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A notice of electronic filing (NEF) is part of the system established by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts through the docketing and access systems of PACER & CM/ECF. PACER is a public-access system accessible by any person after registration and for a fee. CM/ECF is the Case Management/Electronic Court Filing system, available only to those admitted to a particular U.S. District or U.S. Court of Appeals. The NEF provides a record of service of an electronically filed document by parties, or of service of the electronically filed orders and judgments of the courts, upon attorneys in the case and the court. For such parties, the NEF has replaced the traditional service via US Mail or other "paper" methods. (Figures 1, 2)
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Significance
As documented, above, in the texts from the US District Courts in California and Texas, the NEF today serves as the form of authentication by the Clerk and counsel of the entry of records, in same way as the traditional Certificate of Service.
The CM/ECF system includes a Document Verification Utility, which permits the user to enter the case number and document number. The Utility, available to counsel on the case and the court, then compares the current version of the document with the NEF's Electronic Document Stamp and verifies that the document, as it appears on the docket, was not altered. (Figures 5,6).
Criticism
The Notice of Electronic Filing has come under some criticism for not being a public document and therefore not available to non-participants in the related case(s). This has led some pro-se litigants and others to misinterpret what an NEF is and its significance.