Starting from 1 January 2020, the High Court of Australia now provides for the electronic lodgement of Court documents.

The Digital Lodgement System Portal (DLS Portal) now allows law firms, legal practitioners and self-represented litigants to register, file documents, receive notifications and track the progress of their cases at any time.

It provides for the mandatory lodgement of all documents filed for any cases commenced on or after 1 January 2020.

In terms of the format requirements of the Application Book, Core Appeal Books, Further Materials and Joint Book of Authorities little has changed.

Parties are required to prepare and file the Application Book, Core Appeal Book (CAB), Appellant's Book of Further Materials, the Respondent's Book of Further Materials and the Joint Book of Authorities (JBA) in each appeal in accordance with the High Court Rules 2004. The difference being, there is no longer a requirement to prepare any of these books in hard copy.

When lodging the documents using the DLS Portal, the following information must be provided:

  1. the solicitor's name, firm's name, postal address, telephone number and email address of the firm;
  2. if the party or person is not represented — the name, postal address, telephone number and email address of the party or person;
  3. the capital city of the State or Territory in which the proceedings are to be, or were, commenced.

Also, the person who sends the documents must:

  1. keep a paper or electronic copy; and
  2. if directed to do so by the Court, a Justice or the Registrar, produce a hard copy.

How Can We Help?

Appeal Books are governed by quite strict rules and requirements. Each jurisdiction has slightly different needs including style of indexing, method of pagination or procedure to be followed. The Law In Order Team have expertise in all courts and jurisdictions, so we understand what is required for High Court Appeal Books.

Our Appeal Book staff have the expertise and years of experience to guide you through the individual requirements, allowing you to present your Appeal Book in the best possible light.

We can help you by:

  • Assessing the necessary content of the book
  • Advising on the rules and requirements
  • Adhering to processes and procedures required by the High Court
  • Accessing documents from a court file for the preparation of the Appeal Book
  • Preparing cover pages and indexes complete with volume and page numbers
  • Compiling the Book with correct line numbering where required
  • Alerting you to any discrepancies in the content (e.g. missing pages in a paginated document, skewed documents, etc)
  • Finishing the book in the appropriate format