These instructions pertain only to the specifics of filing online. For instructions pertaining to the reporting requirements, go to "Ethics Home" in the navigation bar on the left, then click on "Financial Disclosure Form", "Judges, Justices & UCS Employees", "Instructions".
Accessing Your Financial Disclosure Form/Statement
Navigating Within Your Financial Disclosure Statement
Reporting Information: General
-All Questions Must Be Answered In Full
-Adding Rows
-Affirming Responses
-Deleting Information
-Drop Down Menus
-Saving information
-Cancelling Information
Reporting Information: Specific Questions
- Question 1
- Question 16
Attachments To Question 16
Accessing Previously Filed Financial Disclosure Statements
Copying Information From A Previously Filed Financial Disclosure Statement
Filing Your Financial Disclosure Statement
Printing Your Financial Disclosure Statement
Revising or Amending Your Financial Disclosure Statement
Filing A Deletion, Or Family Exemption, Request
You can file your statement online if you have a CourtNet user name and password. CourtNet is the name of the Unified Court System’s computer network and data centers.
You must use a computer at work, connected to CourtNet, to file online. You can not file online using the Internet. This is to insure the security and confidentiality of the information reported in your statement. Your CourtNet password is known only to you. CourtNet uses a private wide area network protected by sophisticated firewalls, intrusion detection devices and anti-virus software.
You cannot file online if you can file only a partial financial disclosure statement because you have an automatic extension of time to file your individual income tax return. Judicial candidates who are not judges or justices or Unified Court System employees can not file online.
Help
If you have any questions regarding online filing after you have read through these instructions, contact us by telephone at 212 428-2899, by email at: EthicsComm@nycourts.gov, or by mail at:
Ethics Commission
25 Beaver Street Room 875
New York, NY, 10004.
Please note however that the Ethics Commission staff are not computer technicians and cannot help you with problems with your software or your CourtNet connection.
All judicial and nonjudicial staff with access to CourtNet may file their financial disclosure statement online. To file you must use your work computer/laptop. Your work computer/laptop must be connected to CourtNet through the court’s VPN connection (either SSLVPN or Pulse VPN) and it must have the current version of FileMaker.
- Go to the http://inside-ucs.org. Choose "Topics A to Z" and then go to "E" and choose "Ethics Commission,"or go to "F" and choose "Financial Disclosure Statements." The Ethics Commission home page will appear.
- Choose "Online Filing" then choose “File Online (Financial Disclosure Form).”
- Follow the instructions under, "How to Access Your Electronic Statement."
The eAccess page will open, giving you three options:
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Financial Disclosure Statement because;"
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Statement and Copy Into It All The Information You Reported In Last Year's Statement;"
- "If You Want to Visit Your Dashboard because."
If you are filing online for the first time or you do not want to copy information from the statement you filed online last year, choose option 1 by selecting the “Click Here” button and your Financial Disclosure Statement for the current reporting year will appear. The response to question one is automatically generated; the response areas to all other questions will be empty.
You may also access your current financial disclosure statement through your dashboard. To get to your dashboard choose option 3 and select “click here.” Then open your current statement by selecting the “view/edit” icon in the dashboard. See the online filing instructions on the Ethics Commission website for additional instructions.
OR
If you filed online last year and would like to copy information from that statement, choose option 2 and your current statement will appear with the responses from your previous statement. Attachments from your previous statement will not be copied. If necessary, you may edit your previous responses. Once you select “Affirm” your previous response(s) will become your current response(s). See Online Filing - Instructions for additional instructions.
OR
To verify that your statement was filed: choose option 3 by selecting” click here” and your dashboard will appear. The form status, for your current statement should indicate “filed.”
Questions appear in blocks. To move back and forth between questions in a block: use the arrows at the top and the bottom of the right side of your computer screen; or use the scroll bar on the right side of your computer screen; or use the scroll button on your mouse. To get to the next block of questions, or to return to a previous block of questions, click on the appropriate button.
All questions must be answered in full except that you do not have to make an entry in the “Percentage of Corporate Stock Owned or Controlled” field in question 16 if you do not own or control more than five percent of publicly traded stock, or more than ten percent of stock not publicly traded.
In questions 4a through 19 you are given the option of clicking on one of the two following buttons: “None” or “Yes”. Click on the “None” button if that is your response to the question. If you want to enter information in response to the question, click on the “Yes” button. A row with all the required fields will appear. If you need more than one row, click on the “Add Row” box to the left of each question. You can add as many rows as necessary.
After you have completed each question, except question 1, you must click on "Click here when you are done filling out this section". You must then click on the “Affirm” box, to affirm that your response is correct: as of the date of filing for questions 2, 3 and 19; and for the preceding calendar year for all other questions. If you do not do so, the question will remain incomplete even if you have entered all the requisite information.
In questions 2 and 3, you must click on the green check mark after “Click here when you are done filling out this section” to generate the “Affirm” box;
In questions 4a through 19, if your response is “Yes”, you must click on that green check mark, after you have completed your response, to generate the “Affirm” box.
