Lawyers must make sure court records are received

As a rule where a party appears by attorney in an action or proceeding in a court of record, all notices or orders required to be given therein must be given to the attorney of record. Accordingly, notices to counsel should be properly sent to his address of record, and, unless the counsel files a notice of change of address, his official address remains to be that his address of record.[1]In Balgami v. Court of Appeals,[2] the Supreme Court instructed the counsels to device a system to ensure that official communications would be promptly received by them, lest, they will be chargeable with negligence, thus:

x x x. The law office is mandated to adopt and arrange matters in order to ensure that official or judicial communications sent by mail would reach the lawyer assigned to the case. The court has time and again emphasized that the negligence of the clerks, which adversely affect the cases handled by lawyers, is binding upon the latter. The doctrinal rule is that negligence of the counsel binds the client because, otherwise, there would never be an end to a suit so long as new counsel could be employed who could allege and [prove] that prior counsel had not been sufficiently diligent, or experienced, or learned.

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[1] National Power Corporation v. Tac-an, 445 Phil. 515, 522 (2003).

[2] Balgami v. Court of Appeal, 487 Phil. 102, 113 (2004).