Ninth Circuit's Case Filing System Used as Model for Judiciary

The federal judiciary’s administrative office is using the Ninth Circuit’s modernized case management system as a “model” and “testing ground” for its own project to update its own electronic filing program, the appeals court’s chief judge said.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the largest federal appeals court, is “actively engaged” with the Administrative Office of the US Courts in the office’s efforts to update its case filing system, known as CM/ECF, Chief Judge Mary Murguia said Monday at the appeals court’s conference in Sacramento.

She added that the appeals court is working to completely sunset the CM/ECF system in favor of its newer cloud-based system “by the end of 2025.”

The AO has for years worked to update its system for lawyers to file legal documents and track cases as well as its PACER service, which allows the public to view case filings. Then-AO director Roslynn Mauskopf told lawmakers in 2022 that the judiciary’s work to modernize the system, including by shifting storage to the cloud, “is well underway.”

The San Francisco-based court started processing all new cases as of October through its newer Appellate Case Management System, though cases reopened before then continued to be processed in the older system. The development of the new system was a coordinated effort with the Second Circuit, Murguia said.

Murguia also said that the Ninth Circuit has seen a significant decline in case filings over the last five years. She said the appeals court is “more current in its caseload than it has been in several years.”

As of March 2024, the Ninth Circuit had fewer than 7,000 pending cases, which represents a 23% drop from 2019, and the current number of pending cases is the “lowest we’ve had in decades,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Suzanne Monyak in Sacramento at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Seth Stern at [email protected]; John Crawley at [email protected]

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