 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. The job of the case manager is to keep the case moving and to help the litigants file their documents in the proper form so that they can get them to the judges without a lot of problems and that when they get to the judges, the judges can go to the meat of the motion without having to worry about a lot of procedural mistakes. When the cases come to be calendared, that's when my role kicks in as far as getting the cases matched up with a panel and having to deal with various things like screening for recusing, making sure the cases are absolutely ripe to go before a panel of the court, and making sure that after the case is actually calendar that everything runs smoothly for the panel and for the attorneys. The motions practice keeps the cases flowing. Let's take for example extension motions. If you're granting way too many extensions, you're keeping a case from progressing. Motions for stay can be important because without a stay, something may be mooted. So the motions practice is important in terms of whether the case remains alive and whether it keeps moving and progressing to its conclusion. Data quality is extremely important in every aspect of this job. If your data is correct, then it makes everybody's job easier. One of the primary goals is to make sure that we don't have duplications, we don't have errors, and that just assists everybody. If you have multiple duplications, it makes the job difficult, especially under the confines of the AIM system and the docketing system. So we have gone through a lot of procedures and a lot of processes to make sure our data is correct. Well, they say justice delayed is justice denied. I mean, if our case managers are not monitoring the cases, they can be opened and they can be opened perfectly and we can have no duplicate addresses and if they sit there, then it's not going to do anyone any good. We really, at this juncture of the case, we really have to move the cases along so that we will be able to present our judges with sufficient, you know, ripe cases to hear arguments on or to decide on submitted briefs. So it's up to our case managers really to move these cases. Welcome to Appellate Case Processing, the second of three Federal Judicial Center FJTN broadcasts on the Administration of Appellate Cases. Today we're going to look at some of the processes and the challenges that Appellate Court staff face during the period once a case has been open, but prior to closing. First, I'd like to introduce the members of our panel. In the studio with me are Kathy Brower, Chief Deputy Clerk for Operations for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and Scott Ritchie, Counsel to the Clerk of Court for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Also joining us via Push to Talk are Susan Gelmas, Supervisor Emotions Attorney for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Amy Frazier, Data Quality Trainer for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Welcome everyone. In addition to processes and challenges, we found out that the courts have come up with many effective practices to help them. Through discussions with panelists here in the studio and at nine Push to Talk sites, we'll learn more about those practices and what court units are doing to successfully meet challenges. The court units participating will tell us what works for them. Now these same practices may not be effective for you. That's for your judges and for your courts to decide. We have quite a bit to talk about in just an hour and a half. We have so many subjects and so little time. So as a result of this broadcast, we hope that you'll be more familiar with issues and challenges facing court staff during the case processing phase, be able to identify some techniques and effective practices developed by other court units to meet those challenges, and to be familiar with some information sources that might provide assistance to you. We want to encourage you to participate. Ask questions, share your thoughts with us, and you can do this either through Push to Talk or by sending us a fax. Our toll-free fax number will appear on the screen throughout this broadcast, and feel free to use the fax form that was located at jnet.fjc.dcn at any time during the broadcast. If you haven't already downloaded it, you may want to pay special notices to the effective practices submitted by your colleagues and include it as part of our participant guide. Now on to today's agenda. In the first panel, we're going to discuss primarily motion practices, as well as briefs processing, continued case screening, and calendaring. And again, the emphasis is on the challenges faced by court staff and the process and practices utilized. Our second panel discussion will focus on the important issue of quality control. With all the information required during this period, what are the challenges and are there measures your circuit has taken to ensure accuracy? Finally, we'll cover the issue of communication. How do you keep attorneys and internal staff aware of changes in the FRAP rules, local rules in IOP, IOPs? How do you deal with pro-safe filers? And where do you go and what do you have to do to get additional or clarifying information? And then finally, we'll end this session with a little wrap-up. Let's get started. In opening each discussion, we'd like to set the stage, so to speak, with a short video clip. Here's the first one. When a case is initially docketed, a checklist which states what is required in particular documents is sent out to the attorneys. On the checklist are the particular statements that would be required in a brief and an appendix if they're submitting an appendix document supporting their briefs of providing information to the court. Also, we do have a website which has not only the checklist, but also the rules and procedures of the court for the ease of the attorneys and those preparing documents. After the briefing notice is issued, it's almost certain that the case is going to be counted before a panel of the court. So this is when you're going to match up the panels to the cases and in random nature and also that is when the attorneys are going to be notified in terms of whether their case is going to be submitted on the briefs or orally argued. And that's a very important process not only for the court itself and disposing of cases, but in notifying the attorneys because then they get the opportunity to present their case before the court. The case managers will issue the briefing schedule. They will handle any extension requests, but when the briefs actually come in, the briefing specialists will make sure that they comply. And then the calendaring of the cases is done by the calendaring unit. But pretty much everything else the case managers handle with help here and there from other people. In order for us to manage our practice better, we needed to come up with procedures to handle the motions. And the use of the paralegals has been very effective. Another thing that happened recently was that the court passed a local rule which allows for verbal extensions of time to be granted, which has been a big help. And the legal assistance field those phone calls, make the requisite docket entries and it cuts down on some of the paperwork that we have to deal with. I think technology has been great so far. Our website has been a huge help because the opinions are available on the website, the docket sheets, the forms that we require are all available on the website. And the federal rules, local rules, the internal operating procedures. We also have come up with procedures for our case managers to be on the lookout for certain types of motions that usually generate emergencies. So they know to look for anything that says bail or release. They know to look for anything that says stay of deportation or expedite. There are certain buzzwords that we've put out to them and they are told to bring those documents to one of the attorneys as soon as they see it. Because I think advance notice allows you to manage the emergency more effectively. As we saw in that opening clip, the challenges are numerous. There's a lot of information that's been received and having to be processed. During this period, staff attorneys, case managers, those in charge of calendaring and other court staff play a crucial role in ensuring that cases are kept moving toward resolution, whether on the briefs or during argument before a panel. Let's go around the table. Kathy, Brower, let me turn to you first. How does the Third Circuit deal with motions and also what's the role of staff? Well, there are basically two categories of motions, I think, across all circuits. And those would be the procedural motions, which tend to be your run-of-the-mill dimensions of time or motions to file oversized documents, briefs, et cetera. And these are, in our circuit at least, mostly handled by the clerk. And then there are the substantive motions, which include your big ticket-type motion. That's likely your motions to dismiss or for summary affirmance or a motion for a certificate of appealability, those that might result in the disposition of the entire case. And of course, motions for stay of deportation, motions for bail. These are substantive