The Judicial Conference has approved, without substantive change, 64 recommendations in the Proposed Long Range Plan for the Federal Courts received at the Conference's March 1995 session. In doing so, the Conference took the first step toward establishing a comprehensive guide for policymaking and administrative action in the federal Judiciary. The recommendations and implementation strategies not yet approved have been referred to the relevant Conference committees for purposes of further study and a report to the Conference at the next regularly-scheduled session in September 1995.
The plan recommendations already endorsed by the Conference include a wide range of principles and goals to carry the federal courts into the 21st Century. Among the key items are those defining the appropriate scope of federal civil and criminal jurisdiction; emphasizing the need to observe the Rules Enabling Act process; focusing attention on the problems of pro se litigation and jury administration; encouraging use of case management and alternative dispute resolution techniques; promoting efficient, informed governance; and highlighting the importance of effectively utilizing existing resources and obtaining public support for and understanding of the federal courts.
The recommendations and strategies referred to committees fall into five main categories: federalism and jurisdiction; court structure and process; governance and administration; utilization of resources; and access to federal court proceedings. The first category consists primarily of items aimed at reducing the scope of federal court jurisdiction and workload by reallocation of certain dispute resolution functions to Article I courts, administrative agencies, and state courts (Recommendations 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 15). Also included are two recommendations that emphasize the need for Congress to consider the impact of legislation on the federal courts and state courts (Recommendations 13 and 14, respectively).
With respect to court structure and process, the Plan recommendations to be reconsidered include those addressing the basic organization of federal appellate and trial courts (Recommendations 17, 20, 25) and the geographic size and alignment of circuits and districts (Recommendations 18 and 27). Also referred for further study are items dealing with appellate review of bankruptcy judge and magistrate judge decisions (Recommendations 22-24), powers and composition of bankruptcy courts (Recommendations 28-29), use of nonjudicial staff and adjunct judicial officers in the courts of appeals (Implementation Strategy 39c), and the system of probation and pretrial services (Recommendation 33).
In the area of governance and administration, there will be further review of those items in the plan that address such broad issues as the distribution of governance responsibility (including spending powers) among regional (circuit) and local (district) authorities (Recommendations 42, 49, and 76), the role of the Judicial Conference (Recommendation 44), and the ability of judges to participate in the Conference, circuit judicial councils, and local court governance activity (Recommendation 52). Other, more specific issues-composition of the Conference's Executive Committee (Implementation Strategy 45c), method of selecting chief judges (Implementation Strategy 49b), and organization of the Administrative Office and the Federal Judicial Center (Recommendation 48)-will also be considered again at the committee level before the Conference takes dispositive action.
Finally, the relevant committees have been asked to review the plan recommendations that concern use of judicial resources and access to the federal courts. Among the resource items to be reconsidered are policies on utilization of senior and retired judges (Recommendations 65 and 66) and magistrate judges (Recommendations 67 and 68), and the importance of minimizing the length of judicial vacancies and mitigating their impact on workload capacity (Recommendation 70, 72-75). The question of access will be reconsidered in the context of court users who do not speak English (Recommendation 89), public and press access to proceedings (Implementation Strategy 94d), filing and user fees (Recommendation 90), private attorney representation of indigent criminal defendants (Recommendation 92), and education of jurors about the jury system and the courts generally (Recommendation 96).
The Judicial Conference's Committee on Long Range Planning was created by the Chief Justice in 1990 to chart a general course for the federal courts. The Committee published a draft Proposed Long Range Plan for the Federal Courts in November 1994, and circulated the draft for public comment, which it received from judges, attorneys, public interest groups, legislators, and private citizens with an interest in the future of the federal courts. The modified plan was submitted to the Conference for consideration at its March 1995 meeting.