Portals: Bringing It All Together

An opening confession is that I love all the tech available now and the opportunities it brings. This means that I am a big fan of the digital court portals. A second confession is that I am a member of the stakeholder group for the profession and HMCTS designing, tweaking, testing and looking to improve the portals, so when I say I am a big fan, it might seem to be a bit ‘well done me’ but I like them because, when used properly, it just makes everything so much easier.

What tips or hacks do I have? (I use ‘hacks’ because it is trendy and I am nothing if not trendy. Ahem.) Here we go. Buckle up.

1. How to avoid the double login

This was solved a long time ago, but I see comments still about it driving people mad. This is because your bookmark address is not set correctly on your web browser. In other words, it is a ‘you’ problem. Tough love and all that, but it is definitely you. The best browser to use is Chrome. Please do not speak to me if you use Safari. Edge is not great either. The solution is to go into your bookmarks manager and make sure the address that you have saved is https://manage-case.platform.hmcts.net/

The bookmark address for the Manage Organisation sign in page is https://manage-org.platform.hmcts.net/

2. Confidential or not

This still sometimes causes problems. The only time you would denote a document as confidential is only if you want you and the judge to ever see it. That might be an application to remove yourself from the record, or a Form C8. This is not the same as you uploading, say, your Form E early and not wanting the other party to see it. They cannot see the documents you upload unless you share them.

The exception to this is if a document is uploaded for FDR. This is because the document goes on the FDR tab immediately and everything on the FDR tab can be seen by everyone. A judge who is not an FDR judge will not look at the FDR tab. So, if you dump your Form E in the wrong place, the judge can’t see it.

If you put something on as confidential, you can never share it. So, if you put your Form E on as confidential, you are going to have to upload it again as not confidential and then share it.

3. Things that trigger a response from the court

The portal is like any other general computer system. There are triggers to pathways where certain things happen. For example, uploading a document: it just sits on the court file, as it would have done if you had sent it to the court the old way under cover of a letter.

If you wanted the court to do something – vacate a hearing, make an order – you need to make an application and pay the court fee. It is only when you make an application and pay the fee that it triggers a need to respond. Uploading a letter will not do it.

4. Order after a hearing

You can upload into the portal a draft order after a hearing and send it to the judge who dealt with the hearing. This does require you to:

• Make a note of the name of the judge who dealt with the hearing.
• Select the judge and not just spin the wheel and play judge roulette. If you do that, it will end up going to a bemused judge wondering who you are and why you are sending them a draft order for a hearing they did not deal with. (You might just spin the selection wheel for your date of birth, and I direct this to those amongst of who have to turn the selection wheel rather more than we would like, but you will not get the right result if you do it here.)

5. Centralisation of the FRCs

A common question can be about where the heck you send something if you need to write to the court because, at the moment, the system does not have an in-case query function for finances. That will be coming but not until towards the end of 2026/2027. For divorce, use the webchat because that system triages the email you send, gets it to the right people and then it is dealt with.

If the FRC is centralised, you send anything post issue of the Form A to the FRC. If the FRC is not centralised, you send anything post the Form C to the court hub managing the case within the FRC region. Complicated, isn’t it? Still gives me a headache. You can find out what FRC regions are centralised here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmcts-financial-remedy-courts/regional-financial-remedy-courts-and-local-hearing-venues-in-england-and-wales

May the odds be ever in your favour.

6. Skills pay the bills

It can be very tempting to ‘outsource all the tech stuff’ to a paralegal but I think this is a mistake. You are deskilling yourself and with the outcome of Mazur, if you can’t use the portal, how can you properly supervise? It really is not that hard, and it is quite difficult to do any lasting damage. It is difficult to accidentally make an application because you go through several screens to the effect of ‘oh you want to make an application/you are making an application/are you sure you want to make an application’ before you actually do make an application.

There are also many guidance notes written in to the screens. You just have to read them and the more you use it, the quicker you get. The stakeholder group has made several suggestions that have been implemented to make your life easier but that is predicated on the assumption that you will read the carefully crafted pearls of wisdom.

7. Memory is fallible

There is often talk about ‘corporate memory’. I reckon that is a load of guff and that corporate memory is about 6 months. I think every 6 months or so, you need to re-read the guidance on how to use the portal. I think the guidance is a bit like watching the first Star Trek film with Chris Pine. The more times you watch the film, the more you notice and remember. Same applies with reading the guidance. The guidance is here:

• Divorce: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/myhmcts-how-to-use-online-divorce-services
• Finance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/myhmcts-how-to-use-online-financial-remedy-services

And no, I am not telling you how many times I have watched the Star Trek film with Chris Pine. Move along – but follow me on LinkedIn for the HMCTS service releases as I get them.