motions, which are often emergency motions. And those are the ones that Kelly alluded to in the earlier clip. They are very hot potatoes and they have to be dealt with very, very quickly. Our case managers have a lot of responsibility and connection with processing motions. They have to determine what kind of motion it is. And in the procedural motion, they will basically route it to one of our legal assistants, who are responsible for disposing of these kinds of motions. If it is a substantive motion that has to go to the court, the case manager has to first look at the case. If it has been calendared, it is already associated with the panel, the merits panel, and therefore they would know what panel to send the motion to. If it is not yet calendared, we have in the third circuit four standing motion panels of judges. And it is up to the case manager to look at our motion lists and select one of those panels after having done a recusal check to make sure that none of the judges on any one of those panels might have to be, you know, that we couldn't use the panel because of a recusal. And then finally, the case manager has to determine whether it is a one, two, or three judge motion. Any dispositive motion would be automatically a three judge motion. There are a variety of procedural motions, which, if handled by the judges, are one judge or a single judge motions. And then those that fall in between the two can be decided by a minimum of two judges. And then our clerks, our case managers, will prepare an order page based on that information, who the judges are, laying out the motions, putting in a response time if necessary, and so on. So they have quite a lot to do, even though they are not, in our circuit, at least responsible for disposing of any motions. They do have to do a lot of preliminary work to get them ready. I understand also that your circuit has a procedures manual that it uses, and I guess it's on your internal, it's available to them electronically? Well, we have a procedures manual which has evolved over time and in manual form it's quite thick. And it has grown over time. It is being constantly updated and worked on. And those portions which have been updated in the recent past are available on our network and people can access them doing a search and so on. So it's, of course, we do have a section on motion procedures and so the case managers don't have to memorize what is a one, two, or three judge motion. There are lists within the procedures manual which will guide them as to what kind of motion it is and whether it's a one or two or a three judge. A lot of responsibility on the part of case managers for that initial review anyway, to determine where it works. And also they not only have to identify motions but also response papers which are sometimes a little bit more difficult to recognize. Scott, let me turn the ball over to you. What about the fourth circuit? Is it similar to what's happening in the third or different? As Kathy pointed out, most appellate courts divide up their motions between substantive and procedural. The important point is where you create that dividing line. And in the fourth circuit we divide them very strongly in favor of substantive, very small number of substantive motions, a great number of procedural motions. Approximately 90% of the motions filed in the fourth circuit are acted on by staff and are not sent to the court. We have authority to act on motions which in many courts are considered substantive in nature. Motions for lead to file brief is amicus curiae. Motion to supplement the record or modify the record on appeal. Motion for lead to proceed in formal pompress. And motions to stay the mandate are all acted on by the court's office and not referred to the court for disposition. Because of this there's a lot of involvement by our case managers in acting on some of these procedural motions. And they've received quite a bit of training in order to try to act in an appropriate manner in each of these cases, which brings up to the point about consistency. Because we have so many different people in our court's office acting on procedural motions, we have to emphasize the consistency which comes with training and with other materials which they have available to them so they can act in a consistent manner. Our court, having delegated so much authority to the court to act on motions, expects that these motions will be acted on in a very rapid fashion because of that we have established a one-day turnaround time on motions. To accomplish this we have adopted a local rule which requires whenever council files a motion, the council indicate in the motion whether or not the other side intends to oppose the motion. They require the contact to the other side and find out whether the other side consents or will not oppose or intends to file a response in opposition. Therefore we know once the motion arrives in our office whether we can act on it immediately or whether we have to obtain a response before it's referred for consideration. The substantive motions are of course referred to the court. We do not use two judge panels, we use one and three judge panels. We send motions the whole case in advance to a single circuit judge. Any request for reconsideration taken by the clerk is sent to a single circuit judge in the first instance. We reserve the privilege or right to reconsider any action taken by the clerk's office before we refer the matter to a single circuit judge. We've decided we've taken the long action in the first instance or the matter is such that it's a matter of questioning and granting a couple more days for a brief or items such as that is not really worth putting out before the court. We can grant a motion to reconsider in the clerk's office and grant the party additional relief. Perhaps not all the relief that they're seeking but at least some additional relief. Substantive motions which go to the court in the first instance are motions for bail, pending appeal, motions for stay. Other dispositive motions which are ultimately referred to by the clerk's office panel go through our office staff council where they make a recommendation as to the proper disposition. Now your procedural motions as well are subject to review. Absolutely. We have a local rule that any party can ask for reconsideration within 14 days. We are very much supported by our judges. Rarely our motions reconsider. Granted, if they are, we learn from this and we evolve and improve our practices to take into account any time our judges feel or not in complete compliance with their intentions. We're going to be talking a little bit about some of the challenges to that court staff face and you mentioned consistency and we'll talk about that not only next but when we talk about communication. Amy Frazier, let me turn it over to you in the 10th circuit. Talk to us a little bit about the process there. Here at the 10th circuit, our case managers initially receive all of the motions. They also determine where to route the motion to so they have quite a bit of responsibility. They do have a routing procedures tool they can use and follow if they're not sure where a motion should go. As I said, they do have a lot of discretion and they can rule on quite a few motions. We have a motion team as well that will help them out if they're not sure on what to do with the motion. Our emergency motions go to staff counsel and motions which need immediate ruling that need a judges ruling will go to what's called a clerks panel and our clerks panel is made up of two judges. Other motions that do not need immediate ruling but need a judges ruling will wait for the case to be fully briefed and will be submitted when the panel is assigned to the particular case. Thanks so much, Amy. For those courts that are pushed to talk, just a word of caution. When you do want to send us or speak to us, it's always good to mute your television because otherwise you'll get feedback. Let me turn it over to Susan Gelmas in the 9th circuit. Susan described the motions practices there and how that operates. Let me start by saying that because we're such a large circuit that's spread out all over the nine western states, all of our motions practice is actually centralized in San Francisco from the original receipt of the motions by the docketing clerks and through disposition of the motions depending on what kind of a motion it is. So we have a very centralized geographical location but we have a number of different units within the court that work on motions and the docketing staff has to, when they docket the motions, they have to figure out where it belongs. Procedural motions generally are sent to the clerk's office procedural motions unit which is a staff of six paralegals who are, the motions that go to them are specifically delineated in the court's general orders so that it's clear to everybody what kinds of motions they have authority to act on and they can act on those in clerk orders or they can present them to our appellate commissioner who is sort of the equivalent of a magistrate judge at the circuit level. We have one appellate commissioner. Substantive motions are basically any motion that isn't listed in the general orders as a procedural motion are referred to the motions or