Despite the use of various case processing and management innovations, the need to create new bankruptcy judgeships is both "acute and longstanding," a representative of the Judicial Conference told a Senate subcommittee last month.
"We are not just asking our bankruptcy judges to do more-we are requiring it," said Chief Judge Paul A. Magnuson (D. Minn.), chair of the Conference's Committee on Administration of the Bankruptcy System. "We will continue to seek ways to improve the bankruptcy system's efficiency, but we need eleven additional bankruptcy judges. The need is both acute and longstanding." Magnuson testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.
Bankruptcy filings are sharply increasing. Filings for the fourth quarter of 1995 were 21 percent higher than in the fourth quarter of 1994. The level of consumer debt is at an all-time high, and all indicators suggest that the growth in bankruptcy filings will continue.
H.R. 2604, the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 1995, was introduced in the House last November and would create four permanent bankruptcy judgeships in the Central District of California and one permanent bankruptcy judgeship in the District of Maryland. One temporary judgeship would be created in each of the following districts: the Southern District of Florida, the Eastern District of Michigan, the District of New Jersey, the Eastern District of New York, the Northern District of New York, and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In the six temporary judgeships that would be created under the legislation, the first bankruptcy judgeship vacancy (other than expiration of a term) in the district occurring five years or more after a judge has been appointed to the temporary judgeship would not be filled.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law conducted a hearing on the bill last December, and marked up and referred the legislation to the full committee in February, which approved the bill on March 14.
In the Senate hearing, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the sub-committee's chair, questioned if the Judiciary was looking at long-term needs for bankruptcy judgeships, if the number of judges would eventually be limited, and if courts were making use of intercircuit transfers to deal with disparate caseloads.
Magnuson's responded that the Judiciary continues to explore avenues other than requesting new judgeships to meet the resource needs of the bankruptcy courts. Among the management tools and processes currently being used are the recall program, in which retired bankruptcy judges serve on a full-time or part-time basis; shared positions, which allow the needs of two districts to be met while avoiding the cost of an additional judgeship; inter- and intra-circuit assignments, which provide short-term solutions to districts with disparate caseloads; cross designation, which allows designation of a bankruptcy judge to an adjacent or nearby district; additional law clerks, who provide bankruptcy judges with additional research assistance and allow an initial review of materials in certain types of cases where judicial determination is not needed; and judicial education, which enhance case management.
Magnuson told the subcommittee the Judicial Conference has reduced its original request for 19 bankruptcy judgeships to 11. In addition, the Conference currently is holding nine bankruptcy judgeships vacant in districts where caseloads have declined.
Magnuson said, "Personal lives, livelihoods, states, even countries, depend on the economic health of its citizens and businesses. When economic health fails, the 'fresh start' provided by the bankruptcy code helps to minimize the devastating impact. Without an adequate number of bankruptcy judges to administer these cases, the goal of a fresh start is in some cases destroyed because of delay."