CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) is the case management and

electronic court filing Electronic court filing (ECF), or e-filing, is the automated transmission of legal documents from an attorney, party, or self-represented litigant to a court, from a court to an attorney, and from an attorney or other user to another attorney or o ...

system for most of the

United States federal courts The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...

. PACER, an acronym for ''Public Access to Court Electronic Records'', is an interface to the same system for public use.

History and associated applications

CM/ECF was first implemented in 1996 in the Northern District of Ohio to handle a large number of

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

cases. Pilot programs were implemented in the Western District of Missouri, the Eastern District of New York and the

District of Oregon The United States District Court for the District of Oregon (in case citations, D. Ore. or D. Or.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the state of Oregon. It was created in 1859 when the state was admitted to the Union. ...

in late 1997. National rollout of the system started in bankruptcy courts in 2001, 2002 in district courts, and in 2004 in

appellate courts A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

. CM/ECF is not used in state courts, but several states have moved toward implementation of comparable systems for at least some cases. As of January 2012, there were "some two hundred" courts running CM/ECF. PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), the Federal Judiciary's electronic public access system, still provides access to docket entries as it did before CM/ECF; however, CM/ECF allows for access to pleadings, motion papers, briefs, and other documents filed by the parties and attorneys in the case (with the exception of any documents permitted to be filed under seal or ''

in camera ''In camera'' (; Latin: "in a chamber"). is a legal term that means ''in private''. The same meaning is sometimes expressed in the English equivalent: ''in chambers''. Generally, ''in-camera'' describes court cases, parts of it, or process wh ...

''). For most documents, an access charge of $0.10 per page is levied to defray the cost of maintaining the system. In compliance with the

E-Government Act of 2002 The E-Government Act of 2002 (, , , H.R. 2458/S. 803), is a United States statute enacted on 17 December 2002, with an effective date for most provisions of 17 April 2003. Its stated purpose is to improve the management and promotion of electroni ...

, written opinions that "set forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision" are free of charge. To facilitate online access, courts implementing CM/ECF require attorneys to file copies of most litigation papers electronically, instead of or in addition to the traditional filing of paper copies.

Operational description

The main purpose of the system is to fulfill the legal obligation of the

Clerk of Court A court clerk (British English: clerk to the court or clerk of the court ; American English: clerk of the court or clerk of court ) is an officer of the court whose responsibilities include maintaining records of a court, administer oaths to witn ...

as custodian of court records. Each case is assigned a number in the format D:YY-TT-SSSSS where D=Division Office (most districts are split into divisions), YY=Year, TT=Type (''e.g.'' bk=bankruptcy, cv=civil, cr=criminal), SSSSS=Sequence number. The case number does not contain any type of court identifier. The main list of the case is the docket sheet. The docket sheet contains a chronological list of each filing and any associated documents (in

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

format) in the case. Each record includes the filing date, docket text, and a link to filed documents. Events can link to past events. Example docket text: "Hearing Held on #18 Motion for Relief from Stay to Proceed With Foreclosure Action Against 123 Corporate Drive, Anytown, Pennsylvania. Filed by ABC Bank Represented by DEWEY CHEATEM (Counsel). ORDER ENTERED (T., Jason) (Entered: 03/01/2007)"—see this sample CM/ECF docket sheet.

The application

CM/ECF is a web-based application that is written mainly in Perl and Java, which generates HTML with JavaScript for some client side validation. The software runs under Solaris or Red Hat

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

OS using

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webserver. Most courts have moved to a Linux server. An

Informix IBM Informix is a product family within IBM's Information Management division that is centered on several relational database management system (RDBMS) offerings. The Informix products were originally developed by Informix Corporation, whose ...

SQL database is used to store the data. In general, the software is fairly simple and easily maintained. All documents are required to be filed in the PDF format. Other file types may be encapsulated inside PDF files, ''e.g.'' audio files in MP3 format, or video files. CM/ECF plans to require

PDF/A PDF/A is an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for use in the archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents. PDF/A differs from PDF by prohibiting features unsuitable for long-term archivi ...

compliant files to meet the requirements of the National Archives and Records Administration. Each court will set its own deadline for requiring documents to be filed in the PDF/A format. No warning period is planned. Extensive changes were made in version 3.3 to use Yahoo!'s YUI library. This has increased the complexity of the version 3.2 code. The 3.3 application sports a more modern interface with drop down menus and no frame. Much of the 3.2 simple HTML user interface is still available depending on the menu items selected. The system is decentralized with each court running its own servers and its own copy of the software. Each court has a live server and separate training and test servers. The test server is used to make changes and install new versions before "going to live." The training server allows users to learn how to use CM/ECF without affecting live cases. While the application is developed and maintained centrally by the

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) is the Administration (government), administrative Government agency, agency of the United States federal courts, United States federal court system, established in 1939. The central suppo ...

, local staff members configure the application specifically for the local court to conform to local rules and practices. Since source code can be modified locally, there is some variability in the application between districts. Most local changes are cosmetic and do not change the core functionality of the application. The database design centers on the case record and each case record has multiple related records. For example, the "party" table lists parties to the case—Plaintiff, Defendant, Debtor, etc. In a bankruptcy case the Trustee, US Trustee, and certain creditors can become parties to a case. Each party is either

pro se ''Pro se'' legal representation ( or ) comes from Latin ''pro se'', meaning "for oneself" or "on behalf of themselves" which, in modern law, means to argue on one's own behalf in a legal proceeding, as a defendant or plaintiff in civil cases, ...

or has one or more counsel (attorney) listed. A party can also have a list of

aliases A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...

, ''e.g.'', "Winona Judd DBA 'The Judds'". This feature allows name searches to find the case.

Security and privacy

CM/ECF was breached during the 2020 United States federal government data breach. After gaining access, the attackers deployed "Teardrop", a piece of second-stage malware that likely gave them the ability to modify or exfiltrate data.

References

External links