pro-say units. The pro-say unit is sort of a subset of the motions unit and there are paralegals and attorneys in that unit who will act on these motions. Again, some motions are delineated as being able to be decided by a clerk order. Some are what used to go to one judge in our circuit now goes to the appellate commissioner and so the paralegals or attorneys will present those motions to the appellate commissioner and then the remaining motions that need to be presented to judges by the staff attorneys to a panel of two or three judges depending on the type of motion it is a different set of judges is responsible every month for hearing motions and they come to San Francisco either in person or by video for a week of each month and part of what they're doing there is to hear substantive motions and decide them. Emergencies they hear over the phone but everything is presented to them orally by the staff attorneys who do the initial intake on emergencies. We have a local rule that requires parties filing an emergency motion to contact the staff attorney directly and to arrange for the filing which can be by fax if authorized so that we can get those motions going as quickly as possible. Thanks so much Susan. As you can see it's defined differently by different circuits but it seems to me the common denominator is there's a tremendous amount of responsibility that staff has in order to carry out these functions. Let me ask each of our panel members you've defined the process including the role of staff and while it's different among circuits I have you also define some of the challenges now that you think are kind of key what does court staff some of these challenges that they face and what do you think are the key to success? Scott let me start with you. The key to success is keeping abreast of the current practices and procedures of the Court of Appeals. It's a very complex practice and we require our case managers and other members of the clerk's office to know a tremendous amount of practice and procedure and being able to advise the practicing bar and prosaise as to what the current practice is. Not a day goes by when we don't have a new procedure or practice that we have to identify and modify. There is much complexity there is in appellate practice and the practicing bar depends on us because the average attorney does not come before the Court of Appeals on a regular basis and so they turn very heavily to the staff of the Court of Appeals to be able to tell them what the appropriate practice is and how to best go about following the case and pursuing their issues before the court. I agree with Scott and I think that the biggest challenge for our case managers is not only in motion practice but also in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice and in practice for our case managers not only in motion practice but all along the case processing the whole process is that you have this fine this balancing act between moving things expeditiously and yet taking time and being very very careful making sure that you're not submitting something to the Court that it has typos or is incorrect in some way and important information so on one hand we're telling people go through your documents be expeditious, make sure you get that those motions and responses to the attorneys as soon as you get them on the other hand we're saying take care don't rush to the extent that you're going to be voting something to the Court that you don't want them to have to look at so I think that in addition to taking into consideration all the variables that they have to take into consideration in order to know how to process this correctly they then have to be expeditious and also be very careful we're going to be talking about data quality but in this case it's identifying priorities, setting priorities being able to identify what are key documents that have to be moved like emergency motions or whatever they have to be moved expeditiously I think Lynn mentioned that and it's so true there's constant reshuffling of your priorities as things come in what do I do first? we're going to be talking about that we have a few effective practices that we're going to be citing in terms of the ability to flag those kinds of priorities and move them forward but again very carefully Amy the 10th circuit talk a little bit about what you feel are some of those key challenges that Court staff face Hi, I think in our Court is consistency and consistency individually and amongst the teams and we try to overcome that through communication communicating with the clerk he has an open door policy and so basically starting there and working it out between the teams and everybody within the office Thanks, Susan what do you think are some of the key challenges? I would add because I agree with all three of them of the speakers in terms of what some of those problems are I think we face those same challenges I would add to that just generally trying to keep track of the numerous papers the voluminous amount of paper that we get hopefully when we end up in an electronic docking system someday some of that will be less of a burden papers get lost papers don't end up together they don't make sense keeping track of that and keeping the cases moving is a big challenge for us the other major challenge that we faced very recently was the huge increase in the INF cases that all of a sudden came to us as a result of the government basically requiring the Board of Immigration Appeals to get rid of their backlog maybe opening 100 cases a month to 150 cases a week many of which included stay of deportation or removal motions and so we had an enormous challenge in trying to just deal with the emergency nature and the volume of these cases Thanks so much we talked before about the ability to flag these motions some that might require immediate attention or help folks identify what were key documents within and we want to cite a few effective practices we have Aliva George from the Second Circuit on the line welcome Aliva and I understand that the Second Circuit has developed a practice that expedites the review and processing of a motion and also flags priority documents could you describe them please I'd like to start off by saying the correction to our written submission in regard to the motion information statement I think we indicated that it was a form but it's and it came about due to the motion information form acts at Rule 27 out its usage a local rule was created that would permit the filing in this court and the likeness of the motion information form we can readily discern the short title the docket number of the relief that's requested and also an area of course where the person acting or disclosing of the motion that endorse the disposition Thank you Aliva, thanks so much you know sometimes the most effective practice doesn't always involve high tech high tech changes rather it's a very practical way of alerting case managers and others and I think the example that Aliva has cited which you can also find in your downloadable materials in the participant guide for a full description just that Kathy I think you have an example in your circuit to a few examples of some small changes that made such a big difference Yes it's funny sometimes you don't need to expend a lot of resources or have lots of time and money to make some changes that do help we had a couple of minor examples they probably wouldn't be applicable across circuit lines but the concept is certainly transferable we have a deadline report that our case managers are responsible for which will alert them of any delinquent documents in any of their cases and in order to respond they need to know whether the documents have been received most of those documents would be in their work box except briefs because that's the one item that our case managers do not file in the course of the case that's kind of taken out with the calendaring procedures and done by the briefing specialists for the reason when the briefs come in they were on the other side of the office with the briefing specialists they were logged in by our records and mail folks who were taking the time and trouble to enter them into a word perfect document which was available on the network each day had a separate document but in order to check to see whether or not this brief may have been received and would be on that log was very cumbersome to go into it to check so most of the case managers would have to stop what they were doing get up go over across the office look at the print out of that log for the last seven days and run through and see if their docket number was in the list it was very cumbersome and it was really not efficient and sometimes our case managers would put it aside and then their deadline report would be delinquent itself so we got together Bill Bradley who supervises both the records and mail people and also the briefing specialists and Trish Coleman Trish Dodds White I should say now we all got together and talked about it we decided after talking that we could instead ask the records and mail clerks to create a docket entry just saying brief logged and in fact do away with the work that they were doing creating this other log we didn't really need it once we had the information in the case