SUBSTITUTION OF ATTORNEY/CHANGE OF LAW FIRM PROCESS

Effective immediately the Court is discontinuing the use of its Change of the Law Firm form. The following process takes its place:

Attorney is leaving a firm and taking ALL cases – Using the Maintain My ECF Account utility the attorney changes their contact information, including email address, for all cases in which they are involved (Select UPDATE ALL)

Attorney is leaving firm and leaving ALL cases behind – A Substitution of Attorney must be filed in each individual case. (If there are 30 or more, please see the process below). After the Substitutions of Attorney are filed the attorney uses Maintain Your ECF Account utility to change their contact information, including the email address, and selects UPDATE ALL.

Attorney is leaving firm - taking some cases and leaving others – A Substitution of Attorney must be filed in each individual case being left at former firm. (If there are 30 or more, please see the process below). After the Substitutions of Attorney are filed the attorney changes their contact information, including their email address, using Maintain Your ECF Account and selects the cases being taken to the new firm.

Attorney does not leave firm, but cases are going to be handled by a different attorney in the firm – A Substitution of Attorney must be filed in each case. If there are 30 or more, please see the process below.

Process for 30 or more Substitutions of Attorney:

• Attorney contacts Clerk’s Office to alert them of the need to file a Substitution of Attorney in more than 30 cases. Clerk’s office will give the attorney temporary access to a multi-case Substitution of Attorney event.

• Attorney must create one Substitution of Attorney that lists all the case numbers, including Adversaries, in which the substitution will occur. (If cases are being transferred to more than one attorney, a separate Substitution should be created for each attorney. The Substitution should contain only the case numbers of the cases being transferred to that particular attorney).

• Attorney dockets the Substitution of Attorney – Multi event located in the Multi Case Docketing category (we recommend 30 cases at a time) and uploads one PDF for all 30 cases. If there are more than 30 cases in which the Substitution must be filed, the efiler must docket the multi-case event as many times as necessary, i.e., 5 times for 150 cases.

• When the attorney has finished filing the Substitutions, they must notify the Clerk’s Office and provide to us a list of all case numbers involved. The clerk’s office staff will terminate the former attorney and add the new attorney in each case and will notify the attorney when the process is complete.