 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Good afternoon, U.S. Court of Appeals. How might I help you? Appellate case opening is for the clerk's office probably the most important part of the case, or at least among them, because of the quantity of information entered into the case at that point and the need at that point to set the case on the right track so that it moves through the court as it should. One of the biggest challenges for any case manager to face is the frequent changes that we have either with the rules or in our internal operating procedures. They tend to be very frequent and it's hard to keep up with them when you're dealing with so many cases at a time. Probably the most effective practice for me is that I have to be very familiar with the district courts and the docking sheets. I have to be very familiar with how parties are entered. So that when I make any type of search for parties, I can make it in a variety of ways so that I can be sure that I get a hit, as we call it, on that party. I face many challenges. Probably the greatest one is assisting the pros and litigants. As pros say, they do not have the knowledge that the lawyers may have and they don't have access to the rules that the lawyers have. So we have to do a lot more hand-holding for them and guiding them through the appellate process. The opening of an appellate case at an appellate court is a critical stage of the process. There are a number of important decisions that have to be made. Case managers need to be on their toes and very sensitive to documents that they receive when a case is opened. Appellate case opening is a serious business. Hello everybody, I'm Bob Fagan, a senior training specialist at the Federal Judicial Center and I'd like to welcome you to today's broadcast on appellate case opening. Today we're going to look at some of the processes used and some of the challenges that appellate court staff face when a case is first opened as well as some of the effective practices that individual appellate courts have developed in order to meet those challenges. Through discussions with panelists both here in the studio as well as through push-to-talk sites throughout the country the courts will be describing some of the processes and some of the effective practices they've developed that works for them. As you saw in the opening clip, the challenges are numerous. So we've got quite a bit to talk about in the next hour and a half. So many subjects, so little time. We want to encourage you to participate. We want you to ask questions and share your thoughts with our panelists. We've built in time for discussion throughout the program and you can do this by either push-to-talk or by sending us a fax. Our toll-free fax number will appear on the screen throughout the broadcast. Also, feel free to use the form that was on our participant materials and that's found on the FJC website on the DCN at jnet.fjc.dcn. And don't forget the participant guide if you haven't already downloaded it is also located at that same site. You may want to pay special notice to the five effective practices that were sent in by many of your colleagues and included as part of the guide. And now on to today's agenda. In our first panel, we'll be talking about case screening related challenges and that includes the role of case managers in that part of the process. Next, we'll cover the issue of communication. That's how we communicate with the district or bankruptcy courts, how do you keep attorneys as well as other court staff aware of changes in the FRAP rules, local rules and IOPs and where do you go for additional information or clarifying information. Our third panel and discussion will focus on the important issue of quality control. With all the information required in case opening what are the challenges and are there measures your circuit has taken to ensure accuracy. Finally, our last panel is kind of a catch all we're calling other case opening logistics. Among the topics here we'll be dealing with are pro se app pellets, second or successive applications and so forth. Finally, we'll end up with a little wrap up at the end. Let's turn to our first discussion on case screening. In opening each discussion we'll sort of set the stage with a short video that we made when we visited the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. Let's take a look at this first one. We enter at case opening the parties that are used to designate the caption when the opinion is issued. We enter the parties, attorneys, lower court judges and positive disclosure information that is relied on then to set automatic recusal links as well as by the judges who will review a disqualification report based on that information before they take any action in the case. And that all is based on information that's entered at case opening. We'll set a number of deadlines at case opening. I guess another issue for me in case opening is that in reviewing civil cases as they come in the office I have to be certain that I search parties to be able to find out cases that someone else may have already put on so that we don't have two different case managers docketing the same case that possibly was sent in error or that maybe a consolidation was something that we already have. Our Rule 8 motions have had a turnaround in that we have to make sure we have to contact the attorneys as soon as we get the motion in order to make sure that we have every disqualification form possible in dealing with the parties as well as making sure that we have the district court docket sheets that way that we can figure out the recusals for judges make sure that the judges are available for the cases and we can expeditiously get the cases through. Much of the jurisdictional screening in our office is done by the case manager and if they have any doubts or questions or issues regarding it then they would refer that to an attorney in the clerk's office. Welcome back. For our first panel discussion dealing with case screening we have Mary Beth Kenney, case manager, trainer from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Welcome Mary Beth. And via push to talk Susan Gelmas, supervisory motions attorney from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Susan are you there? I'm here Bob. Thank you. Welcome Susan. Just from viewing that opening clip it's apparent that a lot of things happen at case opening. A lot of information is received and processed in a case of screening for a variety of purposes. We're going to be using a definition of screening that notes a process by which a court determines what treatment an appeal will receive and what path it will follow. So screening is done for a variety of purposes and we have a graphic just to show just that. First of all it can be screened for jurisdictional defects for suitability for court settlement or mediation programs that have been developed. Whether counsel should be appointed for an unrepresented party. Whether litigants have complied with court requirements or processes. Whether a certificate of appeal ability should issue in habeas cases. Whether an appeal in a habeas matter is successive. Whether a prosa appeal is frivolous. Indicators or awaits us to the amount of time required to dispose of an appeal. Whether it involves an issue already being considered by a panel. Whether it involves an issue before the supreme court. And how much time should be allotted for oral argument. Mary Beth let me turn to you first. What happens in the fifth circuit when a case is first opened? When a first comes to you. What's a case screen for? What's the process used? Well when we receive the notices of appeals they're divided by districts and the teams receive their notices of appeals. The assistant case manager or case manager or a generalist who reviews the district court's cover letter to see the fees paid with the fee statuses who the district court judge is. And then they would confirm that information also with the district court's docket entries. They looked to see if there's any prior appeals or related appeals. And then with this information they determine which letter needs to be issued to the attorney. They write up an instruction sheet and give it to a case opening clerk who then goes and processes the appeal and opens the case. But before she issues that letter it's given to our attorney advisors. The attorney advisors will decide whether we have jurisdiction. If we don't they keep it for dismissal by a panel. And the cases where we do have jurisdiction they return it to the case opening clerk and they will go ahead then and issue the docket and let her notify the attorneys that the case