If you’re an attorney practicing in West Virginia, e-filing is now the only way to submit documents in circuit and family court cases. The state’s CourtPLUS system at efile.courtswva.com went live in all 55 counties on July 15, 2024, accepts filings around the clock, and replaced paper filing for lawyers. Self-represented parties still bring paper to the circuit clerk, and the clerk uploads it into the electronic system on their behalf.1West Virginia E-Filing. Is Electronic Filing Mandatory?
Who Must E-File and Who Doesn’t
Trial Court Rule 15A makes e-filing mandatory for attorneys in every circuit and family court action. The rule tells courts and clerks they “shall not offer to attorneys any alternative electronic document filing transmission system (including facsimile filing), except in the event of emergency.”1West Virginia E-Filing. Is Electronic Filing Mandatory? For lawyers, paper is off the table in those courts.
Self-represented litigants aren’t required to use the portal directly. They take their documents to the circuit clerk’s office, and the clerk handles the electronic submission.1West Virginia E-Filing. Is Electronic Filing Mandatory? One boundary worth noting: magistrate courts, the Intermediate Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Appeals each run separate e-filing portals with their own procedures.2West Virginia Judiciary. West Virginia Judiciary E-Filing CourtPLUS covers circuit and family only.
Setting Up a CourtPLUS Account
You need an account before you can file anything. Attorneys register with their West Virginia State Bar identification number, which verifies their authority to file.3West Virginia Judiciary. Circuit/Family Courts E-Filing – About A valid email address is also required; that address becomes the official channel for filing confirmations, service notices, and clerk rejections, so pick one you actually watch.
Attorneys admitted pro hac vice can register for a specific case, noting their pro hac vice status in filings in place of a WV Bar number. Treat your login like your signature, because that’s what it is: filings made through your credentials carry the same legal weight as your handwritten name. The rules bar you from letting anyone outside your firm or a retained e-filing service provider use your credentials to file or serve documents.4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules
Preparing a Filing
CourtPLUS converts uploaded documents to PDF automatically, so you don’t need to handle the conversion yourself.4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules Documents saved directly from a word processor come through cleaner and more reliably searchable than scanned paper. If you have to scan, turn on OCR, though OCR won’t do much with handwritten or cursive text.
When a filing has multiple parts, say a motion with a proposed order, use the system’s “main” and “supporting” option to electronically staple them together as one transaction. The clerk and judge then see a single package rather than loose documents. The rules also allow up to two extra pages beyond normal page limits when the extra pages are an artifact of electronic conversion.4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules
Electronic Signatures
The accepted signature format is a typed name preceded by a forward slash, like /s/ Jane Smith, placed where a handwritten signature would normally go. Each document must include the filer’s address, telephone number, and, for attorneys, the WV State Bar ID number. Submitting through the system counts as a signature under Rule 11(a) of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure, meaning you’re certifying the filing has a proper legal and factual basis.4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules
Choosing the Right Filing Code
The system makes you pick a filing code that identifies the document type: complaint, answer, motion, proposed order, and so on. Picking the wrong code is one of the most common reasons clerks reject filings. Match the code to what the document actually is, and if you’re filing into an existing case, make sure party names on your documents match the court record exactly.
Redacting Personal Information
Rule 5.2 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure puts the redaction obligation on the filer, not the clerk. Before you upload anything, strip the following down:
- Social Security numbers to the last four digits.
- Credit card, bank, and investment account numbers to the last four digits.
- Dates of birth and addresses, which may appear only when necessary to resolve the case.
- Names of minors, which should be replaced with initials or a descriptive term in cases involving juveniles, sexual offenses, abuse and neglect, mental hygiene, and expungements.
These restrictions apply even after a minor turns 18. If a document genuinely needs the unredacted information, file a redacted version for the public record and a sealed unredacted copy, or file a reference list under seal that links the redacted identifiers to the real data.5West Virginia Judiciary. West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure A missed redaction can get your filing rejected, and if it slips through, pulling exposed data back off a public docket is genuinely hard.
