Judicial Conference to Congress: Talk With Us Before Changing Pacer

The Judicial Conference "has serious concerns" with the Open Courts Act (HR-5844) and wants "meaningful two-way dialogue" with the House Judiciary Committee about revisions to the bill before the committee acts on it, Judicial Conference Secretary Roslynn Mauskopf said in a letter dated Tuesday and released Thursday to House Subcommittee on Courts Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ill. Johnson sponsored the bill. The legislation "may unduly constrain" the courts systems' ongoing update of Public Access to Court Electronic Records (Pacer) and the case management and electronic case files systems (CM/ECF), said Mauskopf, U.S. District judge in Brooklyn. She said that disagreements over aspects of the bill include judiciary opposition to increased filing fees and that while the judiciary isn't a fan of eliminating all Pacer fees, "we are not opposed ... in principle, so long as the alternative funding for PACER and CM/ECF is fair to litigants, effective, reliable, and administratively workable."