has been opened. What are the challenges then that you think case managers, case administrators face at this point? What are the challenges that the appellees are? You can read the district court docket entries and the judgment might specify who the appellee is who the losing party is. If we can't tell and it's a struggle for us at times then we might have to call the attorney and ask in him who he's appealing against. Other challenges may be recusals. The party might be on our recusal list and it's a similar party on the district court docket entries. If we can't determine that we'll contact the judges chambers and see if they're related. And if we can't get in touch with the judges chambers then we put it in. If we're in doubt of a recusal we go ahead and enter as a recusal. Thanks Mary Beth. Susan let me ask you the same question. In the ninth circuit what happens, who's responsible and what do you think are some of the major challenges for case administrators? Well Bob, when an appeal first comes to the court it's sent to one of the two docketing units in the criminal or civil docketing unit depending on the nature of the case and they will take all the information from the district court docket such as what the type of suit is and who the parties are and fee status and once they enter all of that in the system and give it a docket number they will set a briefing schedule for the parties in all but two kinds of situations. If the appeal is from a habeas case and the district court has denied a certificate of appeal ability then a briefing schedule will not be set in this court until it's determined by a motions panel whether a certificate should issue. The other situation where the docketing clerks do not set a briefing schedule up front is in a preliminary junction appeal under our rule 3-3 because the staff attorneys that process those appeals will set expedited briefing schedules. Otherwise the docketing clerks will send out some information to the parties and at that point they will send the appeal packets up to the staff attorneys who will review the appeals for jurisdictional defects frivolity, fee status other kinds of case management issues so that the appeal before it leaves the clerks and staff attorneys office to get forward for briefing it will hopefully be in good shape to move forward. Did you have a question related to to that for something you mentioned you said you saw the briefing notice as soon as you opened the case? Yes, that's right we don't actually deal with things like recusals or waiting for records up front those things happen after the case is fully briefed in our court. So that must move your case a lot quicker. Well that's the idea why we do that is because we have so many judges here that looking at recusals up front would probably be over inclusive and so we wait to see what panel is going to get a case before we try to figure out what the recusals are and in terms of records we simply don't have the space to keep the records here until a case is ready for calendaring. Okay. Thanks Susan. Let's hear from the third circuit I believe we have Trish Coman via Push to Talk. Trish are you there? Hi Bob, I'm here. Hi, how are you? Tell us about the screening process that's used in the third circuit. Does it differ in any way from what you've heard so far? Our case managers also review the notice of appeals for timeliness, fee status, appointments of counsel but our pro-state cases they fill out an information sheet but they forward it to the staff attorney's office to review if they need to get appealability or jurisdiction but our office would send out jurisdiction letters and counsel cases where the staff attorney's office does it and prosaic. Thanks so much Trish. From the fourth circuit we have Pat Conner clerk of court and her staff on the line. Pat, you do the screening process a little differently in the fourth circuit. Do you not? There are some differences Bob. The way we screen for jurisdiction here is to for civil cases we look and the case manager will review the district court docket sheet and the material sent from the district court and then we'll um... Pat, have we lost you? Yes, you're back. Welcome back. Okay, the case manager will then make a jurisdictional issue noted it's an entry that we make in our docket if it's a civil case the case will then be reviewed by the mediation program they take all our civil cases and if there's a jurisdictional defect they will review that and use that as part of the mediation process if it's a criminal case we will send a letter to counsel saying that either your appeal is untimely and you need to file a motion for extension in the district court or invite a motion to dismiss up here if it's not curable and in pro se cases the jurisdictional issue is handled by the staff counsel's office when they handle the appeal on its merits. Right. You also have, I believe, two case managers Erin, I'd like them to come forward. Karina Ida and Deborah Davenport Karina, when we spoke you talked about an effective practice or a challenge that you had regarding recusals the identification of recusals do you want to highlight that now please? Sure Bob. One thing that we have a tough time doing especially in emergency cases or petitions for permission to appeal is we have to make sure that we have all disqualifications set aside our disclosure statements and also we have to make sure especially in petition for permission to appeal that we have the district court docket to make sure that there's no parties that the judges may have a conflict with for their recusals and then once we get that we send out, we grab our panel we send out the disqualification reports to the panel so that they can decide whether or not they can proceed with the case. Thanks and Deborah Davenport I believe you talked when we were down there about a process that you used to ensure that there won't be any confusion in terms of more than one case manager being assigned in that problem. Would you like to highlight that? Yeah, that's right Bob. When the cases come in the office here we have several people that depending on the type of case that search on their system for any type of relationships based on either prior cases prior civil numbers that are alike or prior criminal numbers that are like or prior that it's the same party that possibly should be related or consolidated with someone that's already here what this does in effect is it keeps case managers in different teams from having possibly the same case or light cases when one could do them and follow them through the court it saves time and it also keeps consolidations together for the court that they should be together from the onset. Great, thank you so much Deborah I believe we have Barbara Schemerhorn the clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy appellate panel from the 10th circuit on the line. Barbara tell us how case screening progresses for you. Hello Bob. Hi Barbara. Well we actually have changed our process. Originally we had our staff attorney screening appeals for any jurisdictional issues. Excuse me Barbara if you could just turn your volume down on your TV I think we're getting some feedback. How's that Bob? Much better thank you so much. Okay thank you. Originally we had our staff attorney screening all appeals for any jurisdictional issues but we quickly discovered that that delayed the opening of the appeal for the prosecution of the appeal. So we authorized our case manager to actually do a lot of the initial screening. They would check for things to find out if the appeals been timely filed to find out if it's premature and even to the point of checking whether or not an order is interlocutory because with bankruptcy appeals we deal with that issue quite a bit. And we found that we've reduced the time that it takes to open an appeal. That's great thank you so much. By the way the list of what cases may be screened for is from a recent federal judicial center publication entitled case management procedures in the federal courts of appeals. Published this year 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 prosa, pilara, habeas cases and so forth. If you'd like a copy you can make the request directly by going to the FJC website on the DCN again that address is jnet.fjc.dcn I think we have just a few minutes left is are there any other push-to-talk courts that might like to either ask a question or tell us how just take a minute to tell us how this case screening process works in their circuit. Okay let me thank you so much thank you very Mary Beth and thank you so much Susan and let's now move to our second topic and that is communication. Here's the