Fees and Payment
CourtPLUS calculates fees automatically from the document type and court. A new civil complaint in circuit court runs $200, with additional per-defendant fees when you’re suing more than one party.6Monongalia County Circuit Clerk. Fee Schedules Other document types carry their own fees, so the summary total you see before confirmation reflects the specific contents of your filing.
Credit card payments go through the system, but they carry a service fee of 4% of the total filing cost or $1.00, whichever is greater.7West Virginia E-Filing. West Virginia E-Filing – Credit Card Service Fee On a $200 complaint, that adds $8.00. Read the summary screen carefully; the charge processes the moment you confirm, and the documents move to the clerk for review.
If You Can’t Afford the Fees
West Virginia lets you ask the court to waive filing fees. The Supreme Court of Appeals publishes fee waiver forms covering magistrate, circuit, and family court. The forms require a financial affidavit disclosing income, assets, debts, and monthly expenses, and a Supreme Court Administrative Order sets the financial guidelines courts apply to decide eligibility.8West Virginia Judiciary. Court Forms – Fee Waiver Forms File the waiver request at the start of the case alongside your initial filing when you can. If your finances change later, you can request a waiver by motion.
Submission, Timestamp, and Acceptance
Submitting generates an immediate confirmation receipt with a timestamp, which hits both your dashboard and your email. That timestamp establishes when the documents entered the system for deadline purposes. Submission is not acceptance, though. The clerk reviews every filing for compliance with court rules and formatting before officially accepting it into the record.
If the clerk sends it back, you’ll get a rejection notice explaining what needs to be fixed. The usual reasons:
- Wrong filing code for the document type.
- Party names on the documents don’t match the existing case record.
- Missing required information or signature block.
- Personal identifiers left in that should have been removed under Rule 5.2.
- Wrong case number, or filed as a new case when one already exists.
A rejected filing has to be corrected and resubmitted. In some situations a prompt correction may relate back to the original date, but a sloppy resubmission days later generally won’t, so check the rejection notice closely and move quickly.
Electronic Service on Other Parties
When you e-file, the system automatically serves the document on registered parties. Under Trial Court Rule 15.04, that electronic service is valid service under Rule 5 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure and counts the same as service by mail for calculating response deadlines under Rule 6(e).4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules The system also produces a certificate of service you can view.
Two situations fall outside electronic service. Parties who have been granted a waiver from mandatory e-filing, typically self-represented litigants, have to be served through traditional Rule 5 methods or by using the system’s U.S. Mail feature, which prints and mails a paper copy. And you cannot use e-filing to initiate a new lawsuit or to serve a new party with an amended or third-party complaint; those still require traditional service of process.4West Virginia Judiciary. WV Trial Court Rules
Deadlines and System Outages
Filing at 10 PM is one of the real benefits of the electronic system. A filing submitted before midnight generally counts as filed that calendar day. The flexibility cuts both ways, though. The system can go offline, and “the website crashed” is not an automatic excuse for a missed deadline.
If the system experiences a full outage, the court may issue an order extending deadlines. A problem on your end is a harder sell. If a technical failure is going to make you late, document it right away: screenshots of error messages, the exact time, a call to the clerk. The reliable protection, though, is simply not filing at 11:45 PM.
Looking Up Filed Documents Later
West Virginia launched the West Virginia Public Access Search System (WVPASS) in March 2025. It gives online access to publicly available circuit court documents across all 55 counties, with records going back to 1999.9West Virginia Judiciary. Court Record Access – Search Landing Page Registration and searching are free. Downloads cost $0.25 per page plus a small card processing fee for public users; attorneys of record can download documents in their own cases at no charge.
Not everything is online. Documents sealed by court order, juvenile cases, and other protected matters are restricted. For sealed or restricted files, you’ll need to go to the courthouse and ask the clerk for authorization. Courts can also issue protective orders limiting access to specific documents or requiring additional redaction beyond the standard Rule 5.2 requirements.5West Virginia Judiciary. West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure