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Newsletter of the Federal Courts Vol. 43 Number 7 July 2011
Mentoring Program Adds Diversity .................................3
New Rules Officer ..........................3
Civil War and the Judiciary .........4
INNSSIDDDEE
Leveling the Playing Field: Help For Self-Filers
Last year, nearly 73,000 people
filed civil cases in federal
courts without a lawyer, a
number that, for non-prisoner
filers, has grown steadily in recent
years. People file “pro se”—Latin for
“on one’s own behalf ”—because
of indigence or by choice. About
Continued on page 2
Courts Warned to Prepare for Budget Shortfall
The fiscal year 2012 funding
level for the Judiciary
approved by the House
Appropriations Committee would
result in significant staffing losses in
the federal courts.
In the House 2012 Financial
Services and General Government
Appropriations bill, the Judiciary as
Continued on page 9
4th of July Naturalization Ceremony at Monticello
On the Fourth of July, Chief Judge Glen E. Conrad of the Western District
of Virginia administered the oath of allegiance to 76 new United
States citizens on the West Lawn of Monticello, the historic home of
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. The new citizens
represented 44 countries. The naturalization ceremony was part of the annual
Monticello Independence Day Celebration. A district judge from the Western
District of Virginia has sworn in new citizens at Monticello on July Fourth for
49 years. Chief Judge Conrad’s participation marks his second year presiding.
INNN-DDEEPPPTTHHHH
“The only birthday I ever commemorate is that
of our Independence, the Fourth of July.” —Thomas Jefferson
Phot
o by
Jack
Loo
ney
The Third Branch � July 20112
Fogel Selected to Head Federal Judicial Center
a whole would receive $6.76 billion, a net
$142 million below the FY 2011 enacted
appropriations level. The Judiciary’s
Salaries and Expenses account would
receive $213 million below FY 2011 levels.
As a result, the federal courts are being
urged to implement immediately a hiring
freeze on vacancies and limit spending
to essential purchases. “These actions
will better position the courts for a large
budget shortfall expected in FY 2012,” said
Administrative Office Director Jim Duff.
At the House bill funding levels,
courts would have to cut spending on
salaries by the equivalent of about 5,000
court support staff, which might be
accomplished through a combination
Budget Shortfallcontinued from page 1
of attrition, layoffs, furloughs, buyouts,
and early outs. The Senate has not yet
considered the Judiciary ’s appropriations
bill for FY 2012.
“••••••• ••••• • ••• • •• •• • • •• •The chairs of the Judicial Conference
Executive Committee, Judge David B.
Sentelle, and the Budget Committee,
Judge Julia S. Gibbons, have written to
all federal judges and court executives
asking for their assistance in preparing for
the coming reductions to the Judiciary’s
funding and urging them to take whatever
steps they can now to contain costs within
chambers and court offices.
“This situation is unlike anything
was have faced in recent memory,
including the cost-containment efforts
we initiated in fiscal year 2004,” they
wrote, “and could fundamentally change
how we perform our constitutional and
statutory responsibilities.”
The Executive Committee and
the Budget Committee are taking
the lead in working with the other
Conference committees on additional
cost-containment efforts. Judiciary
employees, led by judges and unit
executives, are being asked to identify
ways to reduce operational and admin-
istrative costs.
Sentelle and Gibbons stressed the
need for preparation: “It is critical that we
prepare for the likelihood that, in spite of
our best efforts, Congress will not be able
to fund our needs . . . it will be necessary
for all of us to take extraordinary steps
to minimize the impact, not only on our
staff, but the entire judicial process.”
The Board of the Federal Judicial
Center (FJC) has selected
Judge Jeremy Fogel, of the
U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of California, to be the Center ’s
tenth director.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., who
chairs the FJC Board, said, “The Board
selected Judge Fogel from a number of
exemplary candidates. He is an experi-
enced judge and educator who has
been deeply involved in the Center’s
programs over the past decade. The
Board is confident that Judge Fogel will
be a worthy successor to Judge Barbara
J. Rothstein, whom I thank for her eight
years of dedicated service as Center
director.” Rothstein will return to the
bench and resume her duties as a U.S.
district judge.
Upon being notified of his selection,
Fogel said, “I am humbled and deeply
honored, and I am looking forward to
this opportunity to serve.” He hopes to
undertake his new responsibilities in
October 2011.
Fogel was appointed to the federal
bench in 1998, prior to which he served
nearly seventeen years in the California
state courts. He has served as an FJC
faculty member since 2001 and as a
lecturer at Stanford Law School since
2003. He received an A.B. degree from
Stanford University in 1971 and a J.D.
degree from Harvard Law School in 1974.
The FJC (www.fjc.gov) was created by
Congress in 1967 to “further the devel-
opment and adoption of improved
judicial administration in the courts,”
through research and education.
“I am humbled and deeply honored, and I am looking forward to this opportunity to serve.”
Judge Jeremy Fogel
The Third Branch � July 2011 3
New Rules Committee Officer Selected
Jonathan C. Rose, of counsel with
the Washington office of Jones Day,
has been selected as the new Rules
Committee Officer for the Administrative
Office. He succeeds John K. Rabiej who
retired in January.
Rose began his federal service as a
White House staff assistant, after which
he served in various key White House and
Justice Department positions. For the past
27 years he has been a partner and, more
recently of counsel at Jones Day, where
his practice focused on government
regulation, international litigation, and
national security matters.
Rose is a graduate of Yale University
and Harvard Law School.
An innovative mentoring program
in the Southern District of New
York is giving local practitioners
federal court experience and in the
process giving more minorities and
women the skills to serve on the district’s
Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel.
The district’s Criminal Justice Act
Mentoring Program pairs experienced
attorneys from its CJA panel as mentors
to attorneys who have an interest in
applying to the panel but who lack
knowledge of the federal system. The
mentees learn by assignment to a case
of sufficient complexity to warrant the
services of two attorneys.
“They’re sitting at their mentor’s elbow,”
said Judge John G. Koeltl, chair of the
district’s Defender Services Committee, “but
it’s very proactive. They’re there to observe,
but also to do substantive work. They make
contributions to cases, in terms of writing
and court appearances.”
A typical “teaching” case would be one
where the mentor received a regular CJA
appointment that presented many of the
representation issues an attorney might
encounter in a federal case, including
bail and release, discovery review, guide-
lines calculation and sentencing factors,
plea negotiation, client interviewing and
conferences, legal research and writing,
and possible evidentiary hearing or trial.
In addition, the mentees work with their
mentors on other CJA cases.
Mentees are required to provide the
first 15 hours of service free of charge. After
that, they bill for their hours at a rate that is
substantially lower than the hourly rate for
court-appointed attorneys. There’s also an
educational requirement. Mentees must
complete a minimum of six continuing
legal education credits that focus on federal
criminal practice skills and attend seminars
and workshops.
Completing the program is no
guarantee of being appointed to the CJA
to federal practice. Without background,
without knowledge of the resources,
protocols and procedures, and rules of
federal practice, an attorney could be
making critical mistakes and not even
be aware.”
In fact, mentees need to learn so much,
the program length has expanded from
12 months to 18 months. The number of
mentors per class also has increased. Other
changes have been made as mentors and
judges see what works best. The district’s
judges are supportive, and there has been
interest from other districts in beginning
their own mentoring programs.
“Our effort is always to get the best
lawyer for a defendant,” said Koeltl. “The
program entails a lot of work, but the
quality of applicants has been sterling.”
“We’re very excited and optimistic
about the program,” said Quijano. “This is
what we tell applicants: if we place you on
the panel, in three to four years, you will
be one of the outstanding practitioners
in federal court—not just an outstanding
CJA attorney.”
Mentoring Program Adds Diversity to CJA Panelpanel, which is a highly selective and
competitive process. But the results are
encouraging. Over the last two years, four
of the program’s “graduates” have been
selected to serve on the CJA panel, adding
to the panel’s diversity.
Koeltl works with co-directors Peter
Quijano and Anthony Ricco, two experi-
enced CJA attorneys who developed the
program and who are responsible for
overseeing the recruitment of mentors
and mentees. They designed the program
to prepare attorneys for the challenges of
federal practice and eventual CJA panel
representation. The Southern District of
New York’s Board of Judges adopted the
mentoring program in 2008.
“There are different substantive law and
different procedures in federal practice,”
said Koeltl, “and many state court practi-
tioners do not qualify for the panel
because they lack federal experience.”
“But we’re not here to train someone
for trial,” adds Quijano. “The program
concept is to find experienced state
practitioners and help transition them
Jonathan C. Rose
The Third Branch � July 20114
As the United States marks the
150-year anniversary of the start
of the Civil War that so tested
our nation, it must be noted that the
long and bloody fight had a similar
effect on the federal court system and
its judges—a tearing at the very fabric of
American justice.
“The national judiciary had never
faced a crisis of such magnitude,” wrote
author Mark Lerner in his 2006 book,
This Honorable Court. “Judges had to
deal with potential treason, tensions
between civil liberties and national
defense, and the legal implications of
federal military measures.”
His book states that the broad wartime
powers employed by President Abraham
Lincoln’s administration forced a signif-
icant change to the role of the federal
courts: “The Civil War bench was less
concerned with relationships with state
law and authority than earlier courts. Its
focus was chiefly national.”
Many future judges saw military duty
during the war, on both sides. Many
judges resigned from their lifetime
appointments and joined the judiciary of
the Confederate States of America. Others
became judges under extraordinary
circumstances. Here are some of their
personal stories:
U.S. District Judge Andrew Magrath, District of South CarolinaAppointed
by President
Franklin Pierce in
1856, Magrath
addressed a
meeting of a grand
jury on November 6,
1860—the day Lincoln
was elected. He waited
until the end of the jury’s work
to make a personal announcement.
governor. After the war, he practiced law
in Charleston, from 1865 to 1893.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Boynton, Southern District of FloridaWhen Florida seceded
in early 1861, the
city of Key West—
at the southern
tip of the Confed-
eracy—remained
a Unionist
stronghold. U.S.
District Judge
William Marvin, a New
York native, presided until his 1863
resignation despite many suspicions that
he harbored Southern sympathies.
In From Local Courts to National
Tribunals, authors Kermit Hall and Eric
Civil War Tore Apart the Federal Judiciary, Too
Photo Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina
“Feeling an assurance of what will be
the action of the state, I consider it my
duty, without delay, to prepare to obey
its wishes,” he said, according to William
Robinson Jr.’s 1941 book, Justice in Grey.
“That preparation is made by the
resignation of the office which I have
held. For the last time, I have, as a judge
of the United States, administered the
laws of the United States within the limits
of the state of South Carolina.”
With that, Magrath tore off his robe and
left the bench. Many who were present in
his courtroom wept. Six weeks later, South
Carolina seceded from the Union and
declared its national independence.
Magrath subsequently served during
the war as a judge in the District of South
Carolina for the Confederate States of
America and then as South Carolina’s
The Third Branch � July 2011 5
Rise tell how replacing Marvin presented
Lincoln with a distinct problem. His first
two appointees to the job never arrived in
Key West to hold court. On October 13,
1863, Thomas Boynton, the local district
attorney, wrote to Washington and urged
that the Southern District backlog of cases
be eased by letting a Northern District of
Florida judge preside over them.
Soon thereafter, Boynton received
a recess appointment to the job from
Lincoln. The President nominated
Boynton to the same position in early
1864, and he was confirmed by the
Senate. He was 25 when his bench service
began, and he remains the youngest
person ever appointed to an Article III
judgeship. He served until 1870, when he
resigned in poor health.
U.S. District Judge West Humphreys, Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts of TennesseeThe Eastern and Western
Districts were created
by Congress in
1802, but one
judge presided
over both. When
the Middle District
was added in 1839,
one judge presided
over all three. It stayed
that way through the Civil War, and a
second federal judge wasn’t appointed for
Tennessee until 1878.