short film clip. What we're going to do with appellate case opening is the difficulty and complexity in making sure that all the parties all the case managers all the staff are aware of all the important ever changing policies and procedures in appellate case opening. It is very difficult at times to keep up with the amount of material that continues to flow through the court. At the present time that is very difficult to keep updated because of the continuing changing rules and laws and obviously as the laws and rules change our procedures must change and that information must be given to the case managers. We work very well here it appears together we've been here for a long time we understand each other's ways and one may have know something more than I know or the other so we rely on each other's expertise to get what we need. The press can be very persistent and they ask questions that I as a deputy clerk cannot answer for them and at that point I have to direct them to either the clerk or the deputy clerk or just explain to them that this information is just not going to be given to them until the time deemed appropriate by the court. The most important things in handling death penalty cases is communication between the various courts the district court our court the supreme court as well as communication with the attorneys. In this segment of our program we're going to be talking about communication and by that we mean how do we keep abreast of the many changes that occur in the frappe rules local rules and IOPs and how do we make sure attorneys are made aware of these changes as well as communicating with each other and other court units. It's not always an easy task given the fact that many times the information we might need might be at a distance. Let me introduce our panel to you. You've already met Mary Beth Kenney case manager trainer from the 5th circuit and joining us today is Betsy Shoemaker chief deputy clerk of the 10th circuit. Betsy let's start with you this time if you'll please set the stage for us what are the key communication links that need to exist in order to open up a case and what challenges do they present for the case administrator? Well Bob I think that communication is a lot like screening that we are just talking about it is an umbrella issue it permeates everything that we do both at case opening and every other stage along the way communication is really important because it goes in so many different directions at case opening we're looking at communication with district court personnel with staff attorneys with other court personnel and other units we're also looking at how we communicate with the parties whether they're pro se litigants or retain counsel and we in the 10th circuit have come at that a lot of different ways we use technology as much as we can and as well as we can to communicate well with each other and with all the people involved in the appeal all of our deputy clerks are very email literate everybody uses email we also use the chaser system which is the district court docket we tap right into that from our desktop computers and use that a lot to make sure that we've got the right information if we need something from a preliminary record for example we also talk to each other a lot in our court the deputy clerks are all case excuse me generalists and so we are all working on appeals at the same time we talk to each other about what's going on and that helps us make sure that we get the right information into the case at the beginning so that we don't have problems later some of the particular challenges we've had Bob relate to things like ICMS forms the forms that come out of aims we've worked very hard to make them understandable for both attorneys and pro se litigants we also have a lot of information on our web page we turn out a lot to make sure that attorneys coming in have the information they need to file the appeal and that has been a very useful tool for us so those are some of the things that we use to communicate with each other and with attorneys and pro se litigants so attorneys know that they can go to your website and see what's the latest if you will in the FRAP rules and so forth or whether or not there are any changes that have come about in the local rules absolutely they can go to our website and get that information when the rules changes came out in early 1999 we also created a paragraph in our forms that went out in every letter we generated that said right up front look everybody there's some big rule changes take a look at them and that was very effective also and I'm sure very appreciated Mary Beth fifth circuit what would you add to that I can say we do a lot of the same things the internet is great information right there we have frequently asked questions and answers on the internet we have a practitioners guide which is very beneficial to the attorneys and our local rules are there also when we issue letters to the attorneys we put attachments sometimes we'll use different color pages that will bring it to their attention with the district courts we phone them and we CC mail them some of them like a CC mail some of them okay with the phone calls and then two we can view the district court we don't have to necessarily call the district court we can view it to get our information so what you'll do is you'll have access to the district court docket sheets at least to see it that might clear up and give you the information if you need it but if not you have to contact the district court either by email or how is that done well correct if we have some information we could issue a letter to an attorney and not knowing we could advise him that emotions has been pending in district court he might call us and advise us otherwise well by checking the district court's docket maybe they weren't current with their information so we kind of had the wrong information so we would have to call the district court and clarify it so they may not be current with their documents thanks again Betsy and Mary let me again encourage our listeners to fax in any questions you might have or if you're a push to talk please do let us know and if you want to talk about how this works in your circuit we'd really like to hear from you one of our push to talk sites the fourth circuit has developed a method to keep attorneys aware of the changes in the FRAP rules and local rules and I believe we have Mark Zanchelli chief deputy of the fourth circuit on the line Mark explain what you do and also what's been the reaction of attorneys hi Bob yes we use several of the resources that were mentioned by both your panelists the sometimes the high tech solutions work well we can refer people to the internet and sometimes the low tech very simple solutions work such as using different colored paper attached to notices we found with attorneys who frequently practice before the court that they often would not read everything that was sent to them and if we just made a change or two and the notices that wasn't highlighted they wouldn't see it so we started using different colored paper to highlight very important changes such as the FRAP changes that were effective in December of 1998 we found that to be a very effective practice and they very much appreciate it I'm sure now you also have an internal manual I understand and Susan Weigli I believe that you're responsible for keeping that that manual updated could you explain the process you use for keeping it updated hi Bob as stated before how many case managers use to process their cases and manage their cases as they go through the system depending on the complexity of the change we utilize different ways of communicating those updates to case managers at times we have meetings with maybe a PowerPoint demonstration of changes or other changes might simply warrant memos outlining the changes with a hard copy of the updated section in the manual that can be handled through CC mail thank you so much Susan I think the second circuit is also on the line Kathy Brower Kathy are you there? hi Bob yes I'm here hi Kathy you may want to turn down the volume because we're getting a little bit of feedback okay how's that now I think we're still getting it if you can turn it down when you're speaking that would be great I just turned it all the way down can you hear me? it's perfect yes we can hear you okay fine talk about what you do in the second circuit please unfortunately in the second circuit we're not quite ready to communicate through cyber space so we do things the old fashioned way much like it's been described in some of the other circuits we send out what we call a civil information packet at the