In questions 4a through 19, if your response is “None”, the “Affirm” box is automatically generated.
To change your response after you have clicked on the “Affirm” box, you must click on “Click here to edit this section” or, if that language does not appear, you must remove your affirmation by clicking on the “Affirm” box.
To delete information in any one field in any question except question 1, highlight the information and hit the “Delete” button on your keyboard, or put the cursor in the field and hit the “Backspace” key on your keyboard. You can not delete any information in question 1.
To delete all the information in all the fields in a row, you can click on the red “X” after the last field in the row. If you want to report information after you have done this, you must click on “Add a Row” to generate a new response area.
Certain fields in certain questions have drop down menus. The menu is accessed by clicking on the arrow at the far right side of the response field. You must use that menu to choose an option therein, you can not type in your own response.
The drop down menus appear in the following questions: 3a, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18 and 19.
To delete information you have entered using a drop down menu, open it and click on the empty space at the top.
If your statement is open for more than 15 minutes, the system could force it to close. To avoid losing information that you have entered into your statement if such a closure occurs, click on the "Save" button at the top or bottom of the page every 15 minutes that your statement is open. All the information that you have entered will be saved when you click on the button for the next, or previous, block of questions. If you are not ready to file and you want to stop working on your statement and save the information that you have entered, click on “SAVE” at the end of the statement.
If you have not entered any information in your statement, or you do not want to save any of the information, click on “CANCEL” at the end of the statement. This will end your session. IF YOU CLICK ON THIS BUTTON ANY INFORMATION YOU HAVE ENTERED WILL BE LOST AND CAN NOT BE RESTORED.
Question 1
The answers to this question have been automatically generated. You can not make any changes in these responses. If you believe that any information entered in question 1 is incorrect, you must contact the Ethics Commission by telephone at 212 428-2899, by email at: EthicsComm@nycourts.gov. The "EMPLOYEE ID" should be a seven digit number. If there is no number, if the number does not have seven digits,or if the number is seven zeros, you cannot file your statement. You must stop, save the statement if you have entered any information, and contact the Ethics Commission.
Question 16
This question contains a field pertaining to the percentage of stock owned or controlled. If you own or control less than five percent of publicly traded stock or less than ten percent of stock not publicly traded, you do not have to report the percentage and you can leave this field blank.
You can attach brokerage or other typed/written statements to your financial disclosure statement.
If you attach a typed/written statement to your financial disclosure statement, all information therein becomes part of the statement and certain information therein will be made available for public inspection pursuant to 22 NYCRR Section 40.1 p)(1). We recommend that you delete from brokerage statements all information that is not required to be reported, including but not limited to, home addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, account numbers and names of brokers.
Before you open your financial disclosure statement, you must scan your attachment into CourtNet, or scan it into a flash drive that you can connect to your CourtNet computer. Save the attachment in pdf format. If you intend to attach more than one document , all of them must be in one pdf. If you try to attach more than one pdf, only the first one will be retained by the online filing system.
With an attachment, your response to question 16 must include:
The name of the brokerage firm in the “Issuing Entity” column; and
The language, “See Attachment” in the “Type of Security” column; and
The category of market value of the account.
When you get to the end of your financial disclosure statement, before you file your statement, click on “Click here to attach a file” in the “Attachments” area. Follow the prompts to attach your pdf.
The Ethics Commission maintains Financial Disclosure Statements for the current year and statements from the previous six reporting years.
To review or print your previous Financial Disclosure Statements, you must use your work compute or laptop. Your work computer/laptop must be connected to CourtNet through the court’s VPN connection (either SSLVPN or Pulse VPN) and your work computer/laptop must have the current version of FileMaker.
Please contact the Ethics Commission if you need copies of any statements that you filed by mail.
- Go to the "Inside UCS" "Home" page, (http://inside-ucs.org). Choose "Topics A to Z" and then go to "E" and choose "Ethics Commission" or go to "F" and choose "Financial Disclosure Statements". The Ethics Commission home page will appear.
- Choose "Electronic Filing", then “File Online (Financial Disclosure Form)”.
- Follow the instructions under, "How to Access Your Electronic Statement".
The eAccess page will open, giving you three options:
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Financial Disclosure Statement because";
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Statement and Copy Into It All The Information You Reported In Last Year's Statement";
- "If You Want to Visit Your Dashboard because".
Choose option 3. All of your previously filed electronic statements will appear. You can view or print a statement by cllcking on that icon to the right of the 'Status" of the statement.
To copy your information from the Financial Disclosure Statement that you filed last year to paste into the statement for the current reporting year, you must use your work computer/laptop. Your work computer/laptop must be connected to CourtNet through the court’s VPN connection (either SSLVPN or Pulse VPN) and it must have the current version of FileMaker. Please note that any pdf documents that you attached to your statement last year will not be copied. You must attach new documents pertaining to the current reporting year.
- Go to the "Inside UCS" "Home" page, (http://inside-ucs.org). Choose "Topics A to Z" and then go to "E” and choose "Ethics Commission" or go to "F" and choose "Financial Disclosure Statements". The Ethics Commission home page will appear.
