Criminal eFiling- Effective January 6, 2014, electronic document filing (E-Filing) service for the following divisions will be mandatory on the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal: Circuit and County Criminal; Criminal and Civil Traffic; Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency; Criminal Appeals.
To register as a new eFiling user go to www.myflcourtaccess.com
For Clerk of Court eFiling assistance, direct your inquiry to: eFiling@browardclerk.org. [The case type and 'reference number' must be included in the subject line.]
The Clerk of Court staff is not able to provide assistance with ePortal related issues and inquiries. For ePortal technical support, attorneys may contact the Florida Courts eFiling Portal via email support@myflcourtaccess.com, or call the Florida Courts eFiling Portal Support Desk at 850-577-4609.
A filer electronically files documents to the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal at www.myflcourtaccess.com. The filing is electronically delivered to the Clerk's inbox. A filing is considered received by the Clerk upon transmission from the portal to the Clerk's inbox. The Clerk then reviews the filing and either accepts it or pends the filing for corrections. If the filing is pended, the filer is required to submit corrections within 5 days. If accepted by the Clerk, the filing will be docketed and appear in the Clerk’s case maintenance system. You will receive notice of the Clerk’s action by electronic mail from the portal. Send email to eFiling@browardclerk.org if you have any other questions related to the processing of your filing. The case type and FCCC 'reference number' must be included in the subject line.
Civil - Effective 04/01/2013, E-Filing is mandated for attorneys. This includes filings for new and existing cases in Circuit Civil, County Civil, Family, Domestic Violence, Probate, Guardianship and certain Mental Health cases.
Criminal - Effective 01/06/2014, E-Filing is mandated for attorneys. This includes filings for existing cases in Circuit Criminal Felony, Juvenile Delinquency and Traffic & Misdemeanor.
Juvenile Dependency and Adoptions - Effective 01/06/2014, E-Filing is mandated for attorneys. This includes filings for new and existing Juvenile Dependency and Adoption case types.
All Divisions – Effective 06/21/2014, E-Filing is optional for Pro Se Litigants (Self-Represented parties).
The Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, developed by the Florida Court Clerks and Comptrollers Services Group has been identified as the statewide E-Filing portal. New users may register at www.myflcourtaccess.com.
To establish an E-Portal account for your law firm, designate someone from within your law firm to serve as the Account Administrator, fill out the ePortal Law Firm Registration Form (please print clearly or type) and submit the completed form to LawFirmRegistration@browardclerk.org. Once the account has been established the designated Account Administrator will receive an email response with the E-Portal login information. The Law Firm Administrator access will allow the user to update the firm's account, reset the firm user password, inactivate attorney accounts and add additional attorney accounts to the firm. A law firm should consider having an alternate administrator to cover leave time, self-audit and manage workload. There is no need to set up individual E-Portal Law Firm accounts with every county.
An out-of-state attorney who has filed a Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice and sent a copy of the motion to the Florida Bar, they will be assigned a PHV number that can be used to register with the Portal. Click here for additional information.
The only requirement is an internet connection and a browser. Results may vary depending on the browser used.
Training Materials and Manuals and Training Videos are available on the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal website.
The case number entry screen includes separate boxes for entry of discrete parts of the case number that will then be combined to produce the standardized Florida Uniform Case Number (UCN).
Below you will find Broward County's 2-digit Court Types:
If you have verified you have the correct case number, click "OK" on the warning message. The parties will display. If you still cannot verify your case or party information on the portal, you may be filing your case in a case type that is confidential or the case may be unavailable in the portal’s database. On confidential cases, no case style or parties will display. If your filing has fees associated with it, you will not be able to select the party to file on behalf of and will have to submit the filing by traditional paper method with a filing fee. Newly E-Filed cases will not be recognized in the portal until the next business day following the clerk's acceptance.
Under Court rules, all filings associated with one pleading or paper are one document. Attachments must be included as one document and not uploaded separately. Each document, upon acceptance, will be time stamped and added to the case progress docket. If a document exceeds 50 MB, it must be broken in parts and filed in separate transactions as an addendum with a memo or cover sheet indicating that it is a continuation of the other filing. If this is for a new case filing, wait to get your case number before filing the addendum on that case. The exception to the one pleading one document rule would be for "Traffic and Misdemeanor Civil and Criminal Traffic pleadings only", an Attorney's Notice of Appearance, Written Plea of Not Guilty, Demand for Jury Trial, will be accepted and processed as a multiple pleading document.
For filings in the Circuit Civil or County Civil and Family divisions, send proposed orders directly to the judge. The Clerk will not send proposed orders in the Civil/Family divisions to the judge. Proposed orders attached to other documents will be placed in the case file unsigned.
For filings in the Circuit Criminal Felony division, send proposed orders directly to the judge. The Clerk will not send proposed orders to the judge. Proposed orders filed to other documents will be placed in the case file unsigned.
For filings in the Probate/Mental Health division, attach unsigned proposed orders to the motion.
For filings in the Traffic and Misdemeanor division, send the proposed orders directly to the judge. The clerk will not send proposed orders to the judge. Also the E-Portal is not set up to allow proposed orders to be filed with the clerk’s office for Traffic and Misdemeanor.
The FDLE Expunge/Seal package may still be sent to the clerk’s office with the original certificate of eligibility. The clerk’s office will send the completed package to the judge. However, if the package is not complete it will be placed in the case file unsigned.