time the case is opened either at the time we send out a docking letter or when we send out the initial scheduling order and that's a 20 some odd page document it's pretty thorough we also have a different set of instructions for a criminal appeal and we have a supplement for those civil cases which happens to be habeas appeal when we have a rule change which we recently did have a new interim rule that became effective in May of this year and our clerk sent copies to a managing attorney's association so that they could disseminate to most of the midsize and large firms in New York and we also of course published it and sent out copies with our information packet so that solo practitioners and smaller firms and everyone in fact would get noticed of it and as I say we have used color paper in the past but we haven't been doing that recently just because of the it's just more efficient to quickly Xerox these packets and one you know fell swoop at the Xerox machine without changing color paper but I think that is a very effective tool as Mark pointed out attorneys and prosalitic and stonal would read everything in fact most of the times they don't read things we found so that we need to try to compensate for that in fact one of our local rule changes has actually set forth clearly that we only require a brief to be filed even though our scheduling order sets forth a number of copies in every single case and we send it out in every single case people simply don't read that they read the dates that the brief is due and then they put it away so we've actually implemented a rule change to help people notice that they don't have to file too many copies thank you so much Kathy we have sorry I can't hear you leave as though fixing it okay I just wanted to thank you so much for participating and telling us what's done in the Second Circuit regarding communication okay you may now want to release that push to talk bar that you have there we also have Sharon Evans on the line from the 11th circuit via push to talk Sharon submitted an effective practice that I think is apropos to our discussion on communication since it involved changing a number of local rules and then communicating that to a lot of court customers Sharon if you're there can you explain what was done I'm here Bob Hi Sharon how are you our court had directed us to try to reduce our median time so we looked at different areas that would help us try to do one of the things was changing the rules so that we could expedite our briefing time involved our local rules where we deemed the record complete in the district court started our briefing time from that point we notified the attorneys through special paper internet rules telephone calls another area that we identified that was a problem was our court reporters and our district courts we invited our district court personnel to a meeting that involved our judges chief district court judges agreed upon different procedures that we would begin using so we brought the district court people in on our problem made them part of the solution and have reduced our median time also at this time we were able to identify problem court reporters and in fact have influenced one of our district courts to discontinue using an outside service that was a problem so that's a great example I think of changing rules and getting a lot of individuals involved as part of the the communication that's so necessary later in the broadcast we're going to be talking about communicating with pro says and the challenges that that presents not only again from a communication standpoint but also from a logistical standpoint let's take this opportunity in just the few minutes that we have left in this particular topic to open it up to any other of the push to talk about courts that wish to make a contribution Bob yes Trish Coleman from the third circuit hi again Trish we had some problems with the state of how the records and the appeal packets were coming up with our district court so what we did is we devised a manual and checklist for the appellate clerks the district courts which we found very helpful and approximately once a year we will actually go out to the district court with the clerks answer some questions and try to explain what our needs are and why we need the records set up in such a way and we found that to be very effective that sounds very effective and I'm sure there are other courts that might be interested even in seeing what you've developed are there any other comments from any of the other push to talk courts okay let's then take a minute let's turn to our third topic on quality control and let's take a look at this short video segment the present time using the AIMS system case managers are enter the data they make the docket entries all the forms are generated off of that system in the future and not to distant future attorneys will take the role of the data entry people case managers will become more quality control people and they will review the work that attorneys do to ensure compliance ensure that the case number is correct and the name of the form is correct one of the challenges and one of our problem areas has been in flagging or identifying death penalty cases when they come into the office the district court clerks don't always mark them as death penalty cases and they are docketed differently we are required to enter parties on the docket the way the district court does and it's very important that we abide by what they have and also be certain that the spelling is correct which often it is not and to make some judgment calls as to what we should do as case managers should we do it incorrectly because that's the way it's done or should we correct it and let the district courts know they need to update their own docket there again quality is a big issue so it's that sort of a real ability to think about the case from a larger perspective that's very valuable in the work here welcome back in this segment we're going to be talking about quality control you know there's a wonderful very 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 that's especially true in the service that we provide in this segment we're going to be talking about what we do in order to ensure the information we receive and input is free of mistakes how do we check ourselves our panel of one is Betsy Shoemaker who you've already met the chief deputy from the 10th circuit and we're going to be turning again to a number of push to talk sites as they talk about ensuring quality control Betsy like communication quality control is one of those overriding challenges that it just seems so greatly impacts everything else so what do you think are the implications for appellate case opening setting deadlines identifying parties etc and what are those challenges that are brought about by trying to ensure effective quality control well Bob I think that quality is everywhere that's one thing every circuit has in common is that we are trying to do everything right all the time how to ensure quality in an environment where the paper never stops coming and the phone never stops ringing is the real crux of the thing and we in the 10th circuit found about four or five years ago that although everything was going fine we're in a position where we weren't turning things around as quickly as we could the quality going in at case opening perhaps wasn't as good as we wanted it to be because at that juncture it is so important to have quality I mean obviously it is everywhere else but if you make a misstep at that initial crucial stage then the appeal could go the wrong way you could set the wrong deadline it could come up to bite you later on down the road in the appeal and that's where the really important thing is at case opening with quality and at that point you're looking at the information you put into the system you've got to set the right deadlines you've got to try and get the right fee status up there you've got to get the caption right because it can cause problems if you don't you've got to put the parties in properly we had an appeal last week where we probably had ten different parties with three different cross appeals it was very difficult to figure out who the appellants were getting that right at the beginning is what quality is all about and what we did in the 10th circuit about four years ago was initiate a vehicle that actually the FJC brought to us which is the total quality service plan a lot of you out there have heard about some of the things we're doing and we came at quality from a lot of different angles at that point we created a procedures manual not unlike what the 4th circuit is all about which is online