CourtSide EDX is an electronic document exchange - a web-based platform for exchanging court documents reliably, securely, and instantaneously over the Internet. Rules 16.01(4) and 16.05(1) of Ontario's Rules of Civil Procedure permit service by electronic document exchange.
CourtSide EDX is the first electronic document exchange solution that has been specifically designed to comply with Ontario's electronic document exchange rules.
CourtSide EDX is entirely web-based. No downloads are required and there are no license fees. All you need is a computer and a web-browser to access CourtSide EDX.
Under Ontario's Rules of Civil Procedure, any document that does not need to be served by personal service or by an alternative to personal service may be served on a party under sub-clause 16.01(4)(b)(iii) or on a lawyer under clause 16.05(1)(c.1).
Service by electronic document exchange may be proved by a record of service in accordance with sub-rule 16.09(4.1).
CourtSide EDX is document service built for the 21st Century. The way the Internet changed legal research, CourtSide EDX will change the way documents are served.
CourtSide EDX makes service quicker, more reliable, and more cost effective than traditional methods of service. Some of the benefits of using CourtSide EDX include:
Please see our Benefits page, which describes more advantages of serving though CourtSide EDX.
Service through CourtSide EDX can only be effected on other members of the CourtSide EDX network. This ensures that CourtSide EDX can verify the delivery of the documents, as well as the date and time of service.
If you are not sure whether the person you want to serve is a member of CourtSide EDX, you can search by name. CourtSide EDX offers an "Invite" feature that will allow you to invite others to join.
CourtSide EDX is not overwhelming at all and is very intuitive.
There is only one main screen - the CourtSide EDX Dashboard - where every feature of CourtSide EDX is easily accessible. All of the documents that you send or receive through CourtSide EDX are organized by case and can be located quickly.
At this time, CourtSide EDX is only available for use in civil litigation cases in Ontario.
CourtSide EDX is available to both lawyers and members of the public.
If your firm has not already registered for a CourtSide EDX account, you have two options:
Have a representative of your firm call us at 1-800-EDX-5732 to register the firm and obtain a firm verification code (FVC). The FVC is a unique firm-wide password that all of the firm's lawyers can use to identify themselves as members of the firm.
Once your firm has registered for CourtSide EDX, you can go to edxontario.com, click "Register" and follow the prompts to register your account using your firm's FVC.
If you register with your firm's FVC, all CourtSide EDX charges you incur will be billed directly to your firm.
Go to edxontario.com, click "Register", and follow the prompts to register an individual CourtSide EDX account using your credit card. For identity verification purposes, the name on your CourtSide EDX account must match the name on the credit card that you use to register. This credit card will also be used for all charges incurred with CourtSide EDX.
A firm verification code (FVC) is a unique password created by a law firm for its firm account. Law firms and organizations that register with CourtSide EDX create an FVC that is used by individual lawyers to identify themselves as members of the firm/organization.
If you wish to register for CourtSide EDX and you are a member of a law firm that has already set up a firm account, you will be asked to enter your FVC during the registration process.
If your firm has registered with CourtSide EDX, but you do not know your firm's FVC, please contact your firm administrator.
Law firms and other organizations that wish to register for CourtSide EDX and obtain an FVC must call 1-800-EDX-5732.
No, you should register in the name of your instructing lawyer. All accounts must be in a lawyer's name for the purpose of compliance with the Rules of Civil Procedure.
You may manage a lawyer's account and serve documents on behalf of a lawyer. However, when serving documents, you must enter your own name when prompted to do so during the service process to properly indicate to the court that you were the one who actually served the document.
No, fees are only charged for a Premium Membership plan ($15/month) and each time you serve a document. If you sign up as a Standard Member and only receive documents, you will be able to use CourtSide EDX at no cost. We aim to be very transparent and straightforward with our pricing.
Please see our Pricing page for more information.
Yes, if you are a member of a law firm that has already registered with CourtSide EDX, you do not need a credit card. You only require the Firm Verification Code (FVC) from your firm administrator.
All other members, including lawyers whose firms have not registered for CourtSide EDX, are required to provide a credit card at sign up. A credit card is one of the methods CourtSide EDX uses for identity verification of its members.
Only members that have registered for a premium membership with CourtSide EDX will incur a charge as part of the registration process.
Please see the CourtSide EDX Resources page to watch a "how to" video on serving documents with CourtSide EDX.
Documents served through CourtSide EDX are organized by case, and documents can only be served on other CourtSide EDX members that are associated with one of your cases.
So, before you serve a document, you must either create a case and associate one or more other CourtSide EDX members with that case, or someone else must associate you with a case that he or she has created.
Once this is done, you can serve a document by clicking the "Serve New Documents" from your CourtSide EDX Dashboard and following the prompts.
Any document served until 4:00 p.m. on a day the courts are open is effective immediately. If a document is served after 4:00 p.m. or on a holiday, service is effective the next day that the courts are open.
Only PDF (Portable Document Format) files can be served through CourtSide EDX.
To use CourtSide EDX, you need either a scanner capable of scanning file to PDF format or a PDF converter software program on your computer.
You can download Adobe Reader for free here if you cannot view PDFs on your computer.
There is no limit to the number of pages that can be served through CourtSide EDX at one time.
There is, however, a limit of twenty PDF documents per service, and each document can be no greater than ten megabytes (10MB) in size.