Summons, writs, subpoenas and other documents that are issued by the clerk should be E-Filed. Choose the appropriate Document Group type from the dropdown list and then choose the appropriate Document Type for that group. The associated issuance fees will be automatically calculated. The clerk will electronically affix the required stamps, seals and signatures. The electronically issued documents will be returned to the filer via email notification and will be sent to all email accounts as registered in the portal. It is the filer's responsibility to supply copies, as required for service, to their process server of choice. No service fees will be collected via the portal at this time. No issued documents will be forwarded to the sheriff or other process servers.
This does not apply to Circuit Criminal Felony or Traffic and Misdemeanor case types.
When an E-Filing submission is moved to the Correction Queue in the portal, it is accompanied by a reason code for an issue that has been identified with the document that needs to be addressed before the filing is accepted. If a filing requires resubmission, remarks will be shown in My Alerts and My Submissions within the portal and an email notification will be sent to your email address.
If a filing is rejected or not accepted by the Clerk’s office, refer to the Working Filings in the Correction Queue section of the Florida Courts E-Filer User Manual starting on page 126.
When the filing opens in the Correction Queue, all the information you previously entered for this filing will display, including Case Information, Case Parties and Documents. The reason the clerk has pended the filing appears at the top.
Navigate through the filing screens (Case Information, Case Parties, Documents, Service List) and make the edits required. If there is an issue with the document, and it is removed and/or replaced or if additional documents are added to the filing you will receive a new timestamp for the filing. If you edit the original document, you will maintain the original timestamp for the filing.
At the Review & Submit screen, verify all information is correct. Once all information has been verified, scroll to the bottom of the window and click Confirm and Submit all Now to resubmit your revised filing.
Note: If your filing required payment originally or additional fees were added, you will have to resubmit your payment. Your first payment will not be charged to your account until the filing is successfully accepted by the clerk.
The use of Probate and Guardianship Smart Forms is required for certain filing types and the forms are provided by the 17th Judicial Circuit Court at www.17th.flcourts.org. As new forms are available they will be posted on the 17th Judicial Circuit Court website. If you are filing a pleading that has an associated smart form, the Clerk will not accept any other document. The Probate Smart Forms require a format with no dashes, e.g. PRC040001234. The forms are hard-coded to only allow 12 characters. For questions or comments about the required forms please send them to guardian@17th.flcourts.org.
Circuit or County Civil and Family: Requests for services such as copies of pleadings, certified or exemplified copies, record searches, Notice of Actions, Certificate of Mailing on Removal of Tenant Actions per FS 83.22(2); bonds, rent or any other court ordered monies to be deposited into the Court Registry must be manually submitted. In addition, Emergency Motions that require immediate judicial review must also be submitted manually.
Probate/Mental Health: Emergency motions that require immediate judicial review should be E-Filed. The attorney should contact the department with the filing reference number to expedite the filing due to the emergency nature of the filing.
Juvenile: Issuing summons, subpoenas cannot be completed in the Portal. To have your summons issued bring your documents to the Juvenile Division in room 5180.
Pursuant to rules and administrative orders redaction of personal identifying information is required on all documents that will be included in a publicly available file.
When filing a Notice of Confidential Information as required by Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.420, it must be filed as a separate document in the transaction.
All cases meeting criteria for filing in complex business and tort – per Administrative Order 2013-11-Civ – must file a "Notice of Intent to File in Complex Business & Tort Division" along with their new case E-Filing. Please note that existing cases will require a court order for them to be deemed complex.
Follow up hard-copy paper filing is not required for E-Filing. However, certain documents have to be deposited in their original format, such as:
No. Each document electronically filed must be submitted as individual transactions. If cases are not officially consolidated by court order with other cases, any document applying in several cases must be filed in each case. If a case is consolidated with others by court order, then a document can be filed in the lead case. The pleading must indicate that it is a consolidated case and include the consolidated case number.
Yes, you may upload several lead documents for the same case number during the E-Filing process, not to exceed 50 MB. Each lead document filed is considered a separate transaction and, once accepted, an entry is made on the progress docket of the case. Multiple pleadings cannot be combined and must be filed as separate documents.
Pursuant to Florida Supreme Court order, fees cannot be charged for E-Filing; only statutorily mandated filing fees can be charged. Filing fees are paid by credit card or electronic withdrawal from a bank account. The Portal will charge a bank transaction or credit card processing fee for the transaction value as cost recovery, as noted on the financial transaction page in the Portal. There is also an option to request a fee waiver on the Portal payment screen. Filing fees are not charged for credit card and bank account transactions until the Clerk accepts the filing. Filing fees will not be assessed for any rejected (Pending Queue) filings.
Additional filing fee information:
You may either scan the originally signed document or place a '/s/' with the name typed next to it in the signature portion of the document prior to E-Filing it. You must maintain the originally signed documents in your files for a prescribed period of time. Please refer to the 17th Judicial Circuit Administrative Order Establishing Electronic Filing Procedure for more information.
Additional information can be found on the Broward Clerk's website Quick Links. Information will be updated as E-Filing starts in additional divisions. The Clerk of Court staff is not able to give assistance with E-Portal related issues and inquiries. Attorneys may contact the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal via the support link on their website or call the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal Support Desk at 850-577-4609. If you have questions or feedback about E-Filing with the statewide portal please send them to support@myflcourtaccess.com.
Effective 01/06/2014 all new Traffic and Misdemeanor cases will be filed in electronic format and the clerk will no longer have paper files available for viewing in the courtroom. All filings prior to this date will be available in paper format and can be viewed from the division service location in which the case is filed. Case information and electronic documents/images filed after 01/06/2014 will be available for viewing via the Public Access Terminals located at all four Broward Courthouse service locations or on the Clerk of Courts website.