In law, filing is the act of submitting a document to the clerk of a court for the court's immediate consideration, for storage in the court's files, or both. Courts will not consider motions unless an appropriate memorandum or brief is filed before the appropriate deadline. Usually a filing fee is paid at the same time; such filing fees are one part of the variety of charges that are known as court costs.
In civil procedure systems, filing rules can be mandatory or permissive. In a mandatory filing system, all documents of legal importance exchanged between the parties are also filed with the court, while in a permissive filing system, nothing needs to be filed until the case reaches a point where direct judicial management is absolutely necessary (such as the brink of trial).
For example, the United States federal courts operate on a mandatory filing system (with minor exceptions for the most routine discovery exchanges).[1] In contrast, the U.S. state of New York is notorious for its permissive filing system, which was modified in 1992 but still largely operates in its traditional form in certain lower courts.[2]
Filing may also refer to submission of a form to a government agency, with or without an accompanying fee.
Generally, filing fees are controversial because they impede access to justice. Although American litigants complain about fees all the time (for example, it costs $300 to file a document in court in Los Angeles), the American system is considered to be quite plaintiff-friendly by lawyers.
Many legal systems have filing fees for complaints that are proportional to the amount sought. Thus, the greater the damages sought, the higher the fee to file.
Even when one seeks a waiver for grossly unfair fees, courts tend to waive only the amount in excess of the plaintiff's total assets, with the perverse result that just to initiate a meritorious case, an already severely injured or damaged plaintiff may have to go bankrupt.
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