Arizona made eFiling mandatory for attorneys in civil and post-initiation tax cases through Supreme Court Administrative Order 2021-30. The state uses the AZTurboCourt platform, which handles electronic submission, service on represented parties, and fee payment in a single system.
On paper, this should have eliminated the need for legal couriers in civil practice. In practice, it reduced physical filing volume by maybe 40-50%. The other half still requires someone to physically transport documents, serve papers, or deliver materials that don’t fit through a digital system.
If you’re running a law firm in Phoenix and trying to figure out whether you still need a courier relationship in the eFiling era, here’s where the lines actually fall.
What eFiling Covers
The AZTurboCourt system handles most routine civil filings electronically. Complaints, answers, motions, discovery responses, stipulations, and other standard pleadings can all be submitted through the platform. The system timestamps the filing, processes the filing fee via credit card, and serves the document on other eFiled parties automatically.
For a straightforward civil case where all parties are represented by attorneys, eFiling covers the core filing workflow end to end. You draft the document, upload it as a PDF, pay the fee, and the clerk processes it. No drive to the courthouse, no waiting at the counter, no parking.
eFiling is available around the clock. You can submit a filing at 11pm on Sunday and it will be processed on the next business day. For deadline-sensitive filings, the timestamp of submission counts, not the timestamp of processing.
This is where the “couriers are obsolete” argument stops, because everything else on a law firm’s logistics list still moves on wheels.
What Still Requires Physical Delivery
Original documents the court wants in hand
Certain filings require the court to examine original documents. Wills submitted for probate. Notarized affidavits where the court wants to inspect the seal. Certified copies of judgments from other jurisdictions. Documents with original wet signatures that the court needs to verify rather than accept as a scanned image.
These can’t be eFiled because the court needs the physical paper. Someone has to bring it to the clerk’s window.
Oversized exhibits and trial materials
Trial exhibits that include poster boards, large-format maps, engineering drawings, medical imaging films, or physical evidence don’t upload to AZTurboCourt. They go to the courtroom in a vehicle.
Even standard-sized trial exhibits often move physically. A banker’s box of deposition transcripts, three binders of medical records, and a set of demonstrative exhibits for a week-long trial aren’t something you upload as PDFs. They travel from the firm to the courtroom in the back of a courier van, organized and labeled, ready for the trial team to unpack.
Courtesy copies to judges’ chambers
Many Maricopa County judges request physical courtesy copies of lengthy motions, memoranda, and trial briefs in addition to the eFiled version. Some judges have standing orders specifying how many copies they want and when they want them delivered relative to the hearing date.
A courtesy copy isn’t a filing. It’s a delivery to a specific person at a specific location inside the courthouse. That’s courier work.
Service of process on individuals
eFiling serves documents on attorneys who are registered in the system. It does not serve individuals who aren’t parties to a case yet. Initial service of a complaint and summons on a defendant still requires a process server to physically hand the papers to the person (or a qualifying substitute).
This is one of the largest remaining categories of physical legal logistics. A Phoenix firm filing twenty new cases per month needs twenty initial service runs. None of those happen electronically.
Deliveries between parties outside the court system
The legal work that happens between filings generates its own delivery volume. Deposition transcripts from court reporters to attorneys. Discovery document productions between firms. Expert reports from consultants to the retaining counsel. Settlement documents between parties.
None of this goes through the court’s eFiling system. It moves between private parties at private addresses, and much of it moves on same-day timelines because depositions, hearings, and settlement negotiations have their own deadlines.
Self-represented litigants
eFiling is optional for self-represented parties in civil cases. Many pro se litigants still file physically at the counter because the eFiling system has a learning curve and the clerk’s office provides in-person assistance that the electronic system doesn’t.
If your firm files documents that need to be served on a self-represented opposing party, that service may need to happen physically rather than through the eFiling system’s electronic service feature.
Criminal filings
eFiling in criminal cases is optional for everyone, including attorneys. Many criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors still file physically, particularly for time-sensitive matters where they want a conformed copy in hand the same day.
The Math for a Mid-Size Phoenix Firm
Consider a firm with fifteen attorneys handling a mix of civil litigation, family law, and some criminal defense. In a typical month:
Civil motions and pleadings: mostly eFiled. Maybe 80% of routine civil filings go through AZTurboCourt. That’s a real reduction in courier runs compared to five years ago.
But the remaining 20% of civil filings (original documents, oversized exhibits, courtesy copies) still move physically. Add initial service of process on new cases, deliveries between firms and experts, trial exhibit logistics, and the occasional emergency filing where the eFiling system goes down or a filing gets rejected electronically and needs to be walked in, and the firm’s monthly courier volume is still significant.
Most firms we work with in Phoenix didn’t eliminate their courier service when eFiling became mandatory. They shifted from daily routine filing runs to a more focused set of runs: process service, trial logistics, courtesy copies, and inter-party deliveries. The volume dropped but the urgency and specialization increased. The runs that remain tend to be the ones where timing and handling matter most.
When eFiling Goes Down
The AZTurboCourt system has occasional outages and technical issues. When the system is down and you have a filing deadline, the Clerk’s office typically extends the eFiling deadline or accepts physical filings as a workaround. But “typically” is the operative word. The announcement of an extension doesn’t always come before the deadline passes.
Firms with a courier relationship already in place can pivot to physical filing within the hour. Firms that eliminated their courier service entirely are calling around at 3pm trying to find someone who can get to the courthouse before 5pm. That’s not a position you want to be in with a jurisdictional deadline on the line.
Choosing Between eFiling and a Courier Run
A simple framework:
If the document is a standard pleading in a civil case, all parties are represented, and you don’t need a physical conformed copy immediately, eFile it. It’s faster, cheaper, and the timestamp is instant.
If the document requires physical delivery (original documents, oversized exhibits, courtesy copies), involves service on an individual, or moves between parties outside the court system, you need a courier.
If the eFiling system is down and the deadline is today, you need a courier who can get to the courthouse in the next two hours.
Most Phoenix firms end up using both. eFiling handles the routine civil filing volume. A legal courier handles everything else. The two aren’t competing systems. They cover different parts of the same workflow.
Power House Courier provides same-day court filing, process service, and legal document delivery across the Phoenix Valley when eFiling isn’t enough. 24/7 dispatch from our Tempe office. Call (323) 744-1900 or request a quote.
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