For security purposes, law firms do not connect directly to the court's computers, but e-mail the pleading to an electronic post office. The post office then forwards the e-mail to the court's computer. The system then checks the Elfkey to ensure that the law firm is an authorized user. If the filing passes all the checks, the document particulars are added to the Sustain database and the entire document is stored. The document is assigned an authentication number and a confirmation receipt is sent to the filing attorney.
Attorneys can then use the network to serve the documents on the other parties.
In the first 11 months of the pilot, the 85 participating firms filed over three thousand documents electronically, with the filings increasing from 38 the first month to over 400 in later months. The Toronto Court will be continuing to refine and expand on the current electronic filing capabilities.