(Part 2)
‘[I]f a counsel provides more than one email address of record, the first successful service to one email address shall be considered as service to all email addresses of record of that counsel’
IT IS now a requirement, that “[a] notice of appearance shall be filed in all cases containing the valid and professional email address of all counsels, their law firms, if any, and the parties they represent.”
“The email addresses, as filed in the notice of appearance, shall serve as the email addresses of record of the parties and their individual counsels and law firms” [Section 7(a)(b)].
“The submission of email addresses of the counsels, and their law firms, if any, shall be mandatory. The counsels of record are required to use their professional email accounts as their email addresses of record… the use by lawyers of personal and/or nonprofessional email accounts as their email addresses of record is prohibited” [Section 7(c)].
“The submission of email addresses of the parties shall be optional but highly encouraged, unless they are not represented by counsel, in which case, submission is mandatory.” The “[t]ransmittal of all documents, filing or service by email shall include, through electronic carbon copy (CC:), all the email addresses of record of all counsels and their law firms, if any, and optionally, all parties” [Section 7(d)(e)].
“If an electronic transmittal is made with an email address not of record, the entire transmittal shall be deemed as not received until such time that the transmittal is made using a valid email address of record.”
“Counsel and parties, the latter when not represented by a lawyer, have the obligation to regularly and diligently monitor the inboxes of their email addresses of record…” [Section 7(f)(g)].
“No court shall accept as an excuse for any purpose that counsel or parties have not checked the inboxes of their email addresses of record. Any lawyer who neglects to check regularly and diligently the inbox of their email address of record shall be subjected to disciplinary action” [Section 7(g)].
“A party or counsel who changes their email address for a compelling or justified reason… must promptly file a notice of change of email address with the court within five calendar days from such change and serve the notice on all other parties. A lawyer who fails to comply with this rule, to the detriment of the cause of the client, shall be subjected to disciplinary action” [Section 7(h)].
“Judgments, final orders, or resolutions [of the court] shall be served electronically by emailing digital copies to the email addresses of record of the parties and their counsels.” “The date and time of delivery appearing in the internet message header of the email sent by the court shall be the date and time of receipt of the judgment, final order, or resolution” (Section 11).
“In case the electronic service to a counsel, or a party not represented by counsel results in an email delivery failure message, the court shall attempt re-transmittal to the unserved counsel twice, with a five-day interval between each attempt. If, after the second attempt, the email continues to be rejected by the receiving server, the date and time of the first successful service to the party shall be considered the date and time of receipt of counsel or party” (Section 11).
“The court shall indicate the facts and circumstances warranting the re-transmittal in the body of each re-transmittal email and shall copy all email addresses of record of the parties and their counsel as notice of the re-transmittal.”
“[I]f a counsel provides more than one email address of record, the first successful service to one email address shall be considered as service to all email addresses of record of that counsel” (Section 11).
“When a party summoned by publication fails to appear in the action, judgments, final orders, or resolutions against them shall be served upon them also by means of publication at the expense of the prevailing party” (Section 11).
As to notice of setting of hearing or trial, “[t]here shall be a presumptive notice… to a party if such notice appears on the records to have been successfully emailed to the party” (Section 6).
