty of other mistakes that can result in a rejection. Legibility is a major concern, and it’s something that comes up increasingly thanks to the transition to electronic submission. Issues like improper scanning, submitting in an incorrect format, or not including required file attachments can all be the kiss of death for eFiled court documents.
Of course, there are plenty of other issues that can cause a rejection — ones that aren’t necessarily caused by electronic document delivery issues. Filling out a court form that’s old and obsolete isn’t going to win you any fans with the court clerk, and neither is leaving any of the documents you submit without having the proper signatures on them.
Some of these issues can be fixed simply through higher levels of diligence. Others are more technical, especially when it comes to scanning documents – ensuring you’re saving scanned docs in black and white, that these documents are being scanned exclusively in PDF format, and making sure your printer settings are set to a resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi) can all make scanned documents clearer and easy to read.
Court Filing Rejections are Not Cost-Effective
There’s no arguing the point that having court filing rejections are costly. The time wasted in preparing these documents, only to have to prepare them again, means less time spent on other, possibly more important matters; the financial cost is also significant, considering that you’ll have to pay even more filing fees to re-submit.
What you need, of course, is a more cost-effective solution. Let’s face it: your lawyers and support staff are already working at full capacity. That’s why these filing rejections happen, as no one has the bandwidth to make sure these documents are vetted properly before submission. Your firm needs to farm your document submission process to a third party — but not just any outfit will do.
How to Avoid a Court Filing Rejection at the Court
Triple-check everything.
It’s always a good habit to double-check your work. Is that enough? Usually yes, but when it comes to court documents, you should always take the time to give them one last review before sending them to be filed. That last review can be crucial in catching a wrongly dated form or a missing signature; even an out-of-date Proof of Service. When you’ve finished filling in a form or titling a document, check it. When it looks good, check it again. Before sending it, check it one more time. Your client, your case or your reputation could depend on it.
Why Law Firms Are Switching To An Online Service Provider
Being a legal professional is tough. It’s nowhere near what it’s like in John Grisham novels or Hollywood’s dramatic courtroom dramas – you’ve got countless hours of education, on-the-job training in the form of internships, and then the actual minutiae of the actual position to endure every day.
Nowhere is this truer than the sheer amount of paperwork that a legal professional must deal with on any given day.
When you’re responsible for the legal filing services for a law firm, you’re not just submitting a few briefs here and there – lawyers, legal professionals, and staff are inundated, each and every day, with legal documents that not only have to be created, reviewed and delivered to the courts but have to be precise and submitted so in a timely manner, as even the smallest error – or missing what seems like an unimportant-seeming deadline – can spell disaster for law firms and the clients they represent.
Filing legal documents correctly and on time is often a thankless, tedious job but one that’s absolutely crucial. Serious adverse consequences can occur if filings are not done properly, up to and including your court case being dismissed outright on procedural grounds. That’s why, if you’re a legal professional, it’s vital to move to adopt an online attorney service firm today.
The Old Way of Doing Things is Just Too Slow
Think about it this way: the old way of getting your legal documents to the court or your process server is just too slow and antiquated, especially in the 21st century. The wheels of justice might grind exceedingly slow, but there’s no reason you must adhere to that snail’s pace of getting your documents filed and served or your proofs of service and conformed copies back – not when you have the ability to enlist an online court filing service that provides you a way to upload your documents electronically to accomplish these essential tasks.
Traditional methods of getting your documents ready for pick up also includes you spending valuable time on the preparation process printing these documents out, ensuring they’re collated correctly, and scheduling a pickup. If the papers are not ready when the courier shows up, you may have to call someone back later. That could be costly. 
Missing any errors, meanwhile, is even worse. A court runner who picks up your documents many times won’t discover errors until he’s at the court. Not only is that a waste of time and money, doing so can get these documents rejected at the very last minute which could be devastating to your case.
Alternatively, when you upload your documents to an online attorney service provider, you get another set of eyes on your filing before it’s delivered to the court. Potential mistakes are found sooner – rather than later. This can result in less rejections and a greater success rate for your cases.