Humphreys, appointed to his three-
district duties by President Pierce in 1853,
pledged his allegiance to Tennessee and
became a judge for the Confederate
States in 1861, but refused to surrender
his U.S. court commission. He was
impeached by the House and convicted
by the Senate in 1862, ending his U.S.
judicial service.
After serving as a Confederate judge
for four years, Humphreys took the oath
of allegiance to the United States after the
war and received a pardon from President
Johnson. He practiced law in Nashville
until 1882 and became a crusading
champion of temperance.
U.S. District Judge Richard Field, District of New JerseyA strong supporter of Lincoln and the
Lincoln administration when appointed
to the federal bench in 1863, Field wasted
little time in establishing that he would
not flinch from hearing cases against
antiwar dissidents.
“For the last two years, we have been
engaged in a war, which, whether we
consider its character, its causes, or the
consequences which are likely to flow
from it, cannot but be regarded as one of
the most remarkable that the world has
ever witnessed,” he stated in open court
while making a charge to a grand jury.
“This war must be prosecuted with vigor
until the authority of the Government is
respected and obeyed over every foot
of territory belonging to the United
States, or we must submit to ruinous and
ignominious peace.”
But U.S. prosecutors did not win all
their cases. Author Lerner states, “The
record indicates that all trials followed
due process: defendants had counsel,
rules of proceeding were as usual, and the
judge exerted no pressure for particular
verdicts. As eager as he was to promote
support for the war effort, Field evidently
did nothing overt to subvert the judicial
process… However furious he was with
those who opposed the war effort,
Field never allowed anger or passion to
overcome a commitment to the law or at
least a grudging regard for civil liberties.”
Sixth Circuit Display: “They Were Soldiers Once . . .”Eli Shelby Hammond, a lieutenant and
adjutant in the 14th Tennessee Cavalry,
served as a general’s aide until he was
captured and interned in a Union prison.
Hammond was released after seven
months as part of a prisoner exchange,
and returned to fight for the Confederate
Army until the end of the war.
Thirteen years after the war, in 1878,
he was appointed by President Rutherford
B. Hayes to the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Tennessee, where he
served until his death in 1904.
The details of Hammond’s war service
is one of 19 vignettes of jurists with ties
to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th
Circuit on display at federal courthouses
throughout the judicial circuit, which
today encompasses Tennessee, Kentucky,
Michigan, and Ohio.
The display, created by Circuit Historian
Rita Wallace and librarians throughout the
circuit, features biographies of judges who
served the North and the South.
“It was a collaborative effort to give the
public a look into our court in this Civil
War anniversary year,” Wallace said. The
display can be seen in courthouses in
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus,
Detroit, Grand Rapids, Louisville,
Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga.
Charles Clark was a private in the 8th
Tennessee Cavalry from 1862 to 1865, 30
years before being appointed as a district
judge in Tennessee; Albert Thompson was
a captain in the 8th Pennsylvania Volunteer
Infantry from 1861 to 1863, 35 years
before his appointment to the Southern
District of Ohio; and William Hays served
as a lieutenant colonel
in the 10th Kentucky
Infantry for most
of the war before
joining the federal
bench in 1879 as a
district judge in his
home state.
Hays took
command of his
regiment when
Colonel John Marshall Harlan—who in
1877 became a U.S. Supreme Court justice
and shortly thereafter a circuit justice for
the 6th Circuit—resigned in 1863.
Continued on page 6
Judge William Hays
The Third Branch � July 20116
Colonel in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer
Infantry. His tent mate was a future U.S.
President, Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes.
These men are among the thousands
of men and women who have served
the federal Judiciary and helped make it
a model for court systems worldwide. In
the preface to Justice in Grey, Robinson
70 years ago wrote, “In no other country
of the world has the judicial branch of
government been entrusted with such
power as in America. Its influence,
protecting and prohibiting, extends into
every field of national life; upon the pages
of its records are written stories of peace
and war, of industry and commerce, of
individual behavior and collective order—
stories comic and tragic, dramatic and
melodramatic—as well as the cold logic
of the law.”
