In 2024, utilizing software to file your clients' bankruptcy cases with the court's Electronic Case Filing (ECF) system is not just a convenience; it’s a necessity.

Manually filing or using ineffective e-filing tools wastes time. The process is tedious, and errors due to inadequate tools require additional correction time - time that could be better spent on clients rather than administrative tasks.

This is why NextChapter has prioritized enhancing our system's e-filing capability. We stay current with numerous court system changes, continually work to improve the filing process and speed, and we’re continually expanding what can be filed through our software.

A look back…

In late summer 2023, the courts began transitioning to a newer NextGen CM/ECF version. This update led to substantial disruptions in all software providers' e-filing systems. While some software completely lost its e-filing functionality, NextChapter retained this ability, albeit with a significant increase in filing time. Our team got to work investigating and implementing new solutions. We decided to migrate our filing process from the standard “open a bankruptcy case” method to “case upload” for all courts that support the case upload method. We also updated our system, which allows us to connect to each court’s site for faster filing. These updates required development work and extensive testing for all 94 courts.
We remained laser-focused on reducing the inconvenience and time spent on filings for paralegals and attorneys who have come to rely on us to be the model of efficiency in bankruptcy software.

The results…

• We successfully updated 59 court filing methods to “case upload” in NextChapter. These are all the courts that support case upload as a filing method. The average filing time in NextChapter for case upload courts is less than 7 minutes per case!
• We cut filing times down by 50% for all courts since July 2023.
• We’ve added additional post-petition filing options for 27 courts, totaling over 2k+ event code options!

Visit your district's notes page in our Help Center for an updated list of all the support we provide in your district! And ECF is one of the many excellent tools in NextChapter that can improve your bankruptcy process - see how else we compare to our competitors!

What’s next?

We’re committed to staying on top of the changes that come our way with the court filing process. And we’re also forging ahead with post-petition filing options for the remaining courts.
If NextChapter doesn’t yet support your court for post-petition filings, purchase an annual plan today and let us know! We prioritize feature development based on annual user requests.