A Preview of Our Coming Attractions Valuable Enhancements to the Bankruptcy Courts CMECF

<p>Throughout the summer of 2006, bankruptcy courts around the country will be upgrading their
electronic filing systems (CM/ECF) to the newest version: Release 3.0. This
upgrade will yield a significant improvement to the CM/ECF system for both internal
court users and the thousands of attorneys, trustees and creditors using these
systems as it addresses 145 modification request enhancements and/or fixes.
Many of these improvements introduce much-desired, new functionality over the
current application, particularly in the areas of claims and creditor processing,
quality control, calendaring, reports and enhanced docketing features.
</p><p>A second major upgrade to the CM/ECF system will take place just a few months
later. By Oct. 17, 2006, the bankruptcy courts will install Release 3.1, which
will address the necessary statistical requirements contained in BAPCPA for
congressional reporting purposes, among other improvements.

</p><p>There are several documents currently posted to the Pacer site for external
filers to become familiar with Release 3.0's enhancements and fixes. These can
be downloaded at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov to obtain the CM/ECF Bankruptcy Release
3.0 Notes for PACER users. On the Pacer Developer page at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/
cmecf/developer/index.html, users (in particular, large-claim filers) can download
a detailed document describing the procedures for electronic filing of bankruptcy
claims as a batch transaction (filers will be able to electronically file batches
of 1-25 claims and receive electronic notice of the filings). Some of the major
highlights of Release 3.0 that will directly interest attorneys, trustees and
creditors include the following:
</p><p>1. <i>Case-Opening Developments</i>. A new type of debtor has been added for
nonprofit organizations, and the check-boxes for type of debtor have been changed
to radio buttons, which are mutually exclusive to avoid statistical errors.
Depending on how the court configures the application, the "party role"
field may be eliminated from the case-opening screens. Debtor, joint-debtor,
petitioning creditor, defendant and plaintiff would then appear appropriately
on case-opening party screens. Also, there is now an open involuntary case menu
option on the first screen. At least one petitioning creditor must be added
to the case, and you can select the attorney who is representing each petitioning
creditor. Also, more than one nature of suit can be designated when opening
an adversary proceeding for statistical reporting.
</p><p>2. <i>Claims Upload</i>. This new item on the bankruptcy events menu will allow
users to add, amend or transfer claims through the uploading of a file. Also,
a creditor who is filing a claim may be added to the case. A new claims-upload
log utility lists the claim actions you submitted during the specified date
range.
</p><p>3. <i>Creditor and Claims Processing</i>. Many new enhancements have been made
to the creditor and claims-processing features. Depending on court preference,
you may find one or two new links under "claims filing," "edit
creditor" and/or add "common creditor," which lets you select
from a list of persons designated as common creditors. Also, when an existing
creditor is selected for editing, there is a link to the related claim (if any).
A notice of electronic claims filing (NECF) may be generated if a claim is edited.
The notice is sent only to active attorneys/trustees and any additional addresses
specified for their accounts. Amended claims will receive an extension number
from the original claim rather than a new claim number. Other improvements include
a hyperlink provided from the query screen to the claims register, and the notice
of electronic filing will include links for the claims register and for filing
another claim.
</p><p>4. <i>Transfer of Claims</i>. An event that records the transfer of claims
will now allow the transfer of multiple claims from different transferors to
one transferee. These transfers will now appear on the claims register under
a new feature called claim history and will include a link to transferor name/address.
Once transferred, the transferee is shown as the owner of the claim on the claims
register.
</p><p>5. <i>New Docketing Features</i>. When an event prompts you to select an attorney,
the selection list will now show the role of the party the attorney represents.
Also, for multipart motions, the docket text previously listed the parts in
alphabetical order but will now display the parts in the order selected by the
filer. This release also corrects the problem of duplicate docket entries when
the "submit" button is clicked more than once. Another improvement
is that the NEF will now be sent to recipients at the addresses specified for
those particular cases, rather than to their general addresses.
</p><p>6. <i>Additional Query Capability</i>. The query menu now includes options
for the claims register and the creditor mailing matrix. Party/person searches
can now be done with first and middle names rather than just the last name.

</p><p>7. <i>New and Improved Reports</i>. The claims register report now includes
the date of entry and the date of last modification for each claim, and the
type of person who filed the claim. Additionally, the report will display the
most recent status under status, and earlier statuses from prior docket entries
will be shown in the new history section. Also, a match is now made on a creditor
name if the string entered is found anywhere in the name, not just at the beginning.
Filers will now have access to the docket activity report, which allows users
to search for docket activity in a specified date range and may be filtered
only to cases to which they are linked. Another new report, which will be available
free of charge, is the written opinions report. CM/ECF will list all opinions
that match the selection criteria entered; displaying the case number, date
filed, case title and hyperlink to the opinion. Opinions will be text searchable
within a document.
</p><p>8. <i>Corrections Made to the Automatic Assignment of Judge/Trustee</i>. Previously,
the trustee calendar was created based on the current date of running the schedule,
rather than the actual filing date of the case. This has been fixed in Version
3.0. This correction may significantly change the assignment of an attorney's
cases: Previously, a group of cases with different filing dates could be assigned
to one trustee, whereas now the group might be divided among several trustees.
</p><p>9. <i>Miscellaneous Items</i>. The party-case index now includes the disposition
of a terminated case. Also, with respect to Pacer billing, the 30-page cap for
pdf documents has been extended to charges for queries and for the cases, claims
activity and docket-activity reports. There is now no limit on charges made
for transcripts, and opinions may be viewed without charge.
</p><p>10. <i>Public Access Enhancements</i>. Finally, in Version 3.1, several useful
login screen improvements will be available to help users differentiate between
the Pacer and CM/ECF screens, including better instructions, different-colored
screens and the ability to customize the client code function. Also, user preferences
will be available to tailor whether or not the user wishes to view the transaction
receipt after each billable transaction.
</p><p>As these coming attractions reveal, there are many new and exciting improvements
to the CM/ECF application on the way for our attorneys, trustees and creditors.
To bring you these valuable enhancements, we rely heavily on your communications,
suggestions and problem-reporting for improving the system. Please continue
to do this by communicating with your local courts on ways to ensure the application
will work even better. Through teamwork, we can produce and benefit from the
most advanced case management/electronic case filing system in the world.
</p>