we went through everything we do and looked at how it should be done and put it out it's online so all of our deputies and everyone in the office can take a look at it it's got links to forms and orders and examples and takes everyone through step by step exactly how a case should be opened that brings us consistency it's been very very effective we created a standards committee which looks at how we docket things everything from typos to using the proper event and that is made up of deputy clerks along with our operations manager and that's been a very effective tool to get quality in quality out we have also interviewed who are our customers which our customers are everyone from our judges to the people in the file room who help us out help the case managers out when things are being opened to get records for us we interviewed attorney focus groups we talked to everyone that we interact with to see what they needed and again that helped us at case opening because it allowed us to do for people what they needed at the initiation of the appeal so case opening is a very important place for quality and the way we have affected quality at that point is through the total quality service program the other thing we do is we've created some reports in aims that have helped us check our own quality all the case managers get reports on their daily docketing so they actually can look at what they did that day or every couple three days and look at their events and see how they look are their typos problems issues that have come up and they can use those reports to have editor privileges to go back and correct things right off the bat so that is a big piece of our quality also people are looking at their own work to figure out if things are done correctly so it's really been a multi front attack to make sure that we're doing things right at the case opening stage and the result of it has been Bob that we have reduced our turnaround time and case opening and virtually everything else to about 24 hours from the time it walks in the door you're right about communication and quality they're both such important front and necessities in order to do a real to ensure good quality control there has to be that communication you have to work with the district courts in that area talk a little bit if you don't mind a little bit more about case captioning and what might be some of those challenges and how you insured quality did you have to go back to the district courts sometimes and again that relates back to communication we like, I'm sure everyone else out there create a caption when we do the case opening when we're putting in those parties we use of course the information that we get from the district court docket sheet to do that but we are checking very carefully to make sure that those parties are identified properly is it a move into Pellent is it a cross claimant Appley intervener we are not just taking the information you know wrote off of the district court docket sheet we're reviewing it and analyzing it again to make sure it's proper in our court the caption that we create is the caption that chambers uses when they set up their opinion their final disposition opinion so it's really essential that we review that information and if we get one of those huge civil appeals or perhaps a criminal appeal with multiple co-defendants we're very careful to ensure that that caption is set up properly and that we've used the right naming conventions which is another way we ensure quality is to have naming conventions for how we do things so that down the road there are not issues that we missed that could have been fixed from the beginning in discussions that we've had with the various appellate courts we note that in some cases individuals check their own work or other teams work it's very interesting so let's turn to opal carter from the 10th circuit opal submitted an effective practice that further described their total quality program opal would you like to describe the challenge that you and other staff faced and what's the relationship to the total quality yes this is opal carter from the 10th circuit our biggest challenge was to make our docket public friendly before we had our total quality service program we could docket almost any way we wanted to and used not always standard abbreviations things that the public would not understand although the court community would and so the first thing we had to do was to start making our docket public friendly when we went online with our standards committee they checked our dockets with the files that was a mammoth undertaking in the beginning when we all got the hang of what we were doing then we started checking our own work with systems cooperation we have a daily report that we run and we can look at our own work or we can turn it over to someone else on the team to look at and point out any corrections because sometimes you can look at your own work and not realize that that is an error so we look at our own work we have someone else look at it and periodically the standards committee looks at it that sounds very all inclusive let's open the line up to other push to talk courts we have some folks we want to go to but let's open the line are there any other push to talk courts out there that would like to describe the process they use to ensure quality when data is entered and so forth anybody out there let's turn to the District of Columbia Carmen Gooding I believe you're on the line we're getting a little bit of feedback in fact we're getting a lot of feedback if you could when you speak if you could turn the volume on your television way down we'll still be able to hear you that's wonderful Carmen it's still a little bit but that's wonderful if you want to talk then about the quality control program for the circuit court in the District of Columbia we'd like to hear about it what we do is quality control is governed by two parties that's the systems administrator and myself the systems administrator handles most everything that has to do with systems being technical anything that may have anything to do with the tables and the background the initial programming of the reports and things like that in the clerk's office the quality control person myself deals with the end user reports in other words after everything has been done what we do is between the case administrators and the operations manager and myself we check and verify those reports and that way we can pick up any errors I would chime in on everybody else that's already spoken throughout the course of the day to say that we came across problems we resolved the problems by coming up with a report that would show us when the problem occurred and then a resolution and how to fix it so because we're all contained within the same building with the one district court that we take appeals from it's much easier for us to keep a tighter reign on errors and resolutions that's great thanks so much Carmen in the second circuit I believe we have Monica Jones on the line Monica are you there good afternoon Bob good afternoon Monica how are you fine thank you talk to us a little bit about the second circuit is it the same as what you've heard or do you have a little different way I I do reports every day and I review the docket entries of each case manager and supervisor I'm looking for errors overdue deadlines any documents that look like they should have been here on time and we haven't received them yet I review for spelling errors clarity in the docket and I also review to make sure the case is being monitored and sent to the appropriate staff returning so you actually let me tell you again about the feedback if you don't mind turning down the volume on your set there we'll still be able to hear you while you're talking so do you do then all the monitoring yourself or do you have folks that work with you do you do it as part of a team how does that work I'm a one person team docket entries for all the case managers which would be a total of about 24 now and all the supervisors okay changing the subject only slightly I think you want to remove the the bar so thank you very much death penalty cases in this case the ability to flag or identify those cases can also be a serious quality challenge if you will and as you saw in the film clip Beth Walton from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond is the capital case coordinator and Beth just how much of a quality issue then is what you do in terms of being able to flag capital cases quality is always an issue in death penalty cases as well as communication we've developed a database of the death penalty cases the attorneys are given a