that of course would allow the case manager at his or her desk to simply pull up the case and see whether or not the brief was here and then they could act on their deadline report immediately it turned out actually that the records and mail folks had probably fewer keystrokes involved in this so it didn't create any extra work for them but it really did save a lot of work it's a small thing the another example is a we have these motion panels and prosa panels set up to deal with the motions and the legal division of the clerks office formerly the staff attorney's office is now handling all of those things they would create lists of motions long lists of motions which would be sent each week to different panels the A prosa panel B and so on and that information was emailed those lists were attached to an email that was sent out to all of the case managers the case manager in turn was responsible for making a docket entry indicating that that motion or motions had been submitted to the court and which panel and so on the problem was the lists even though they were they had clearly indicated docket numbers and names didn't have the case manager and so someone would have to look up every single one of these to see which case manager should get them and make sure that information was communicated to the case manager and so on so we simply asked the legal division if they would mind adding the initials of the case manager to these lists it was a little extra work on their part but not a lot because they usually did call up the case and had that information and the heading of the docket report right there so they agreed and now you simply open up one of these lists run down see if your initials are next to any of the motions and print out that page if it is and make your docket entry again we avoided a lot of duplicate work and unnecessary work so they're very very small things but they did save time and as I said the moral of the story or stories is that if you see something in your office maybe that isn't working so well or that maybe looks like too many hands are in the pot stop and think about it bring it up and maybe a solution can be found that would result in more efficient practice and less work on your part where everybody's part again communication issue sharing that information with the folks that you work with taking the time just to think about the process that you use because in fact you could save a lot of time and effort better service in fact overall part of our discussion here is going to focus on case screening and we know that a case is screened for various purposes in fact in our very first broadcast when we dealt with a case opening we used a wider definition of screening and we noted that screening is a process by which a court determines what treatment and appeal will receive and what path it follows and we touched on we screened for jurisdictional defects suitability for court settlement or mediation programs whether counsel should be appointed for an unrepresented party whether litigants have complied with court mandated requirements these are all things we talked about but like motion practices case screening is defined differently in different circuits so let's go around the table again and describe why it occurs how it occurs during this phase Kathy? Well we have a great recusal program that we use in the third circuit it's a FoxPro program that extracts information from new aims and such as party and attorney information for a particular case and we'll compare it to data that's stored regarding judges recusals and that information is submitted by the judges and is entered into this program the case manager we during the process of the appeal when we issue a briefing schedule if any motion of course is filed that has to be sent to the court and at a later juncture if a a non-bonk petition for hearing comes in of course we have to do a recusal check because we constantly update that information in case as Marcy said stocks are bought and sold and so on and the judges recusal situation may change so we're constantly prescreening the cases of course the most important part of getting the recusals right is when we calendar the cases and Bill Bradley is in charge of our calendaring unit and he is the best person to sort of talk about what kind of screening we do in the third circuit right over to Bill are you there Bill? what we do in the third circuit is as Kathy mentioned we utilize the recusal program and check the cases along the process but specifically when the case is ready to be calendared before the court our calendar supervisor Ruthie Ramos goes into each case and puts the docket number into the recusal program and it pulls up the parties the law firms the parties in the case and it matches them against the judges standing recusal list that's also entered into the database then what happens is the parties appear on screen as matches in terms of whether they're recused or not and then she can review that information if that information is valid what she does is she removes that particular case from her list and does not send it to that particular panel because she's not recused but what she also does in reference to that after she does that final recusal check in the clerk's office before a case is calendared what she does is she prepares a full report for the court transmits it electronically and the electronic report pulls and extracts from aims the parties the attorneys and the law firms and then the judges do the final recusal check on their part that they are not recused in a case for a personal matter where we've already checked it for financial disclosure and so the final check really lies with the court and once they clear the case after reviewing that report Ruthie Ramos the calendar supervisor then sends the cases to the court and they're fully cleared and there are no disqualification problems Thanks so much Bill now Scott I know it's very different in the fourth circuit Yes it is Bob We use the term screening to refer to actually we call it screening and squibbing refer to an initial review of appellants brief at the time appellants brief is filed copy of the brief is referred to me I review the brief to make a determination of whether or not the case merits oral argument Of course 50% of our docket is pro se and those cases are automatically screened from the oral argument calendar and sent directly to the office to have counsel of our docket which involve counsel cases I review appellants brief when it's filed to make a quick determination of whether or not the case clearly merits oral argument. I use the standards set forth in the federal appellant procedure and at this point I'm making a determination of about 70% of our cases which are counsel cases do not merit oral argument and are referred to the office staff counsel for their review in the first instance. The other 30% I prepare what's referred to as a squib which is a short description of the case what it appears to me to be an issue or issues in the case and that's available to our judges so they can sort down their cases by difference between the social security case and the trust case and also to what's available on the internet to the practicing bar Of course we have a disclosure on that that indicates that this has been prepared by staff it's not really reflects what the court may view as the central issue in the case. Those cases which are referred to the office staff counsel a staff attorney is allowed to review all the briefs that are filed in the case and the joint appendix and then makes a determination of whether the case deserves oral argument those cases in which they disagree with my initial determination they'll return to the clerk's office for calendaring the rest of the cases they'll prepare a memorandum and place it out before a three judge panel with a proposed disposition at that point in time one of the three panel members and one of the three judges on that panel considering the merits of the case can decide the case merits oral argument and refer it back to the clerk for filing and placement on the calendar for oral argument the system works very well the vast majority of cases that are on the calendar are on there because I placed them on them initially the second number of cases come from the staff attorneys who return them after initial review the smallest number of cases on our calendar is a process and a judge or judges have asked the case be returned for oral argument turning to the recusal issue we do not review cases in advance for disqualifications we do of course have standing disqualifications but they're very limited in number normally determination as disqualification does not occur until we have selected a member of the court for a motion or the cases tentatively calendared where we circulate all disqualifications for that term to the panels and they will return those cases in which they are disqualified so actually our active disqualification process occurs fairly late in the case processing system does this present with some challenges in terms of because this is done later in the process in terms of determining panels sometimes in regard to emergency motion we have a problem because when we send it out initially to a panel we'll quickly find out that three