The Civil War itself provided dramatic
stories of the federal courts and those
who served them.
Sixth Circuit Display Tells Civil War Story
Harlan, one of three
future Supreme Court
justices/circuit
justices for the 6th
Circuit to see Civil
War action before
his judicial career,
led his regiment in
protecting the Louis-
ville and Nashville
Railroad from John
Hunt Morgan’s irregular cavalry, known
as Morgan’s Raiders. The Raiders became
infamous in the North for wreaking havoc
from Nashville to the Upper Ohio Valley,
sabotaging Union railroads, bridges, and
communications stations.
One of the Raiders was Horace Lurton,
who in 1893 was appointed to the 6th
Circuit Court of Appeals
and in 1910 became
a U.S. Supreme
Court justice. For
a year, he served
on the nation’s
highest court
alongside Harlan.
Lurton had been
imprisoned twice
before escaping from his confinement
in Columbus, Ohio, and joining up
with Morgan’s Raiders.
He sold a watch his
father had given him
to purchase the
required horse.
Supreme Court
Justice and 6th
Circuit Justice Stanley
Matthews (1881–
1889) once served for
two years as a Lieutenant
Civil War Tore Apart the Federal Judiciary, Toocontinued from page 5
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Justice John Marshall Harlan
Judge Horace Lurton
Justice Stanley Matthews
Vignettes of 19 jurists with ties to both the Civil War and the judicial circuit that
encompasses Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee are on display at federal
courthouses throughout the circuit. Circuit Historian Rita Wallace, pictured, worked with
librarians throughout the circuit to tell the stories of judges who served the North and
the South. Staff assisted in research and created the poster for the display, as well as
booklets and bookmarks. The display is called “They Were Soldiers Once.”
The Third Branch � July 2011 7
A probation and pretrial services
program that uses kiosks to
gather routine reports required
of clients has quietly become a powerful
resource and timesaver. Begun as a pilot
in 2008 with kiosks in nine probation
and pretrial services offices, the program
has spread to 27 districts and grown
to 79 kiosks. Last quarter over 10,000
offenders on supervised release and
defendants under pretrial supervision
used one of the kiosks to submit routine
status reports required as a condition of
bail or post-conviction supervision.
The kiosks use an electronic reporting
system and are located in probation and
pretrial services offices. A client goes
to the office, verifies his or her identity
with a fingerprint scan at the kiosk, and
answers a series of questions displayed
on the touch screen.
Defendants respond to about nine
questions while offenders may respond
to 30 or more questions, although some
responses simply require confirmation
that the data is correct. The reports
are sent by email to the officer within
seconds, with the client’s “yes” responses
to questions about drug use, or contact
with law enforcement, for example,
moved to the top of the report for the
officer’s immediate attention. The reports
are downloaded to the Probation/Pretrial
Services Automated Case Tracking
System (PACTS). Entering the data
electronically saves time by eliminating
inaccuracies in re-keying. Time not spent
generating reports is time that can be
spent one-on-one with clients focusing
on problems.
Officer reaction to the electronic
collection of client reports has been
positive. “The kiosk program has been a
great time saver for officer and adminis-
trative staff,” said Chief Probation Officer
Michael Fitzpatrick in the Southern
District of New York. Over a three month
period in Fitzpatrick’s district, kiosks at
three court locations allowed nearly 1,500
clients to report their status electronically.
Deputy Chief Pretrial Services Officer
Carlos Salinas in the Western District of
Texas was there when the pilot began
and has seen the program grow. Today,
seven of the district’s nine divisional
offices have kiosks.
“Overall it ’s a good program and our
officers like it,” said Salinas, “especially
in locations where we’re short on staff.
If the only officer at a divisional office
is on a home visit or is called to court,
the defendant can still come in and
report at the kiosk and the officer will be
notified, allowing the officer to contact
the defendant at a later time. There’s less
waiting time. And our El Paso office really
likes the Spanish question sets that were
added to the program last year.”
