U.S. Courts - 2004 Annual Report

2004 Annual Report of the Director
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts

Advances in Automation

Evaluating Alternative Models for IT Service Delivery

After the Judicial Conference Executive Committee identified information technology as a principal business area for cost-containment, the Committee on Information Technology endorsed a vigorous effort to identify and implement more cost-effective IT service delivery models. Alternatives to be examined include consolidating system servers in fewer locations, with one court servicing several others; consolidating servers in one or more service centers operated by contractor personnel; and outsourcing system operations, as well as servers, to a commercial service provider.

Moving to a different model will require most national applications to be modified, higher-capacity servers to be acquired, and data communications and public access networks to be reconfigured. This means that myriad system architecture, technical, procurement, and management complexities must be factored into the process.

Nevertheless, long-term cost savings associated with a reduced number of servers will outweigh the one-time investment in software modification, hardware acquisition, and network changes. The AO is working with the courts to identify costs and develop a transition plan and schedule.

Anticipating a different service delivery model, the Committee on Information Technology
determined to discontinue normal cyclical replacement of individual court-based servers supporting national applications. Some funds will be reserved to repair or replace servers as they fail, or to upgrade servers to meet critical capacity demands on a case-by-case basis.

IT Work Center Description and Practices

A working group comprised of court unit representatives has developed an IT work center description, which is a comprehensive summary of all tasks performed by IT staff in circuit executive offices, appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, and probation and pretrial services offices. Court managers can use this summary as an aid in local workforce planning. The group also developed a list of IT practices that courts may wish to explore and incorporate into their operations to enhance efficiency and service levels. The list of IT practices is a resource court managers may consult to improve operations; however, it is not intended to be prescriptive. Both the work center description and the list of practices have been posted on the J-Net and will be updated as the Judiciary explores alternate IT and administrative service delivery models.

Remote Access

The Administrative Office has worked closely with the assistant circuit executives for automation and others in the courts to develop a secure, broadband-capable virtual private network (VPN) system to provide remote access to the Judiciary network for users with laptops and personal digital assistants connected to the Internet from their homes, hotel rooms, and other locations. AO staff are also working on measures that will maintain the Judiciary's IT security posture in this remote-access environment.

Automation of National Judiciary-Wide Forms

The AO continued work on automating more than 300 national forms for Judiciary-wide use. Many forms are now available on the J-Net in a choice of WordPerfect and PDF formats. In addition, more than 90 forms have also been placed on the Judiciary's Internet site, www.uscourts.gov, making them available to attorneys and other users who previously had to obtain them from their local district courts.

Records Management

AO staff negotiated an agreement with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) regarding the disposition of court filings that are filed in paper, but subsequently converted to electronic format and entered into the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. The agreement formally designates the electronic version of the filing as the court record. This will contribute to a tremendous reduction of paper court records.

Computer-Assisted Legal Research Services Contracts

The Administrative Office awarded new contracts to West and LexisNexis for computer-assisted legal research (CALR) services. These contracts became effective in FY 2005 and may be renewed annually at the Judiciary's option for up to 10 years, through FY 2014.

The new contracts provide unlimited access for all federal Judiciary users to a full range of legal, news/journals/business, and public records databases. Judges and other researchers may choose the product that best serves their individual research needs. The contracts guarantee uninterrupted availability of essential research services and significantly benefit the Judiciary by ensuring access to exclusive content on both Westlaw and LexisNexis.

The new contracts also further important financial objectives for the Judiciary. The 10-year contract term allows the Judiciary to predict future costs for long-term financial planning. In addition, the dual contract award supports the Judiciary's ongoing effort to reduce lawbook spending.

During the past four years, cancellations of West publications alone have resulted in an estimated cost savings of $5.8 million to the Judiciary in lawbook expenditures. The Judiciary can continue to seek further voluntary reductions in print subscriptions by ensuring the long-term online availability of essential resources.

Administrative Office staff were assisted in the procurement by judges, court librarians, judicial law clerks, and staff attorneys. The contracts were negotiated to offer the same content and services to several other Judiciary organizations as riders to the contracts, including the Supreme Court of the United States , the Federal Judicial Center, and the United States Sentencing Commission.