certificate that they fill out when they file papers in the district court in a capital case the district court clerks give them to the attorneys they fill it out regarding the party's name any other proceedings in other courts execution dates things of that nature the attorneys who are representing them those in turn are sent to me and I enter that information into a database and then I track that case from that point all the way through the district court until it gets to the appeal stage through the supreme court and then through any execution that may be set so you're kept aware you know when something might be approaching the appellate court and know when it might approximately get there so you're going to kind of keep an eye to make sure that when it comes into the court it's flagged as a capital case yes I do I've been to the soon as the party as file papers in the federal system I get notification either from the attorneys or from the district court of that case and then follow it all the way through termination thanks let's again open this up to the other push to talk courts out there we're really interested in finding out what you do if even if it's the same what you do to ensure a quality of the information that comes in and so and is entered are there any other push to talk courts that would like to talk about the system that they use okay Betsy any final thoughts in terms of quality well I thought that the fourth circuit discussion on capital cases was very interesting I was very interested in how you do it we have set up procedures in the tenth to change fairly dramatically how we open capital cases and we've been doing it for about a year and a half the court entered an on bank order which set forth new procedures for the processing of capital cases and what we do is we don't have as many capital cases as the fourth but when they come in we have a deputy clerk who is a capital case clerk and she opens the case and at case opening we do what we call a case management order and what that does is it requires counsel to have a video conference with one of our judges and myself and what we do is we set it about 40 days after the notice of appeal is filed and at that case there is a discussion regarding the briefing schedule any issues regarding the record COA issues and the whole thing is hammered out by video conference and it's been a very very effective tool to not only flag those cases coming in because we're looking at them very carefully but we've got just a couple people and I know in some circuits it would have to be a number more following those cases through because they're so resource intensive so our case management order is a way to deal with COA budget we have an ex parte conference at the same time with counsel to talk about budget issues and just talk about all those deadlines and the things that you're usually fleshing out with orders or briefing schedules at the beginning of a case the other thing we've done on capital cases which has been very effective is that the head of the appellate section at the attorney general's office in Oklahoma which is our heavy hitter excuse me for capital cases does a monthly report which shows us the status of all capital cases in the state of Oklahoma whether they are at the state direct stage or all the way through the federal district court stage so we monthly get a report that tells us exactly where every capital case is in the state of Oklahoma and there's about 150 of them so it's been a very effective tool and we communicate with the attorney general's office to do that and they've been very helpful that is a very very efficient tool in terms of our ability to do quality analysis and quality control on those capital cases thank you so much Betsy let's now turn then to our final segment on other case opening logistics and here's a short film clip one of the challenges faced in case opening that is among the more interesting challenges is created in a situation where you have cases that don't fit easily into one category or another the quasi civil quasi criminal cases where the procedures that were required to follow depend so much on how the case is identified but a case may be considered civil for one purpose and criminal for another purpose and until there's been a final resolution of how that case should be handled for this particular procedural requirement that the clerk's office needs to follow there's a period of trying to make an educated guess and trying to identify a case that can be used to resolve the issue and that usually will create some interesting challenges like case opening I face many challenges probably the greatest one is assisting the prosa litigants as prosays they do not have the knowledge that the lawyers may have and they don't have access to the rules that the lawyers have so we have to do a lot more hand holding for them and guiding them through the appellate process a lot of times they will call back and you know want to know what stage is it at how long is it going to take from here and will the judges see everything that I give you will they see the entire district court record so I have to assure them that everything possible is being done to make sure that they will receive all of the attention that they need as far as their appeal is concerned Our fourth and final segment today is sort of a catch off we're going to talk and touch on and discuss a number of subject areas the role in you saw talks about those situations to quote Pat Conner a clerk of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that just don't fit easily into one category or another it also noted the challenges in dealing with prosa litigants and we're going to talk about both of these and as mentioned before as well as other subject as always we want to give you the chance to ask a question or to share an experience via push to talk or facts again that facts number should be on the screen right now and do take advantage of it our faculty for this session are via push to talk Susan Gelmas from the Ninth Circuit hello again Susan I'm still here and Frank Perez case manager prisoner appeals for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Frank let's start with you first most of your experience has been in many appeals originally dealing with all prosa's across the board and then in the last three years dealing primarily with cases involving habeas petitions explain the process that's used in your circuit and what you feel are the greatest challenges that you face and other case managers when they're open okay Bob I'll explain some of the procedures but I think most of these have been covered already by the previous panelists so I'll explain some of the process we do really I'd like to talk about some intangibles that go into processing and appeal I think I think they're important by intangibles I mean aggressiveness and getting what you need to pursue an appeal diplomacy when dealing with the people and just persistence now as far as what we do when we open up an appeal it has been screened already by the intake department but when we get it our department gets it we'll screen it again to just make sure there is a fine line between a habeas case an appeal from a habeas denial and an application for a second or a success of habeas so we do make sure that it's not classified incorrectly we have some instances where a petitioner a petitioner submitted his application before we got a transfer order from a district court judge so we ended up having two cases for the same guy even though it was in reference to one case so that has to be screened properly and that's a hurdle also we if it's a habeas appeal what we look for is the record the record normally would contain the state court proceedings if it's an appeal of a state habeas or trial transcripts from the underlying criminal case so again a big challenge is getting the record to be complete so that when the law clerks and the panel looks at a case they're not looking at it and we're not being it's not a pressing issue a last moment pressing issue so that's part of the process but that's outline and writing we have a manual so if someone's dedicated enough they can the procedures down pretty well but I think a really important thing is work attitude the way a person goes about it the way they pursue a case and you can be aggressive about it you can let's say you're missing state court proceedings and a record you can try the district court they usually say they give us everything they've had they've had so then we might try the respondent's attorney so we'll request from them and there are times they don't have them so then we're caught in a bind so we go back to the