Lessons · Law foundations · a filing checklist
The checklist before anything goes to the court
Every filing goes through the same short list in the same order, and the list ends with the diary entry rather than with the delivery.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A rejected filing is not an embarrassment, it is lost days, and the reasons are almost always on a list of six things: the caption, the signature, the exhibits, the proof the other side got a copy, the fee, and the deadline. A minute with the list is the cheapest minute in the job.
How to think about it
Work down the list without skipping, even on the document you have filed a hundred times, and do the deadline check before the delivery rather than after it.
Worked example
Caption and case number match the court's record.The first thing a clerk looks at, and the easiest thing to carry over wrong from a template.
Signed, dated, and every exhibit numbered and referred to in the text.An exhibit nobody refers to is a page the reader cannot place.
The copy for the other side is prepared, and the record of that goes in with the filing.Filing and serving are two jobs and the court is told about both.
The fee, the copies, the deadline, then the diary entry for what comes next.The last step is a date in the diary, not a receipt in a drawer.
Your turn
Write the word that completes the name of the signed statement filed to show the other side received a copy.
The signed statement that the other side got a copy: the certificate of
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Treating delivery as the end. The filing is finished when the next date is in the diary, because the only thing that makes a filed document safe is knowing what it starts.