judges is disqualified and scramble to replace that judge and of course it does create a problem for the calendar as he gets in the disqualifications being able to set up panels that are not disqualified and can hear an appeal sometimes the case will have to be continued because you can't put three judges together that are all disqualified and can hear a case so it can create logistical problems as you say especially for the calendar the calendar clerk Amy let's look at the 10th circuit talk to us a little bit about case screening and how it's done there here at the 10th circuit case screening happens in many different phases all of our cases are screened initially for jurisdictional defects by our jurisdictional attorneys and that all happens before briefing those that make it through briefing will be ready for submission and also at the case opening we can add a flag that will tell us that a certain judge may be recused from the case if initially a judge is recused or I'm sorry if initially a judge is not recused that should be the judge will catch that later on and usually that's done after briefing also during case opening we'll get a flag new aims it will prompt a reminder that the litigant filing might be a three striker and those cases will be screened and usually don't make it to briefing Susan in the 9th circuit just like everybody else's several different I think we have something similar to what Scott was talking about and we do the jurisdictional screening up front that Amy was just referring to as well as screening for settlement potential up front but once we get once we've weeded out all the jurisdictional defective or frivolous appeals and the cases actually go through briefing once it's fully briefed it goes to our case management unit within the staff attorney's office and staff attorneys who will review the briefs and the excerpts they'll do what we call inventory they'll write up a blurb about what the case is about they'll assign it a weight and pro se cases are presumptively assigned as what we call screening cases to further complicate the use of the term and counseled cases are assigned a weight that could be anything from a screening case or a three or a five and the reason for the weights is that the cases that are going to go to argument panels are going to be distributed to any given panel according to a total weight so you don't want to give one argument panel five of the most complicated cases all what we would call ten weight cases with huge records and give another argument panel five fairly straightforward three weight social security cases for countering purposes the weight is important the cases that are assigned as screening cases are then referred back to the staff attorney's office and those cases are presented again to those same motions panels that come once a month to san francisco they also hear the screening cases that are presented orally to them with a prepared disposition that is recommended so we used to do them by way of memorandum the way the fourth circuit does there are many of them and that the recusal issue at the motions and oral screening stage the staff attorney who's presenting the case is the one before they present it to make sure that none of the judges are recused if the judges are recused they'll either hold it and present it to next month's panel or they'll call in a third judge off of the panel to help decide the case at the countering stage where you have argument cases the calendar unit will actually determine the recusals before placing any given case on an argument calendar Thanks Susan as you see again differences among the circuits we have a number of push-to-talk courts out there and I'd like to take this opportunity in the program to allow them and encourage them in fact to give us your thoughts in terms of the process you used and also for those courts that want to submit a fax to us I think that number will be on the screen and we encourage you to do so so let's just take a few seconds and see if there's anyone out there in push-to-talk that would like to make a statement okay at this point I'd like to make you aware of some publications from the federal judicial center that we refer to and they're also available in your bibliography that was part of the participants guide the downloadable materials and these are case management procedures federal courts of appeals I was published in the year 2000 and it provides a careful description and comparison of case management variations among the appellate courts all the way from case opening through case closing and includes pro se, plra, habeas cases and so forth a publication dealing with recusals that is an analysis of case law under 28 USC sections 455 and 144 and that was published in the year 2002 and a publication on mediation and conference programs in the federal courts of appeals a source book for judges and lawyers published in 1997 and if you'd like a copy of any of these publications you can make a request directly from the FJC website at jnet.fjc.dcn if there are no faxes and no folks from push to talk courts we'd like then to move on to our next session. Are there anyone in push to talk that would like to make a comment? Let's move on to our next session then on quality control and communications I think attention to detail is probably the most important skill and obviously being able to learn things quickly and to learn a large body of knowledge because every case seems to have little quirks and what you did in one case before may not be the same as this in a civil case it's different than a criminal case and different than an agency case I think good proof reading skills are very important because Aims does not have spell check and it's very important to read over the order before you hit accept one of the difficulties or the challenges that the present docketing system presents is that events, people parties, places have to be put in a specific way we've devised standard abbreviations which the case managers need to follow which anybody needs to follow if you're going to look up a case a person an address on the system you have to know what the abbreviation is because if you didn't use the right abbreviation and you're searching you're not going to get a hit the other thing is to ensure that the data quality the data that has been put in is correct and that we don't have any duplications or any errors we check every person that's been entered the following day we check every party, every attorney to make sure that there aren't any duplications you have to have the ability to prioritize you need to be able to look at what's on your desk and know this has to be done now but this can be done later you need to be able to skim through things and just catch certain words that you know these are important you know emergencies deportations the key skill to dealing with proselytians is you have to have a lot of patience and you have to have good listening skills sometimes it's good to just listen and even if after listening to the whole conversation you knew from the first minute that you were going to transfer to someone who can help them because throughout the whole conversation what they were asking you was legal wise it's good to just listen they like to get their point across and then you can just transfer them to the person that it is that can help them it is critical throughout the appellate case processing that from the time the case is open until the time the case is closed that the staff person is responsible for all the different facets of case processing communicate with each other because one aspect of the case eventually affects another aspect of the case and in order for a case to move forward everyone needs to be advised as to how the case is processing throughout the entire system case managers are they do have to be good communicators they often have to I think we have 45% of our caseload is pro se or prisoner they have to deal with people who are very closely involved with the case and not objective as a pro se litigant will be they have to deal with staff they have to deal with attorney's offices US attorney's offices federal defenders sometimes probation departments and so on district courts so they really they really do need to liaison many different offices and get things done attention to detail the ability to prioritize and in this segment we're going to be talking about quality control and there's a wonderful short article by Natalie Gable entitled is 99.9% good enough and in it she talks about the negative impact of willingly accepting less than the best in quality and she notes that in the language of the Malcolm Baldrige national quality award quality is a race with no finish line and I think that's especially true of the service that we provide in the courts in this segment we're going to be talking about what we do in order to ensure that the information we receive and the process is free of mistakes how do we check ourselves you've already met our panel members Kathy Brower Richie and Amy Frazier we're going to be turning also to a number of push to talk sites as they talk about ensuring quality control Kathy again I'm turning to you first like communication which is going to be our next discussion quality control seems to be one of those