INFORMATION FOR FILERS

General Information

Parties with appeals, certified questions pursuant to section 500.27 of the Court of Appeals Rules of Practice, or judicial conduct matters before the New York State Court of Appeals must use the Court-PASS Upload Service to submit digital copies of records and briefs as required by the Court's Rules (see section 500.2).

(a) The Court requires the submission of briefs and record material in digital format (see sections 500.ll[k]; 500.12[h]; 500.14[g]; 500.23[a][1][ii] and 500.27[e] of this Part) as companions to the required number of copies of printed briefs and record material filed and served in accordance with this Part.

(b) The companion briefs and record material in digital format shall comply with the technical specifications and instructions for submission available from the Clerk's Office.

(c) The companion briefs and record material in digital format shall be identical to the original printed briefs and record material, except they need not contain an original signature.

(d) Unless otherwise permitted by the Clerk of the Court, companion briefs and record material in digital format shall be received by the Clerk's Office no later than the filing due date for the printed briefs and record material.

(e) A request to be relieved of the requirements of this Part to submit companion briefs and record material in digital format shall be by letter addressed to the Clerk of the Court, with proof of service of one copy on each other party, and shall specifically state the reasons why submission of companion briefs and record material in digital format would present an undue hardship.

(f) The Clerk of the Court may reject briefs and record material in digital format that do not comply with the requirements of this Part or the technical specifications and instructions for submission available from the Clerk's Office.

Accessing the Upload System

To access the Upload System, New York attorneys must be registered with the New York State Unified Court System's Attorney Online Services. If you do not have an existing Attorney Online Services account, you must first create an account here and then return to this page to login using your Attorney Online Services account credentials.

Filers who are not New York attorneys must contact the Clerk's Office to obtain "guest" login credentials.

The scheduling letter issued by the Clerk's Office contains your login number. You must enter this number in the exact format supplied in the scheduling letter.

When using the Upload System, you are first required to complete an attestation form regarding the content of any document to be uploaded. The form is intended to ensure compliance with sealing and redaction requirements. If you subsequently upload in the same matter, the attestation form will contain your prior answers, which you may accept or revise. You may print completed attestation forms for your records.

If a document does not conform to the Court's requirements, the Clerk's Office will direct you to resubmit the document. In all other circumstances, you may resubmit an uploaded document only with the approval of the Clerk's Office. To request such approval, call the Clerk's Office at 518-455-7701 or 7702.

Document Preparation Guidelines

You must file all documents in PDF. You are encouraged to submit documents in archival format (PDF/A).

PDF documents must be text searchable. If the document is created with word processing software and saved as a PDF file, it should automatically be text searchable. If the document is scanned, optical character recognition may be required for the PDF document to be text searchable. You must confirm that your documents are searchable prior to uploading. You can easily confirm whether the document is searchable by using the word search feature of commonly-available, free software designed to view PDF documents.

Certain documents must be sealed in whole or in part pursuant to one or more statutory provisions or court orders that mandate confidential filing. Documents that are not fully sealed nonetheless may contain sensitive information that should be redacted before the documents are filed. A checklist of common grounds for sealing and redaction has been provided to filers. A copy of the attestation form, which must be completed prior to uploading, has been provided to filers.

To ensure effective redaction, you must identify and conceal sensitive content by using redaction methods that permanently remove sensitive content from all metadata and all document layers. Some PDF editing programs as well as specialized redaction tools can help ensure thorough redaction.

No uploaded document may exceed a file size of 100 megabytes. You may upload up to five documents per session.