Although the program has grown out
of the pilot stage, there are still adjust-
ments and upgrades in the works. In the
next month, functionality will be added
to the kiosk reporting system to allow
an officer to leave a message for a client
after he or she logs in. The next antici-
pated feature will be kiosks outfitted with
scanners so that clients can scan pay stubs
or doctor’s notes along with their reports.
The program also has evolved to
allow supervision reporting by internet.
Clients with computer access can go to a
secure website, log in using a password,
and respond to the same series of
questions they would find at a kiosk.
An additional application that will allow
supervision reporting by telephone will
be available sometime in late 2011.
Growth of Kiosk Program An Aid to Officers
Kiosks in the probation and pretrial services offices of 27 districts were used last quarter by over 10,000 offenders and defendants to submit routine status reports.
John Roll Courthouse Groundbreaking
Ground was broken on the new Judge John M. Roll Courthouse in Yuma, Arizona, last month. Left to right, GSA’s Jeffrey Neely, Ron Barber, district director for U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Magistrate Judge Jay R. Irwin (D. Ariz.), Chief Judge Roslyn O. Silver (D. Ariz.), Robert Roll, Judge Roll’s son, U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), and Yuma Mayor Alan Krieger.
The Third Branch � July 20118
Published monthly by the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Office of Public Affairs
One Columbus Circle, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20544
(202) 502-2600
Visit our Internet site at www.uscourts.gov
DIRECTORJames C. Duff
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDavid A. Sellers
MANAGING EDITORKaren E. Redmond
PRODUCTIONOmniStudio, Inc.
CONTRIBUTORDick Carelli, AO
Please direct all inquiries and address changes to The Third Branch at the above address or to
Up-to-date information on judicial vacancies is available at
http://www.uscourts.gov/JudgesAndJudgeships/JudicialVacancies.aspx
July Judicial Milestones
JUDICIAL BOXSCORE
Appointed: Claire C. Cecchi, as a U.S.
District Judge, U.S. District Court for
the District of New Jersey, June l4.
Appointed: Esther Salas, as a U.S.
District Judge, U.S. District Court for
the District of New Jersey, June 14.
Appointed: E. Scott Frost, as a U.S.
Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Texas,
June 16.
Appointed: Maureen P. Kelly, as a
U.S. Magistrate Judge, U.S. District
Court for the Western District of
Pennsylvania, June 13.
Appointed: Denise K. LaRue, as a U.S.
Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of Indiana,
May 24.
Senior Status: U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit,
June 30.
Senior Status: U.S. Chief District Judge Stephan P. Mickle, U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Florida,
June 22.
Senior Status: U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Judith M. Barzilay, U.S. Court of International
Trade, June 2.
Elevated: U.S. District Court Judge J. Curtis Joyner, to Chief Judge, U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania, succeeding U.S.
District Judge Harvey Bartle, III, June 7.
Retired: U.S. Senior Court of Appeals Judge Deanell Reece Tacha, U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,
June 1.
Retired: U.S. Senior District Judge Honorable Ernest C. Torres, U.S.
District Court for the District of Rhode
Island, June 1.
Retired: U.S. Magistrate Judge Philip R. Lane, U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Texas, June 15.
Retired: U.S. Magistrate Judge James Larson, U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California,
May 31.
Retired: U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman, U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California, May
31.
Deceased: U.S. Senior Judge Jaime Pieras, Jr., U.S. District Court for the
District of Puerto Rico, June 11.
As of July 1, 2011
Courts of AppealsVacancies ..................................17
Nominees .................................10
District Courts Vacancies ..................................71 Nominees .................................43
Court of International Trade Vacancies .................................... 1 Nominees ................................... 0
Courts with “Judicial Emergencies” .........36
The Third Branch � July 2011 9
two-thirds of all pro se cases are filed
by prisoners.