overriding challenges that greatly impacts everything else what are the implications for a pellet cake processing given all the information that's required at this point in the process and where might such data quality snafus perhaps occur and how does your court handle that well in the third circuit we have a quality assurance team which consists of four highly qualified former supervisors in the clerk's office they spend time as Trish mentioned in the little clip they look at every case that was open the day before they make sure that all the parties that have been entered and all the attorneys that have been entered are not duplicate parties that they've been entered correctly and the correct abbreviations have been used they look at every dogged entry that's been made and not only do they check the dogged entries for typos and grammatical mistakes but they also look at the process and to make sure that that no particular dogged entries were left out for example they look at cases that were closed the day before as well and in a case closing situation they want to make sure that that JS34 entry was made if a percurium opinion was filed they want to make sure that the case manager remembered to put in a private note that we have saying percurium author which identifies the author for internal staff which is helpful for a variety of reasons they check for all of those things and then they communicate to the case manager by way of email they email to the case manager whoever it was that made this error especially if it's a new case manager or case manager trainee they'll use that opportunity as sort of a teaching opportunity and we'll go into some detail as to why we didn't use this particular event this time you were supposed to use something a little bit different because in this case there was some set of circumstances that would require that so they can be very educational as well they send them out they copy the managers who are going to be reviewing these folks and our clerk actually is copied on all of these too she takes a very direct interest in how the case managers are doing and so it's a serious thing and then the case manager who's receiving these notes will have up to three days to respond unless they're on vacation so that they will correct the error and get back to the QA team and say this was taken care of it's a good double-checking mechanism we also of course have the section that Trish mentioned about party and address information abbreviations that is one of the sections of the manual that we talked about earlier that is on our network and can be accessed electronically so if you want to do a search on a particular word you're not sure how we put insurance in or whatever you can look it up and make sure that you're using the correct abbreviation to result in a duplicate party entry so that's how we handle it we have a separate team in the third circuit it's not just reviewing it's also communicating because you have to be able to communicate that information back to the case manager back to the individual that's responsible that's really important Scott when we were talking about motion practices we talked about the challenges of consistency but that's one one of the challenges in terms of data but in addition to that what else well obviously our quality control is focused on consistency we're very much concerned with making sure that number of different individuals who have responsibilities act in a similar manner we do not have a separate team for quality control no one is specifically assigned the responsibility for quality control but our case management teams have a backup by the case management supervisor and their assistants they actually take over periodically a review of a case or the handling of a case and they have an opportunity to look at docket entries and at the filings in that case and that performs a lot of our quality control right there through backup in addition to that we generate periodic status reports to make sure that eight cases in the proper status and those are reviewed by the case management supervisors in fact moving through the appellate system properly and is in the proper status finally a quality control mechanism that I'm involved in is procedural histories our judges have asked that each case that is placed on the calendar if there's been any significant action taken during the appellate process that we bring into that panel's attention appellate judges know everything there is to know about a case hopefully from the briefs and the joint appendix they know exactly what occurred in the case below those documents do not reflect what's happened during dependency of the case before the court of appeals many times significant actions have taken place in a case such as granting of a bail motion or other matters of supplementing the record which the judges will of course need to know about when they hear argument on the merits of the case therefore I receive the case file and docket entries for each case that is calendared where any action is taken place by a previous judge motion's panel or by the court which may impact upon the argument of the case and at that time I have an opportunity to review the docket entries and the case file to determine whether or not anything needs to be brought to the court's attention and it's a good final check before a case makes a calendar that everything is in a proper status and proper entries have been made the whole review process works very well in regard to catching emergencies and possible errors that allows us to rethink procedures that we've placed into effect and having one last look at it before it makes a calendar make sure that many of these regrettable errors are caught before they actually go on and are seen by the court you also issue status reports then that's right where a case stands in the appellate process as opposed to specific docket entries from one status to the next and if a case seems to be wallowing in a particular status we'll wonder why it's pre-briefing for so long and unless it's being placed in a band so there's a record problem we'll question why your briefing schedule not been established for this case Thanks Scott Amy the 10th circuit was the subject of a program on court to court which we talked about quality improvement and the team approach to in the 10th circuit so talk to me talk to us a little bit about the importance of how you do data quality out in the 10th circuit Well first of all we have data quality reports and those are listings of every docket entry that the case managers have made the day prior and each case manager runs their data quality report every morning and they have someone on their team check their work and any errors that are made are just brought back to that person and they say because everyone has editor privileges they have the access to editor they can fix their own mistakes we find this to be very beneficial and and that's it started right away as soon as a new case manager starts to get a data quality report Amy I understand that because you're organized into teams it's expected that that team members will share not only with their own teams but when they find an effective practice or something that they have discovered they're actually responsible for sharing with other teams as well how they go about it or what they found isn't that correct? and you know when somebody does find a better way of doing something they'll usually bring it to the clerk and if he agrees with it then it'll go around the office it'll be discussed usually via email and if we find that that is in fact a better way or a better procedure if it's more efficient or whatever we will take that procedure it'll be put in place well the fax machine is working and I'm happy to say that we've received the fax and I'll read it to the folks here while quality control is not a hot issue in our circuit at least I think it isn't we hear a lot about the changes that will come with CMECF especially that attorneys can electronically file and dock it will case managers have to focus more on data quality and how do you think they'll be trained to do so which one of my brave panel members can jump in and say I think it adds a whole new facet to training and quality control you have to review and make corrections to actions taken by the bar in regard to their docket entries you have to train the bar in regard to proper docket entries it will add a whole new aspect at this point in time we of course bring to counsel's attention if there's a deficiency in their pleadings in regard to the emotion being filed but this adds a whole new layer of review and training the bar to make proper entries so I think CMECF is going to be a bold new world for the appellate courts in regard to their interrelationship with the practicing bar Kathy, anything to add? I certainly agree I would say also that in our court we sort of isolate the quality assurance and separate it out our case managers actually can do their own they receive their own reports and of course they should be monitoring their own cases but I think the way that Amy described how it's done in the 10th sort of prepares case managers in a little better way to do some quality control if in fact they have to look at what attorneys have docketed and