district court but we try not to be confrontational or just upset about the fact that we're going back and forth but you definitely have to use some diplomacy and persistence because the court is telling you they don't have them and the DA's office is telling you they don't have them and you know one of them has it you have to keep trying both parties until you know something gives and it usually does recently I had a case where I tried the district court appeals clerk said no we don't have them we gave you everything I tried the respondent's attorney about a month or so I kept trying and I knew he was trying the law clerk who requested these things she was getting impatient so she was ready to issue an order to compel somebody so I went back to both sides and I explained listen this is going to happen it gets kind of messy in this friction when this happens can you guys double check and the district court appeals clerk I actually spoke to a different appeals clerk this time it was by accident but she found them she found three boxes full of transcripts so the persistence helped and again I felt I was pretty diplomatic because otherwise they probably just wouldn't have looked after the initial time so I think that's important it's really how you go about it and I think you have to be persistent because I know in certain situations a person will give an initial attempt and maybe two weeks later they'll give another attempt because they will remind it to but that's it and I don't think that's the way to do it I'm sorry Susan what would you add from the 9th circuit well we've put a lot of energy and thought in the 9th circuit in creating efficient procedures for dealing with pro se appeals we have about 10,000 appeals filed here annually and a third of those are pro se so that's a lot of cases that are a little bit more difficult to manage usually because they don't know the rules or because some of them are vexatious litigants and you know when you get jaded in looking at the vexatious ones you don't want to be throwing out the meritorious ones as well so we've set up some procedures that I think have been very useful in weeding out the jurisdictionally defective or frivolous or vexatious pro se appeals and for then managing the remaining pro se appeals in a way that will ensure that they get the attention that other appeals get and that they will go more smoothly through the system because case management issues have been coordinated and resolved one of the ways that we do that is just with the initial screening screening out jurisdictionally defective or frivolous appeals we also have a pretty comprehensive system for dealing with vexatious pro se litigants we have now a list of that three pages single space long of names of pro se litigants who have pre-filing review orders in this court and any new appeal that they try to file has to be weeded through a panel first motion panel before an appeal is even opened and if the panel feels that the appeal is frivolous or in some way vexatious they will simply not allow it to be opened and so it never gets on the docket that's been a really effective way of keeping keeping the vexatious and otherwise distracting appeals out of the picture so that the court can focus on the other appeals and on the other side of that we also have a pro bono program where we appoint pro bono counsel to represent pro se litigants in civil appeals that the court feels has some merit or raises an issue of first impression or is complicated and where the court would be benefited by having counsel so we try to handle sort of both ends of the spectrum anything to add thank you well question susan when you have a pro se most of my cases deal with inmates of course you know habeas appeals when you have someone that you would consider vexatious specifically if you have a threatening letter from an inmate what happens then how do you handle that a threatening letter something that seems to impact the personal security of anybody at the court is actually referred to a security officer of the court to deal with but in terms of people who are filing lots and lots of frivolous cases and you know the court has already dismissed or summarily affirmed 15 of their appeals and they keep on going what we do is I prepare in order to show cause that is signed by our appellate commissioner without the history of the person's appeals in this court and what happened to those appeals it lays out what the standards are in issuing these kinds of vexatious litigant orders and it gives them an opportunity to show cause why the court should not enter such an order and it actually contains the language of the proposed refiling review order in the order to show cause so they can see exactly what's going to happen to them if they don't satisfy the court that we shouldn't enter the order then if there's a response filed that response then goes to a motions panel of three judges if the motions panel is not convinced by the procé that they shouldn't enter the order then they will go ahead and enter the refiling review order at that time all of this is done in an 8,000 miscellaneous docket that's created for this purpose and anytime future appeals come in they are lodged in that 8,000 docket rather than being opened with a new docket member until or unless the court gives permission to open it Frank you did that similarly in a similar fashion in the second circuit? Yeah in some aspects actually can I ask you another question Susan? Actually let me tell you what we got when we open up a case we usually need the filing fee to be addressed by the appellant inmate so you know we'll get out a letter asking them to either pay the filing fee or submit a motion for form of proper status they'll submit some documents but it's never clear what they're asking for if they're responding to my request so a lot of times I'll get 10 pages of the guy telling me why he shouldn't be in jail and then in the last page the last sentence he will say oh by the way I don't have money for pailing the filing fee so do you have problems with the ciphering what pro says are asking for? I know we do yes that's definitely been a common problem here at this court one of the things that the court did when it set up what we call the pro say unit which is three paralegals and an administrative person and myself it is now a subset of the larger motions but when the pro say unit was set up one of the things that it was designed to do was to help the court in deciphering and construing pro say filings that it really wasn't clear what people were asking for sometimes they're trying to file things where they don't have a pending proceeding in this court and it's not clear whether they're trying to get some kind of relief or whether they just need information or they file things in the context of a proceeding but we have no idea from just looking at what we're looking for and so that's something that we've developed a kind of specialty in the pro say unit in trying to decipher and construe and we may not always get it right in terms of what's intended but at least we're trying to be consistent in the way we do it Thanks so much Susan I want to now talk to Joy Hargett I'm sorry from the fourth circuit Joy talk to us a little bit more about the challenges that you're right at the counter and I know you deal both with pro say and also the press talk a little bit about some of those challenges for us Hi Bob Some of the challenges we face are that the pro say locally will actually come into the office and request to see the file or request to see the record because they're not sure that everything that they've submitted is being handled properly or being submitted to the court so they want reassurance that they're getting the same treatment that a pro say living with an attorney would have so just reassuring them and letting them know that they are being treated fairly is probably the biggest problem we have From the tenth circuit Ardell Shuler is on the line tell us how that works in the tenth circuit Ardell Hi Bob One thing I want to talk about I guess is how second or successive matters are handled in our court What we do is we make a determination when it comes in if it's a transfer from the district court order or if it's a direct motion for a second or successive 2254 or 2255 What we do is we check the number and we also check the name of the movement in our system and we see what kind of cases they may have and how many cases they filed and we send them down and then we give them to our jurisdictional attorneys Once we submit it to our jurisdictional attorneys they review it We do not dock at the motion or open up a case until they return