No. In order to be able to verify all aspects of service, including the date and time of delivery, CourtSide EDX will only allow you to serve documents on other members of the CourtSide EDX network.
If you wish to serve someone who is not yet a member of CourtSide EDX, you can use the "Invite" feature located on your Dashboard to invite them to join CourtSide EDX.
When you create a case in CourtSide EDX, or when you edit the details of an existing case, you will have the ability to search for members of the CourtSide EDX network to associate with your case.
If the person that you are looking for does not appear in the search results, he or she is not yet a member of CourtSide EDX. You may use the "Invite" feature located on your Dashboard to invite them to join CourtSide EDX.
Sub-rule 16.09(4.1) of Ontario's Rules of Civil Procedure states that service by electronic document exchange is proved by a record of service that contains very specific information.
For each service, CourtSide EDX generates a record of service that contains all of the details required by the Rules of Civil Procedure. All records of service generated by CourtSide EDX remain accessible from your CourtSide EDX Dashboard.
Yes. CourtSide EDX only allows you to serve documents - it does NOT file them. CourtSide EDX is an alternative to traditional methods of service, but the courts still generally require that original documents to be physically filed at the court.
Unlike most other methods of service in the Rules of Civil Procedure, service by electronic document exchange does NOT require an affidavit of service to be filled out and sworn by a commissioner of oaths. Instead, you can simply print out the CourtSide EDX Record of Service that is automatically generated for each service through CourtSide EDX and file that at the court along with your original documents.
One great feature of CourtSide EDX is email and text message notifications.
You can edit your notification settings so that you are alerted when a new document is served on you, when another CourtSide EDX member has associated you with a case, or when a document you have served on someone has been opened by the recipient. You can also turn off these notifications if, for example, you are in the office and don't need additional notice of these events.
Notification by e-mail or text message is NOT a requirement for service to be effective. Anything served on you through an electronic document exchange in accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure constitutes valid service, even if you have turned off all notifications. Therefore, you should check your CourtSide EDX Dashboard regularly, just as you would your fax machine or mailbox.
No. Just as having a fax machine or a mailing address allows others to serve you by fax or mail/courier, your membership in the CourtSide EDX network allows other members to serve documents on you at any time.
However, you can receive an e-mail and/or text message notification the instant someone serves you with a new document, making it easy to keep track of activity on your account wherever you are.
If you wish to delete your CourtSide EDX account altogether, please contact us at 1-800-EDX-5732.
CourtSide EDX members are charged for each service on another member of the CourtSide EDX network.
CourtSide EDX offers two membership plans. Our Standard Membership plan has no monthly fee. Our Premium Membership plan has a $15/month fee per member, but provides members with lower costs per service.
You can choose the plan that works best for you based on the number of documents that you typically serve each month. For details regarding monthly membership and per-service fees, please see the CourtSide EDX Pricing page.
Yes. Your "Account" page will display your current type of membership plan and will allow you to switch between a Standard Membership plan and Premium Membership plan. However, the change to your account type will only become effective at the beginning of the following calendar month.
For example, if you are a Standard Member and have changed to a Premium Membership mid-month, you will not be charged the Premium Membership monthly fee until the next month, which is also when you will start to be charged the Premium Member per service fees.
Any membership you select is in place until you indicate you wish to change it, which you can do in the "Account" page. You may change from a Premium Member to Standard Member at any time, but the change is only effective on the first day of the next calendar month.
Receiving documents is completely free to all users of CourtSide EDX.
Storage and organization are completely free. With CourtSide EDX, all the court documents sent and received as part of the case are organized by case and available to you at any time.
Yes, if you are a member of a law firm that has already registered with CourtSide EDX, you do not need a credit card. You only require the Firm Verification Code (FVC) from your firm administrator.
All other members, including lawyers whose firms have not registered for CourtSide EDX, are required to provide a credit card at sign up. A credit card is one of the methods CourtSide EDX uses for identity verification of its users.
Only members that have registered for a Premium Membership with CourtSide EDX will be charged at the time of registration.
Yes. Lawyers have the option of generating a "Disbursement Report" for each case in their CourtSide EDX Dashboard. Using this feature, you can create a PDF document or spreadsheet that summarizes all the charges you have incurred for a given case.
This function makes passing down charges to clients very straightforward.
Your "Account" page is accessible from your CourtSide EDX Dashboard and provides your invoice history. You can click on a particular invoice to see a list of your charges, and print it for your records.
Lawyers who have registered using a Firm Verification Code (FVC) provided by their law firm will not see their invoices, as the law firm will be billed directly for charges incurred by the firm's lawyers through CourtSide EDX.
Your password can be retrieved by going to the sign-in page and clicking "Forgot Password". Follow the steps there to complete password retrieval.
Your credit card information is not stored on the CourtSide EDX servers. To help ensure the security of your personal data, CourtSide EDX uses an established PCI-compliant third-party to store your credit card information.
There is no directory of CourtSide EDX members, however, if you want to find out if a particular person is a member, you can search for them by name.
By signing up for CourtSide EDX, you agree to allow your name to be visible by anyone who searches by last name.
Please refer to the CourtSide EDX Terms of Service for further information.
Only CourtSide EDX members that are associated with a case will be able to view the case details and can be served with documents for that case.
Served documents will only be available to CourtSide EDX members who have both:
We only store documents on servers physically located in Canada.