Congressional Update Collection Project

The new Congressional Update Collection for the Office of Legislative Affairs (CUPOLA) was implemented in early FY 2004. The CUPOLA applies the online legal information environment to the laborious effort required to maintain a searchable data store of congressional activity that affects the courts.

InfoWeb Buyout/Severance Pay and Impact

A tool made available to all those involved in court personnel planning/management allowed them to calculate the costs of reducing staffing as a result of tight budget constraints. Also, InfoWeb now allows for the online collection of information about the impact of proposed or planned staffing reductions in the courts for the current and subsequent fiscal years.

Central Violations Bureau

The Central Violations Bureau (CVB) provides participating U.S. district courts and federal law enforcement agencies with an efficient processing system for handling petty offenses and some misdemeanor cases initiated by a violation notice. During fiscal year 2004, the CVB processed 415,000 citations, an increase of more than 20,000 from 2003. A number of operational improvements resulted in enhanced service to the courts and allowed the CVB to collect $20 million in fines and forfeitures. The CVB fielded more than 250,000 telephone calls and e-mails from the public, courts, and law enforcement agencies.

The CVB made several technological improvements to operations during fiscal year 2004. On the J-Net, court staff can now access and fill out forms that have fields automatically completed with data drawn from the CVB database. An e-mail-based search tool was implemented to allow law enforcement agencies to automate the checking of case status. In an effort to cut costs and ease production, the CVB has moved from an impact to laser printer for the production of the Notice to Appear and Warrant forms. Additionally, numerous quality reports were generated to help ensure data integrity throughout the life cycle of a violation notice.

ILS Hardware and Replacement

Staff from several AO offices worked with the Integrated Library System (ILS) vendor, Sirsi, to
successfully complete the cyclical replacement of all Intel/Solaris ILS servers with new SPARC/Solaris servers. Due to the fact that Sirsi does not provide a Linux/Intel version of its software, the standard platform for the Judiciary, an alternative replacement platform was sought and the SPARC/Solaris was chosen. Approximately 30 percent of Sirsi's customer base uses SPARC/Solaris, and Sirsi uses this platform for development and testing.

Successful completion of this project is the result of a two-year effort to determine the best scenario for cyclical replacement of the ILS Intel/Solaris hardware. Alternatives were identified and analyzed, project requirements were outlined, and hardware specifications were developed. A file-system layout and implementation and data-migration plan were key to the seamless replacement. AO staff now provide support for both the operating system and application software.

ILS/FAS 4T Interface Implementation

In 2004, staff completed the implementation of an interface between the Integrated Library System (ILS) and FAS 4T in five circuit headquarters libraries, thus completing a project initiated in FY 2000.

All circuit library staff now use ILS for lawbook ordering and FAS 4T to generate lawbook payments, exchanging data between the two systems. Successful completion of this project has resulted in increased efficiency and timeliness of lawbook payments and the tracking of lawbook expenditures.

Bankruptcy Noticing Center

In fiscal year 2004, the Bankruptcy Noticing Center (BNC) produced and mailed approximately 135 million bankruptcy notices, representing an increase of nearly 13 percent over FY2003. Operated under a contract managed by the Administrative Office, the BNC electronically retrieves data from participating courts' case management systems and automates the printing, addressing, batching, and mailing processes. Using automation, the BNC is able to generate notices at a fraction of the time and cost that would be required if produced by local courts. Since the program's inception in 1993, it has saved the Judiciary approximately $34 million and has provided better service.

Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing

The Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing (EBN) program provides an innovative approach to bankruptcy noticing, eliminating the production and mailing of traditional paper notices, and associated postage costs, while speeding public service. Available options include Internet e-mail and fax services, and electronic data interchange for large-volume notice recipients. In fiscal year 2004, overall program usage continued to increase over the previous fiscal years. Approximately 10 million notices were sent electronically, compared to 7 million transmitted in fiscal year 2003. The increase is due in part to the launch of the National Creditor Registration Service, an enhancement to the EBN program that eliminated the need for clerk's office personnel to administer program-related paperwork, and simplified the sign-up process for electronic notice recipients. By the end of the fiscal year, approximately 10 percent of all notices sent through the Bankruptcy Noticing Center each day were being sent electronically. Participation in the electronic noticing program by creditors or other recipients is voluntary. Additional program growth is expected in the future through administrative and rules-based initiatives.

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