it to the individual case manager Once the jurisdictional attorney has reviewed the motion they give it back to the case manager and they'll give you okay to open up the case or to dock at the motion and we'll make a note as to who is working on that case at that time so we can send proper documents to that person If it's a transfer order from the district court the case will be opened and the movement will be given 30 days to file a motion for permission to file a second or successive 2254 or 2255 A letter will be sent to the movement with a set of instructions and a motion form When the motion is actually received we will submit it to the jurisdictional attorney before it's placed on the docket If the situation comes up where the movement files a motion directly with the court what we do is we give it to the jurisdictional attorney and they'll okay it and we'll open up the case at that point The file date that we use is the date that the jurisdictional attorney gives the motion back to us not the date that we receive because this allows them to have that 30 day timeline from the time that the motions filed so the order is entered and it just kind of gives a little bit of room to play with so the judges can review things too Like I said, the 30 day timeline is from the date that the motions filed until the order is entered and a copy of the motion is then sent to the respondent with a letter instructing the respondent that they need to file a response within 10 days When the response is submitted it can be placed on the docket and then submitted to the appropriate jurisdictional attorney so they can do the research and analysis on the matter After a few days the jurisdictional attorneys will submit a proposed order to a panel of judges and the instructions for a docket entry to show the submission to the panel and so the case manager can schedule they can schedule that order due within that 30 day time frame so nobody misses any deadlines The case is then submitted to the panel and they give the okay to enter the order terminating the case either granting or denying the defendant's motion for permission to file a secular successive 2254 or 2255 a copy of the order is then sent to all parties including the district court clerk and the district court judge and the files are made and sent downstairs to the file room and all these orders are not subject to petitions for re-hearing or a writ of cert Thanks so much, Ardell There are two other push-to-talk courts that have indicated to be heard from from the 11th Circuit and you submitted an effective practice dealing with expediting cases and that has to do with whether or not transcripts are necessary if you'll just take one minute and just one minute if you can to explain what that effective practice is and why it works for you We had a recent rule change that made the appellant's brief do from the time that the notice of appeal is filed as opposed to in the past we had to wait until we got a certificate of readiness from the district court Our problem, what we wanted to do was be able to identify cases where transcripts were not likely to be ordered because we still had to wait for our transcript order for it to be filed however if no transcript was ordered when the file was formed then the brief again the brief became due when the appeal was filed so we figured when the case is open the supervisor could just review the docket entry and say the only hearing that was held was something that was held at the beginning of the proceedings and it's not an order or not a hearing that affected the final order that was being appealed we just had the supervisor simply call the attorney who filed the notice of appeal find out whether in fact he had any plans on ordering the transcript then if he was going to order it however if he indicated that he wasn't going to order any transcript then we would identify the case as being an early briefing case and issue a briefing schedule right away So how much time then are you saving by doing that? It must be a good I think you had mentioned 14 days Wardell, are you there? We're saving an average of about 60 days of our median time processing appeal from the time that the notice was filed to the time the last brief is filed That's a great effective practice Also on the line the DC circuit is Mary Ann McMain and Mary Ann you talked a little bit about dealing with multi-district transfers and explain a little bit about the challenge that you face Hi, Bob Are we reverbing? No, you're doing fine Oh, now you're reverbing We receive cases and we also transfer out cases at the direction of the judicial panel and multi-district litigation What we find is a challenge is finding out exactly who is transferring into us because sometimes we don't get complete dockets or we don't get complete clerk files So I wanted to share sort of what we do We issue an order that goes along with the direction of the multi-district litigation panel order transferring the case to the receiver court We also make sure that we run a copy of our docket We try to make sure that the parties are as complete as possible with accompanying counsel We verify that the contents of the clerk's file match the contents of the docket sheet We transfer the entire clerk's file except with the transfer order to the receiving court and we also send that by certified mail a record of original documents being sent out there We also try to take care of any procedural motions that may be pending especially motions to intervene because I believe in the federal rules it requires that motions to intervene or movements to intervene have to do so within 30 days of the docketing of the case So if they get transferred out past that time and their motion to intervene is dismissed as removed then they're more or less out of the case unless they can come back in and show cause why they should be a part of the case Thank you so much Mary Ann We have about 2 or 3 more minutes before this final segment is concluded Let me throw it open again to any push to talk courts out there that might want to talk about the issues covered or related issues here in terms of appellate case opening Are there any push to talk courts that would like to say a few words Bob, this is Sharon at the 11th circuit Yes, hi again Sharon I'd like to share something that we do with successive habeas applications Our staff attorney's office divides the form It's very concise that we've made available to all the institutions in our circuit When it's submitted by the petitioner we simply send it over to the staff attorney They prepare a memo a draft order for a court turn around time for them for about 7 days We submit it to the court We get an order We normally meet our 30-day deadline within 21 days It's a very simple procedure and works very well for us They're very easy to identify by our supervisor Thank you so much again Sharon for coming on again With that I want to thank our two panelists Frank Perez and also Susan Gelmas I'm just going to now if you don't mind some of our remarks Today we've had an opportunity to take a look at appellate case opening as a process but also looking at it from the point of view of what challenges that the court staff face And I think as you've heard you've gotten to know a little bit about also some of the effective practices that they've developed in order to meet those challenges We here at the center hope that you've found this broadcast related to what you do on the job Before closing I want to make you aware that we do have an evaluation form and that too is found at the FJC website on the DCN at jnet.fjc.dcn We would very much appreciate hearing from you your thoughts on this broadcast Before closing I again want to thank our panelists Mary Beth Kenney Betsy Shoemaker Frank Perez and Susan Gelmas also our planning committee You're going to see their names in the credits when this broadcast is over but I want to thank them for the excellent advice that they gave us in helping us shape the discussion of this broadcast I would say thanks to all the push to talk sites that became such active participants in this program Everything of information is such an important part of the learning process and finally to two folks at the center Anita Burkett for all the wonderful logistics work that she did and to Mary Ann Luckett for transcribing some of the conference calls that we have I'd like to leave you then with a quote from Justice Souter that I think says it all Whatever court we're in whatever we are doing at the end of our tasks 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 this right Thank you for joining us today and we'll see you on our next broadcast