(A) Electronic Filing. Electronic filing is the transmission of pleadings, motions, and other documents (collectively documents) to the clerk of the trial or appellate court via the internet through the court-authorized service provider. Unless stated otherwise, reference to “filing” in any Nebraska Supreme Court or local court rule shall be presumed to mean electronic filing.

   (B) Electronic Service. Electronic service is the electronic transmission of documents filed in a case from the court-authorized service provider to a Nebraska attorney representing a party in a case, or where authorized, to a user who is not an attorney.

   (C) Electronic Notice. Electronic notice is the electronic transmission of notices, opinions, court entries, and any other dispositional orders or information from the court to all users.

   (D) Durable Medium. Durable medium shall be any information storage medium that is created by a durable process. A process shall be the combination of hardware, software, storage media, techniques, and procedures used to manage, create, store, retrieve, and delete information belonging to the party required to maintain the record. A process shall be durable if it meets the following criteria:

   (1) The process is capable of creating and storing information for the required records retention period.

   (2) The process can be migrated to a successor process when necessary and will retain all information available in the original process after migration to the successor process.

   (3) The process maintains the integrity of information in a readily accessible manner, makes it retrievable, makes it processable through an established usual or routine set of procedures using available hardware and software, and makes it accurately reproducible in a human-readable form.

   (4) The process provides for disaster recovery backups, which are periodically, depending on a retention schedule, verified for restorability and readability, and can be stored in a separate geographical location from the original information.

   (5) The process is demonstrated to create and maintain information for the retention period as specified, in an accurate, reliable, trustworthy, dependable, and incorruptible manner.

   (6) The process allows the removal of information when it reaches the end of its required retention period.

   (7) The process is documented so as to demonstrate to a reasonable person compliance with these criteria.

   (E) Portable Document Format. Documents to be filed must be generated from their electronic source documents (such as word processing files) in portable document format (PDF) that shall have the characteristics required by the court-authorized service provider. Stated another way, a user must convert the word processing document into a PDF using the appropriate software. All documents shall be easily readable. Any document that is not easily readable may be stricken by the court.

   (F) JUSTICE. Judicial User System To Improve Court Efficiency (JUSTICE) is the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Case and Financial Management System for Nebraska trial courts.

   (G) SCCALES. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Legal Entries System (SCCALES) is the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Case and Financial Management System for Nebraska appellate courts.

   (H) System-To-System Transfer. System-To-System Transfer is the transfer by courts of information and documents within JUSTICE or SCCALES or between JUSTICE and SCCALES. At the discretion of the Chief Justice, System-To-System Transfers may be suspended in certain courts that are experiencing technical difficulties. Upon development of software and upon implementation and approval by the Nebraska Supreme Court, reference to JUSTICE herein may include other case-management systems maintained by any other court, commission, or tribunal in the State of Nebraska.

   (I) User. A user is a person or entity who is required to make use of one or more of the electronic services as defined in § 2-201. Any user who is not a Nebraska attorney may use electronic services only as expressly authorized by these rules.

   (J) Terminology. Reference in any Supreme Court or local rule to “filing”, “service”, or “notice” shall respectively mean electronic filing, electronic service, and electronic notice as defined by these rules as of the date of these rules.

   (K) Court-authorized service provider. The court-authorized service provider for the electronic filing and service system for Nebraska trial and appellate courts is Nebraska.gov.

   (L) Trial court. Under these rules, trial court shall include Nebraska county courts, district courts, and separate juvenile courts, but shall not include the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court, a state agency, commission, tribunal, or board, unless specifically referenced in a rule.

   (M) Signature for electronic filings. A filing made through a user’s electronic filing account with the court-authorized service provider and authorized by that user, together with that user’s name on a signature block, constitutes the user’s signature. A user is responsible for all filings made on his or her account, absent clear and convincing evidence of unauthorized use of the account.

§ 2-201 amendments adopted June 9, 2021, effective January 1, 2022.