- Choose "Electronic Filing", then “File Online (Financial Disclosure Form)”.
- Follow the instructions under, "How to Access Your Electronic Statement".
The eAccess page will open, giving you three options:
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Financial Disclosure Statement because";
- "If You Want To Open Your Current Year Statement and Copy Into It All The Information You Reported In Last Year's Statement";
- "If You Want to Visit Your Dashboard because".
Choose option "2". Your new statement will appear with information copied from the statement filed last year. Edit that information as necessary to insure that all of your responses are accurate and correct for the current reporting year; affirm every question (except question 1); file the new statement. See these instructions for information pertaining to editing your statement.
At the end of the statement, you will see a “Question Completion Summary” listing all the questions in the statement. There is a comment of “OK” or “Incomplete” under each question number. If you see an “Incomplete” comment, you must go back to that question and complete your response and/or affirm your response.
When you are ready to file your statement, click on the “FILE” button at the end of the statement.
If you have completely answered, and affirmed all questions your statement will be accepted and filed. A message will appear on the computer screen so indicating. You can print out that message to retain as proof of filing.
If you have not answered and affirmed all the questions you will not be able to file your statement, and you will get an error message. Before preceding any further, click on the “Close Error Message” box. If you do not do so, you will continue to see the error message, even after you have remedied all your errors.
Go back to the “Question Completion Summary” to ascertain which questions are incomplete. Go to those questions and complete them. If there is any problem with question 1, you must contact the Ethics Commission by telephone at 212 428-2899, by email at: EthicsComm@nycourts.gov.
Once you have completed all questions, return to the end of your statement. Check the “Question Completion Summary” to verify that all the questions have the “OK” comment. If you did not click on the “Close Error Message” box before you completed your questions, you will still see the error message; click on that box now. Click on the “FILE” button. If any questions remain incomplete, a new error message will be generated.
If you are not ready to file and you want to stop working on your statement, and save the information that you have entered, click on “SAVE” at the end of the statement. A message will appear on the computer screen indicating that your statement has been saved, it has not been filed. If you want to end your session, close your browser. See the “ Accessing Your Financial Disclosure Form/Statement” section of these instructions when you want to return to your statement.
If you want to immediately go back into your statement, click on “Review Previously Submitted Statements Here”. The “Financial Disclosure Dashboard” will appear. Click on the “Employee ID” number of your saved statement to access it.
If you do not want to save any of the information you have entered in your statement, click on “CANCEL” at the end of the statement. This will end your session. IF YOU CLICK ON THIS BUTTON ANY INFORMATION YOU HAVE ENTERED WILL BE LOST AND CAN NOT BE RESTORED.
You can print a copy of your statement at any time, before or after it is filed. Click on the "Switch to Print Preview" box at the top of your statement. Then click on “File” on the top toolbar and choose the “Print” option.
Revising Or Amending Your Financial Disclosure Statement
Revisions
Every statement is reviewed after it is filed. If it appears that your statement is deficient and must be revised, we will notify you via email and give you a specified amount of time to do so online.
To revise your statement electronically you must use your work computer/laptop. Your work computer/laptop must be connected to CourtNet through the court’s VPN connection (either SSLVPN or Pulse VPN) and it must have the current version of FileMaker.
- Go to the “Inside UCS” “Home” page ( http://inside-ucs.org). Choose “Topics “A” to Z” and then go to “E” and choose “Ethics Commission” or go to “F” and choose “Financial Disclosure Statements”. The Ethics Commission home page will appear.
- Choose “Electronic Filing”, then “File Online (Financial Disclosure Form)”.
- Follow the instructions under, “How to Access Your Electronic Statement”.
- Choose option “1” on the eAccess page.
To revise your statement:
- Go to the question(s) that must be revised and make the necessary changes. See these instructions for information pertaining to editing your statement. If you require further assistance, contact the Ethics Commission.
- After you have completed your revision, click on the “Affirm” box. Verify that the question box in the “Question Completion Summary” is green and contains the notation “OK”.
- Click on the “File” box at the bottom of the page to re-file your statement.
Amendment
If you wish to add information to your statement after it has been filed, you must submit a letter to the Ethics Commission indicating the question(s) you are amending, and setting forth your complete amendment. We will convert the letter to a pdf and attach it to your statement. All information therein becomes part of your financial disclosure statement and certain information therein will be made available for public inspection pursuant to 22 NYCRR Section 40.1 p)(1). We recommend that you do not include your home address or your employee id number in the amendment letter.
If you want to remove information from your statement, you must file a paper deletion request. See the section below regarding deletion requests.
You must submit these requests through the mail, on paper, even if you file online.
Filing A Deletion Request:
This request must be submitted after you have filed your statement. We will not accept a deletion request if you have not already filed. Indicate on the request application the date that you filed your statement online.
Deletion Request Form (PDF)
Filing A Family Exemption Request:
This request may be submitted before or after you file your statement. If you have not filed, so indicate on the request application. If you have filed, indicate on the request the date that you did so.
Family Exemption Request Form (PDF)