whether they have done it right or wrong to prepare case managers because we certainly won't be able to have just a few people doing quality control at that point especially since case managers have so much of their responsibility initially so they'll have to look at what has been docketed in fact they'll know what's right and what's wrong and if this docketed they'll go south and train somebody else to do it now they're going to be dealing with the bar in regard to proper docket entries and how to make sure that the case is in a proper status and you know everything will be docketed consistently by the bar nothing is done consistently by the bar so it'll be a unique challenge I think just in the other the same as in other court units it is a challenge it's a cultural change that exists when others will be doing the docketing for you and I know there are a lot of other examples in both bankruptcy and in district courts how they've gone about the process of bringing the bar in and training attorneys how to use their system so it will be a unique challenge for case managers and the circuit courts I'm sure let's again open the line up to any push to talk of courts we'd like to find out relating to data quality so if there are any questions if you have we'd like to open it up right now and if you come on please try and identify your circuit as well anyone out there I hear a page turning okay let's move on then we have on push to talk Beth Walton capital case coordinator for the 4th 4th circuit Beth obviously ensuring that you receive accurate information is extremely important tell us a little bit about this from a data quality perspective what challenges this presents to you and others in the 4th circuit to ensure that the information you receive is both prompt and accurate Bob with regard to the death penalty cases I think we start with reviewing the district court papers that we receive data quality issues are more concerned with the attorney filing we first start with their appellant docking statement and compare that information to what we've received from the district court to make sure we have all the attorneys and parties correct that the jurisdictional there are no jurisdictional flaws in the appeal especially with warden because they're frequently named as respondents and state habeas petitions and change quite frequently that are found in appellee in the case also with regard to motions and responses they have to be reviewed and make sure that they have complied with the federal rules of appellate procedure as well as our court's local rules and internal operating procedures brief and appendices and the same thing applies to those make sure the death penalty cases move on a little faster track than some of the other cases so you need to be familiar with the rules and the procedures especially those that pertain to death penalty cases so you can review the documents and get any insufficiency corrected before they're submitted to the panel when you get to a situation where you're dealing with an actual execution the data quality becomes a little less important because the priority of getting the papers in from counsel and on to the judges in time to get a decision before the execution time arrives is a little takes a little more priority over the data quality issues we pretty much whatever the attorneys file at that stage we take and put out before the court sometimes the quality issues transfer over to the court to make sure once you do get a decision from the panel it takes care of all the procedural things like closing the case issuing the mandate forthwith and the things that are required before the parties move on up to the Supreme Court Thanks so much Beth I want to remind push to talkers that if you do respond please try and mute your television just a little bit so we won't get get feedback certainly what what Beth said I mean it all comes down to effective communication and that's what we're going to focus on right now and throughout the roll ins reference was made to the case managers and other court staff being good communicators and sharing the importance of sharing information those are really some of the key skills in this segment we're going to be talking about communication and by that mean we mean how do you keep abreast of the many changes that occur in the FRAP rules local rules and IOPs making sure that attorneys and all court customers including pro-safe filers are made aware of those changes how do you keep them aware you notify them of events and judgments as well as communicating with each other and other court units this is not an easy task needless to say Scott let's start with you this time there are so many things happening during this particular phase in the life of a case set the stage for us what do you think are the key communication links that need to exist Bob I've identified four links that are key to communication within the court of appeals the first of those is the communication between a case manager and the parties or council early on in the case we identify who the case manager is the case managers names go out on the original docking materials whenever a party calls into the court with a question the information officer will quickly ask do you have a case pending before this court or is this question in regard to a particular case and if that is the case then the question is referred to that particular case manager from the strong link between the parties and council and the case managers they recognize that there is a person who is specifically responsible for that case and is knowledgeable of the status of that case the second key communication link is intra staff communications questions that are asked of supervisors and the court chief deputy and myself in regard to the proper processing of cases these lines are so important to the issue of consistency in regard to the process in cases before the court of appeals the third is inter staff communication between our office the quirk's office and the office staff council and the mediation attorneys so much goes back and forth between these offices that the communication must exist and must be good for the cases to proceed as quickly as possible through our court final and probably the most important final communication is between our office and those members of the court who will be considering the substantive merits of the case we need to keep them informed as to the status of the case what procedures have applied to a particular case and how our procedures may impact upon their decision so that final communication is with the court itself Kathy in your introduction in our introduction to this segment case managers have to be good communicators in fact that 45% of your cases are either pro se or prisoner pro se that's quite a challenge what would you add to what scott has said well in the third circuit of course a lot of the responsibility for dealing with pro se litigants has been shifted to the legal division because of some reorganizational changes recently but still case managers in the operations department do get lots of calls from pro se litigants and as Tanya said this requires a lot of patience because these folks are they're not attorneys and they are emotionally involved in their case and so they're a little bit different to deal with an attorney so you have to be patient you have to listen of course you don't have all day so you have to again find a fine line to try to help them as best you can without you know taking too long I found a good technique is pro se is usually like to tell you their story and why you know they're aggrieved and they like to go into great detail and they sort of are looking for some support from you or anyone in their position and I like to listen for a little bit and then explain to the person that you know these are very good points but you probably want to organize these thoughts on paper so that you can put them in your brief or if you know depending on what kind of a case it is or whatever papers they might be submitting to the court on jurisdiction or whatever so that the person who's going to decide your case will have a chance to hear it because no matter how persuasive you are with me it's not going to help and so I think you best serve to organize your thoughts as you're doing but put them down on paper and make sure you communicate with the court that way so it will get to the right person and that way it can not be rude or discouraging and yet kind of cut them off a little bit I mean I think as far as pro se litigants the only other thing is trying not to give any legal advice of course they're constantly looking for what do I do next and we can point them to the rules we can suggest that they take a look at the rules we can tell them in general what will happen next but we can't really be offering any kind of advice on what they should do they have to do what they feel is right and that's what we can tell them we can tell you how long you might have to submit something or what you should be submitting according to the deadlines as stated in the rules but that's basically what we're limited to so as long as they understand your own limitations the case manager's own limitations they don't expect too much most of our case managers deal with the pro