The online portal attorneys use for their biannual registration and for electronic filing of case documents in state court is getting a security upgrade.
Starting Nov. 5, lawyers logging on to file documents who attempt to access their personal information will be directed to a page where they will have to supply answers to three security questions.
After that, anyone who wants to look at the personal information behind any of three tabs on the portal page—“My Profile,” “Update Contact Information” and “Attorney Registration and Payment”—will have to answer at least one of those security questions.
The new security protocol, which the courts have dubbed “Step-Up Authentication,” was announced in an Oct. 21 notice to the bar. It will affect lawyers who file through eCourts, which is being rolled out for the filing of criminal motions; eDATA, which stands for Electronic Docketing of Appeals and Tracking Application; and JEFIS, the Judiciary Electronic Filing System, which is used for Special Civil Part and foreclosure matters.
Scott Christie, of McCarter & English in Newark and a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey who was head of the office’s Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section, called it “a good step in the right direction.”
Christie said “how effective it will be will depend on how personalized the challenge questions are and whether the answers could be relatively easily determined based on a public records search of the individual.”