Recently, the Ontario government has made large strides in introducing CaseLines and the Court Case Search Portal. 

CaseLines operates in conjuction with existing conference tools, like Zoom. It is a document sharing platform. CaseLines is not an e-filing system. It is a platform that will require parties to upload documents in advance of a hearing.

At this time, CaseLines is not integrated with the Justice Services Online portal. See the Notice to the Profession here.

How does it work?

Court staff create a file in CaseLines and invite counsel to CaseLines. Parties are then invited to upload documents in advance of the scheduled hearing. External counsel can then add members of their own firm to the file.

The documents that are uploaded must have been previously filed with the court, either in-person or through the e-filing system. Civil court documents may be electronically filed and/or issued by using the existing Civil Claims Online Portal or the new Civil Submissions Online Portal. CaseLines does not replace the e-filing system. The parties are responsible for uploading documents into CaseLines.

Documents can be uploaded in multiple formats, including Word and pdf, as well as audio files, email and other forms of media. 

In the CaseLines seminar, it was mentioned that parties will still be required to confirm motions by sending the confirmation to the sync.com folder. However, I hope that this will change with the introduction of CaseLines and the new Civil Submissions Online Portal. 

A Notice to the Profession will be published about the number of days in advance documents must be uploaded. 

If you have uploaded the wrong document, then you can delete the document. However, the file will be locked in the first few days before the hearing.

Private notes can be made into documents on CaseLines during the hearing. Parties can then download the private notes made during the hearing.

The policy on how long documents can be uploaded and notes can be accessed are still to be determined.

Lawyers can register to use CaseLines here: https://ontariocourts.caselines.com/. 

To learn more about how to use CaseLines, you may watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/448576991.

(Views are my own and do not represent the views of any organization. This article was originally posted on Slaw.ca, Canada’s largest online legal magazine.)