Add Counsel to a Case

A court may require that a case party be added and approved by the court before adding counsel who will represent them. See Add a Case Party for details.

Counsel is added to the case on the Case Details page or the Bundle Assembly page. Using the Case Details page to illustrate:

1. Launch the appropriate Case Details page. Perform a case search, if needed, and click the View icon in the search results. The Case Details page is displayed.

The Counsel and Case Parties panes can be expanded.

If the current user has already been added by the court to a case as a party / counsel, the user may have the option to associate themselves with the party / counsel by clicking the I am this Person button.

Once selected, the user is prompted to verify they are the individual specified before submitting a request to the court for approval. The dialog is configurable but will resemble.

The user must access any links configured in the dialog. Such links may include the End User License Agreement (EULA).

Further, the user must confirm their identity by selecting the confirmation checkbox. The Submit button will not be displayed or enabled until this checkbox is selected.

Click Submit on the Associate Party dialog to submit the request to the court. This confirmation dialog is displayed (click to view). Click Close to close the dialog.

The request to associate counsel / party is reviewed by the court and is subsequently accepted or rejected.

If rejected, the filer is notified via email, and the requested person is not added to the case. If accepted, the user is thereafter associated with the selected participant on the case.

2. Click the Add Counsel to Case button on the Case Details page.

If the case you're filing in is a non-public case, this button may not be available. The determines if a user may add themselves as counsel to a non-public case. See Working in Non-public Cases to learn more about non-public cases.

A court may be configured to display a dialog that presents important information regarding adding counsel to the case.

3. Click OK to proceed to the Add Attorney to Case form; click Cancel to return to the Case Details page.

A form is displayed in which you'll add the counsel information. Court approved case parties are listed in the Parties Represented section. The court determines how this form is configured and what information is required. The following is presented as an example.

4. Select the party (parties) this counsel will represent in this case.
5. Specify the counsel. You can either:

Select an existing connection:

1. Select the connection from the drop-down list.

Once you select the connection, any contact information available auto-populates the form fields. Note that the Email Address and SMS Phone fields are re-positioned beneath the selected connection.

2. Input any contact information that did not auto-populate. An asterisk indicates a required field.

OR you can input a new counsel:

1. Ensure the Enter a new contact option is selected.
2. Input the name.

3. Input their contact information.

6. For either entry method, input any additional comments in the Reason for Request / Comments field.
7. Click Save.

The Bundle Assembly page is displayed, and the add counsel form entry is listed. You can click the View button to view the original Add Counsel to a Case form. You can click the Remove button to remove the form from the bundle.

8. Select the appropriate Filer. See Where's My Filer for details on how this field is populated.

The court may require that a supporting document, such as an appearance, be added to the bundle and submitted with the form. In such courts, if the required document is not added, this validation error (click to view) will display when you submit the bundle to the court.

9. Upload the required document, if required. See Upload your Filing Documents for details.

The Select Recipients pane is also displayed. Case participants (whose roles are permitted for service by the court) are listed.

IMPORTANT:  The counsel you're currently adding will not be listed until the form is submitted to and approved by the court. Once approved, the added counsel will subsequently be listed in the Select Recipients pane (provided court rules permit servicing based on the participant type and role).

See Serve Case Participants for details on specifying the service recipients (including courtesy copy recipients) for courts that use party management.

See Submit your Filing Bundle for details on submitting the request to the court.