Types of Court Services
Sometimes it feels as if there are as many different types of court documents that need to be filed as there are minutes in the day. To that end, rules and requirements may vary from court to court.
In some jurisdictions, physical copies of documents are required to be hand delivered, seemingly obviating the need of an online service provider. However, many service providers have the capabilities of receiving the electronic version of your document near the appropriate jurisdiction, printing them locally and then personally delivering the hard copy of that document on your behalf. These hybrid online services can be considered the best of both worlds – the speed and reliability of electronic delivery combined with the attention to detail that you need from a service that physically files your court documents.
Of course, not all court documents need to end up in the hands of a file clerk at the courthouse. Some of those documents, such as a service of process order, can be uploaded from your computer and delivered to a local registered process server and hand-delivered to the right people. Proof of service documents are often filed afterward, and many Attorney Service Providers can even provide skip trace services as well.
Not Just Quicker and More Accurate but More Affordable As Well
The wheels of justice require constant lubrication. In the context of filing court documents, this lubrication comes in the form of the myriad fees that you need to pay in order to have these documents accepted. Whether it’s in a family law court, civil unlimited, unlimited state court, municipal court, or if it’s on the federal circuit, each and every document has a differently-priced fee requirement, and there are no guarantees that you will receive a refund for an incorrectly filed document.
This is yet another reason why it’s advantageous to use a trusted online legal service provider instead of managing the court filings yourself.
Additionally, as if this wasn’t enough of an incentive, the fees charged by online service providers are often comparable to – or even more affordable than – making use of a courier service to run prepared physical documents to the court for filing.
Did you know? You can upload your documents from your desk in Los Angeles, and your service provider can get your filings done in many places like San Francisco or Orange County. You can even serve someone Nationwide simply by uploading your documents. Your administration cost is greatly reduced by using one service provider rather than several courier services.
Choosing the Right Online Services Provider
At this point, it might have become patently clear that you need to transition from your existing court filing process. Clinging to the old, traditional model of how court filings are handled is not only costing you time, it’s also generating undue amounts of stress and may even lead to having to pay for even the smallest mistake. No, it’s unquestionably time that you enlist the help of a company that provides professional online services.
Many legal professionals rely on outsourcing the management of their filings and serves to legal filing service as a method for taking some of the stress off their own shoulders. Yet this represents another possible problem – there’s no telling whether this third party is going to be as diligent and timely as you are with your court filings and serves.
So where do you turn? How do you choose the right attorney service provider? It’s important to ensure that you choose the best company for your needs, as it has to be able to provide you the quality level of filing and serving services that you, as a legal professional, require. This can easily become an exhausting process.
Thankfully, there is one company that has both the skills and the expertise to provide you the court eFiling, physical filing and process serving services you require. You can turn to an expert attorney service provider like Rapid Legal for all of your filing and serving legal document needs.
About Rapid Legal
Dedicated to accountability, excellence, and integrity, Rapid Legal, founded in 1994 has more than three decades of experience in the legal industry. Rapid Legal was an early adopter and provider of eFiling services in the California counties that have adopted eFiling and continues this tradition today in providing fast, accurate, and affordable services to law firms, government agencies, and companies across the US.
Rapid Legal provides a wide range of legal services. It specializes in both electronic filing (eFiling) and physical court filing by hand-delivering documents for clients who upload them to Rapid Legal’s portal. Additionally, Rapid Legal can ensure one of its process servers physically delivers a digitally uploaded document for the service of process anywhere in California and Nationwide.
That’s not all that Rapid Legal offers. In addition to these three valued services, it also provides fast and reliable nationwide records retrieval service, county recording services for documents such as liens, judgments, and notices, and Secretary of State filing for documents like incorporation articles. Rapid Legal even offers courtesy copy delivery to wherever such copies may need to be sent to a particular department or judge’s chambers.
