The clerks from Illinois’ five appellate court districts on Monday gave mixed assessments of their offices’ ability to meet the July 2017 deadline for mandatory electronic filing in all civil cases.

John J. Flood, the 5th District Appellate Court clerk, said he does not view the state Supreme Court’s deadline as being realistic, citing how drastic an overhaul will be required to the current systems.

“What the Supreme Court was trying to do with this antiquated system was not possible,” Flood said. “That system is still being built now. Tomorrow we’ll be on a two-hour conference call going over (the system) with a fellow in Philadelphia.”

“It’s not even built yet, and they expect us to be operational in less than a year. I don’t know,” Flood continued.

Carla Bender, the 4th District Appellate Court clerk, expressed similar sentiments: “We’re feeling a bit rushed.”

Flood’s and Bender’s comments came as part of a Monday lunch hosted by the Appellate Lawyers Association at the Union League Club of Chicago.

In January, the Illinois Supreme Court ordered that e-filing will be required by July 2017 in civil cases before both the high court and the appellate court. And by January 2018, all circuit courts must have e-filing.

Joanne Rouzan Driscoll, Appellate Lawyers Association president and a partner at Forde Law Offices LLP, said in an interview following the session that the appellate bar is looking forward to the e-filing system coming online.

But Driscoll said the appellate bar has also questioned whether the court can meet the July 2017 deadline.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1st District would be seeking some kind of extension,” Driscoll said. “But the 2nd District — they have e-filing in all of their counties. They definitely have a head start.”

The clerks updated the audience — which included lawyers and several justices — on their individual and courtwide efforts to comply with the high court’s order.

Bender said the appellate court system is only a few months from launching the computer system that will manage e-filings across the state, but she declined to give a time frame of when that will occur.

“We are learning how to use it and we’re working on programming it,” Bender said. “That is the first step towards ultimately electronic filing for all districts.”

The new computer system is necessary, said Robert J. Mangan, 2nd District clerk, because the current one is too antiquated to handle e-filings.

He also joked that the state computer system for the appellate courts was “designed by the brightest stars the state of Illinois had back in the ’70s.”

Additionally, the appellate courts are working on standards that the circuit courts will have to adopt in order to maintain uniformity for e-filings throughout the state.

“The circuit court clerks need some guidelines,” Bender said. “How does this record need to look? How should it be paginated? Where should the components be? How should they be connected?”

Mangan said the 2nd District has made the most progress of all five districts. All 13 counties in district can transfer records on appeal electronically.

Mangan said the toughest part about the transition may be appellate justices’ preference for working solely with hard copies.

“They like the paper,” Mangan said. “It’s just growing pains. And our court of nine justices have gradually come to accept that fact.”

By contrast, the 1st District — which takes appeals from the Cook County Circuit Court — is “moving slowly” and has made the least progress, said Clerk Steven M. Ravid. He didn’t say why.

Ravid said the 1st District has started to work with Tyler Technologies, the company that is developing the e-filing system for the five districts.

“We’ll hopefully be on the way soon,” Ravid said.

The 3rd, 4th and 5th Districts are all in a similar position — each have three counties operating a pilot program for e-filing, but the capabilities of each county still vary.

Flood said the 5th District does not have the capacity yet to accept electronic records on appeal from all 37 southern counties. Nor has the district worked out a uniform standard for all of the counties to meet.

“We’re, kind of, in a holding pattern with that,” Flood said.

At the same time, the 5th District also asks parties to submit an electronic copy in addition to their paper filings if their case is taken up for oral arguments.

First District Justice Mathias W. Delort asked the clerks if they have had issues with electronic records being too large for justices to download and use. He noted that certain records on appeal can be tens of thousands of pages long.

Mangan said his office did have that problem initially, but now the electronic record splits the records into different volumes.

“I haven’t heard any complaints from the judges or the clerks,” Mangan said.