se litigants and it doesn't have to go any further there are always they want the supervisor or they want someone else and so sometimes the calls will have to be knocked up a level to one of the attorneys or they can send it to me and then we'll deal with it but I'd say for the most part our case managers are very good about handling the calls in the first instance Amy again in the 10th how do you deal with pro se litigants case managers deal with pro se litigants they receive all the calls and if they are difficult then they can be referred to our clerk or chief deputy but mostly the pro se's keep the job interesting and we have a tool that we use that we find very effective for communicating within the office and with pro se's and attorneys and that's what we call clerk's notes and it's a basic docket entry that is put into a case docketed internally into a case only the public cannot see it but it can explain what's going on in the case anything unusual etc so that if somebody else goes to pull up the case they can tell what's going on just by looking at the clerk's notes so that's actually kind of like a bit of a case history what discussions may have occurred relating to this case etc kind of a yellow sticky right that's put right on the internal docket exactly that type of alerting others to information again reminds me of the effective practice that oliva george from the second circuit noted the flag certain instances where things should move a little quicker or at least communicating internally and I know that in the fourth circuit they've developed a method to help keep attorneys aware of some of the changes in the frappe rules local rules and IOPs and I think it's the color green that is put on various notifications the fourth circuit like all the appellate courts we send counsel a lot of paper and we're not sure that it's all being read to ensure or at least increase the possibility of being able to communicate changes to counsel we will color code them and with the hope that that green sheet saying important attention will be read with care so that counsel will be aware of significant changes in our practices and it's worked pretty well if you have a color sheet in there among the rest of the white packet they tend to focus on that particularly if you put some type of banner across the top indicating this is important please do not proceed without reading this first they might listen yes that's right it's very important and of course we're careful with the quirk's office as well to color code certain documents that we find are important for us to take note of it's easy to look through a case file which is orange and other sheets which are a briefing sheet in regard to sufficiency which is blue and we can see that very quickly so that issues that may come up in regard to these particular points are addressed as opposed to being lost in the shuffle let's go from paper to the use of technology increasingly so courts are using their websites to communicate with their customers and on a website you'll find the local rules you'll find directions how to get to the courthouse everything that are the hallmarks of good customer service so to prepare for this particular broadcast we took a look at some of the court websites and how they communicate to the public and we noticed that the fifth circuit has an electronic notification of events system on its website and we've asked Ken Russo from the fifth circuit to tell us a little bit about why this was done and the reception on the part of customers Ken are you on the line? Yes I am, can you hear me? We can hear you fine, thanks The reason we did this is we had read about the features available in CME-CF for the bankruptcy in district court and frankly we were pretty jealous especially considering the fact that pellet CME-CF was and still is a few years down the road so what we decided to do was implement one of the easier to steal features of CME-CF and that was electronic notifications of events but simply the system once a day goes through all the docket entries that were made during the course of the business day and when it finds matches of attorneys who have registered for the system along with docket entries that we wish to notify them on it compiles them and it sends out a mass mailing every night to every attorney who's registered for the system and has had a docket entry in their case that meets the criteria we only send out notifications on briefing notices files and rules on motions to extend the time to file a brief or to suspend briefing times on the petition for rehearing we plan on extending that to automatically sending out the opinion but we already have a different mechanism for that right now we have an opinion subscription service that we've had for some years so we haven't tackled that one yet what the attorney gets is basically the docket entry we just take the same snippet of text that would come from the docket entry and we email them that the hope is that the attorney will appreciate getting an active notification on us that something has happened in the case spare them from having to go to Pacernet and refresh the last 10 entries type of lookup constantly find out if something's happened and would cut down on phone calls to us I'm not sure how well it's done on cutting down phone calls but we have over 3,000 attorneys who are registered with them now I'd say if you cut down on just a few phone calls and you've given them the information that they've needed that in fact is significant we know that in some of the circuits judgments or other things will be posted but not the notification of all the events so we think that's pretty significant we just have about 5 more minutes for this broadcast and I want to offer the opportunity one more time for Push to Talk courts to ask a question or perhaps tell us how things are done in their circuit Thank you Bob this is Barbara Schumerhorn from the 10th Circuit BAP and I have a question for Kathy and I have a question for Kathy can you tell me more or can you give me more information on verbal motions? Hi Barbara yeah we have a local rule that was instituted recently that allows for attorneys to request an up to two week extension of time over the telephone that limit has I think discouraged some attorneys because they really like to ask for 30 days usually but it certainly has been used and when that comes in we will bring it to the attention of the legal coordinators of rather the legal assistants and we will you know they will act on it right away there is some paper involved Kelly mentioned this in one of the earlier opening blurbs that it's kind of cut down on paper there is some paper involved but it's really to help the lawyer who's kind of pressed for time obviously and that's why they're asking for an extension so they don't have to go through the the whole formality of doing a formal they do have to send something confirming and writing though that the extension has been granted so that there is some kind of written confirmation that's basically how it works I don't know that I guess is Kelly out there in the third circuit maybe she'd like to let us know she might have a feel for how many times that's been used Kelly do you want to comment on how many times this is used let me know also we only have about three minutes so it has to be just a short response Kelly thanks it does happen quite frequently I would say for today for example I've already received three phone calls requesting extensions and that's probably about an average number okay great thanks so much Barb for calling in let's close this session now but I want to thank everybody so much for participating today we've taken a look at appellate case processing not only from the perspective of how it's implemented in the circuits but also from the point of what challenges court staff face and the practices they use to meet those challenges and we here at the center and all of our panel members hope you found this broadcast to be both informative and directly related to what you do on the job I want to again thank our panelists for joining me today Kathy Brower Scott Ritchie Amy Frazier and also Susan Susan Gelmas I want to also thank our planning committee and you're going to see their names on the credits they were extremely helpful in helping really us determine the kinds of topics we ought to be covered a special thanks to K Usual and for all the logistical work she did in setting up the program and to Mary Ann Luckett for transcribing all our interviews and conference calls to Marcy Waldron thank you so much for allowing us to come to the fourth circuit and interview the splendid staff third circuit sorry to interview the splendid staff that you have there I want to leave you with a quote from Justice Souter that I think says it all whatever court we're in whatever we're doing at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected some human life is going to be changed in some way by what we do we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get these rulings right the appellate court staff plays such an important role in keeping cases moving and on track we all should be proud I think of the work that you do thank you so much for joining us today for the next FJTN broadcast on appellate cases