The Rapid Legal Difference
Rapid Legal is one of the most affordable options when it comes to filing legal documents either physically or electronically. With its offer of multiple tiers of service, Rapid Legal ensures that you’ll never have to pay too much for the level of service you need.
Rapid Legal knows how vital it is to make sure that legal documents are submitted in a reliable, timely matter, which is why it provides the highest of guarantees to its customers.
Rapid Legal doesn’t simply subject your uploaded documents to a mindless, automated filing process. Its expert document inspectors are tasked with placing the documents you submit through a seven-point process to ensure they are free of any errors that could result in rejection by the courts. In fact, if Rapid Legal does provide you with improper or incorrect service, your service is guaranteed to be free of charge, proving once again that the company is dedicated to providing you with the highest possible level of service.
Get fast and friendly customer support from Rapid Legal. You can call the team of industry experts for quick answers to all your filing questions.
Don’t Delay – Use Rapid Legal’s Online Option Today
Upload your documents and we’ll handle the rest. Create An Account to get started.
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Why Easy is Good
People say you need to work hard to get ahead in life, but things change. When new tech approaches make it easier to accomplish tasks without working hard, suddenly “easy” becomes the new “good”.
You Don’t Have to Choose Between Easy and Good Anymore
There’s an old adage: you can either do things the easy way, or do them the right way. The saying implies that if you want to get something done right, you need to take your time, even if it’s hard; there are no shortcuts to success, and trying to cut corners is only going to come back to haunt you.
While the sentiment is certainly admirable, this ultra-orthodox, traditional approach to success where hard work is good and taking the easy route is a lazy path that’s doomed to fail is simply no longer accurate today. The advent of modern technologies means that today, the old, hard way of doing something isn’t necessarily the best way to accomplish that task.
Life is for the Living
There’s nothing wrong with making life easier. Your pen-pal halfway across the globe is minutes away instead of weeks or months, thanks to airmail giving way to e-mail. You can use 3D printing to create a replacement part from scratch in hours instead of taking days or weeks to track one down and have it shipped to you. Mobile and online banking allow you to deposit money into your account and pay your bills electronically instead of having to head down to your local bank branch.
In such instances – and countless others – the technology that makes our lives easier makes them better. This is true in our professional lives, as well – fax machines, copiers, scanners, and electronic document delivery have revolutionized every facet of professional office work. When it comes to the legal profession – one that revolves around massive amounts of crucial paperwork – the “easy” way is most certainly the best way, as long as it’s not just quick but also reliable and trustworthy.
Rapid Legal’s Answer to How Easy is Good
Have you ever had one of those days? You’re running around at breakneck speed from dawn to dusk, ensuring that the right documents are prepared and filed properly. This requires an intense attention to detail. Mistakes with legal documents can lead to a case being lost or even dismissed outright, and it’s both costly and time-consuming to ensure these documents are as flawless as possible before they’re delivered to the courts on time.
Meanwhile, all these legal documents that need to be filed and served aren’t the only important things you need to do on any given day. The more time you spend on handling legal documents, the less time you’ll have for managing the rest of your duties. You need a quick solution to get this facet of your job done quickly so you can move on – a system that harnesses modern connectivity, allowing you to upload your files from your computer and have them delivered electronically. Being able to quickly place orders in this manner is expected in this day and age, but you need to make sure the service provider and system you use has been designed from the ground up to not just be fast and easy to use, but to be accurate as well.
That’s where Rapid Legal comes in. We included legal professionals in the design process of building our easy-to-use system. The end result? Our electronic file & serve system enables both attorneys and legal support staff alike to quickly place orders for eFiling and eService, easily manage cases and corresponding documents and retrieve Conformed Copies and Proofs of Service anytime. You can rest assured that our systems are here to make your life better by making things easier – and that easy is indeed good.
Rapid Legal's History
As an online attorney service, Rapid Legal’s mission is “to propel the legal industry forward through web-based technology.” Our pioneering role in electronic court filing and process serving has enabled us to create a history that is rich with pivotal moments in web-based technology. We look forward to the next 20 years.