“Who are pro se filers? The short answer
is they often are litigants who can’t afford
an attorney,” said Judge A. Howard Matz
(C.D. Calif.), who supports assistance
programs for pro se filers in the Central
District of California. “Increasingly,” he adds,
“we also see pro se litigants who are defen-
dants in cases, not just plaintiffs.” These
may be individuals sued by corporations
in intellectual property rights cases, or by
banks in foreclosure cases, for example.
“It is my duty as a judge to hear from
both sides, to follow procedures, and to
rule correctly and fairly on a level playing
field,” said Matz. “But pro se filers often
are confused, frightened, and lacking
the confidence to negotiate what is a
complicated system.”
What is being done to help these
litigants? What resources are available for
pro se litigants—either at the courthouse
or on-line? What different approaches are
taken by courts to assist pro se filers? The
Judicial Conference Committee on Court
Administration and Case Management
(CACM) asked the Federal Judicial Center
(FJC) to survey chief district judges and
clerks of court on the assistance their
district courts provide to pro se litigants.
“As district courts face the challenges of
managing and adjudicating cases filed by
prisoner or non-prisoner pro se litigants,
which encompass more than 25 percent of
the civil cases, CACM thought that a survey
of creative and best practices employed by
a number of courts would well serve and
inform all courts,” said Judge Julie Robinson
(D. Kan.), CACM chair.
A review of the FJC’s survey of clerks
of court suggests that assistance for
non-prisoner pro se litigants in the courts
is both highly visible and accessible–
starting on-line and in the clerk’s office.
The most common form of help by the
clerk’s office for pro se litigants is proce-
dural assistance by office staff, who must
remain mindful of the prohibition against
giving legal advice. Most districts spread
the responsibility for pro se cases across
all clerk’s office staff, although 27 percent
of the courts surveyed have two to five
staff members with substantial responsi-
bility for pro se cases.
In the public areas of clerks’ offices, pro
se litigants will find a variety of resources
and services, either on paper or on the
district’s website. They can learn about the
jurisdiction of the federal courts, how to
access the Judiciary’s Case Management/
Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system
and how to protect private information
in papers filed with the court. Some
courts also provide sample or template
pleadings, motions and discovery
requests, and compile frequently asked
questions for pro se filers.
The clerk’s office often is the best place
for a non-prisoner pro se litigant to find
a handbook or information package
developed to help pro se litigants. Eighty
percent of the 90 district court clerks
responding to the FJC survey reported
that their districts make such materials
available at the clerk’s office. For prisoner
pro se litigants, 70 percent of the
responding districts will mail them a copy
of such materials. Need to know about
local rules and procedural forms? The
information is readily available, usually on
a court’s website.
Eighty-four percent of the clerks
reported that their districts provide free
Leveling the Playing Field: Help for Self-Filerscontinued from page 1
Continued on page 10
“The Eastern District of Missouri also maintains a Self Help Resource Center in the clerk’s office with access to the E Pro Se Computer program. It is a quiet place to compose documents and gather information about bar association lawyer referral services and a wide variety of community programs. Visitors also have access to publi-cations and guide materials that explain court procedures and
topics on substantive law.”
Clerk of Court Jim Woodward
Sixty percent of the courts responding to the survey provide training for clerk’s office staff on how to deal with pro se litigants. Nearly all the district have trained staff in the kinds of assistance they may provide.
Top 20 Districts Courts for Pro Se PetitionsFY 2010
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The Third Branch � July 201110
public access to computers in the clerk’s
office. On these computers, 67 percent of
the districts provide access to CM/ECF. Half
provide access to their own website and
to PACER. While computer access is free,
most courts charge a fee for printing from
the computers.
In 41 percent of the district courts
responding, non-prisoner pro se litigants
may file electronically through CM/ECF,
and in 39 percent of the courts they may
access the docket and pleadings in an
on-going case through CM/ECF. A small
percentage of courts, 11 percent, also
provide e-filing software on the public
access computers to assist pro se filers in
preparing pleadings or other submissions.
In the Eastern District of Missouri, pro
se litigants have help from a user-friendly,
interactive web application called E Pro
Se. Through the user’s responses to a
series of questions, the essential infor-
mation is pulled together into a document
that tells the court about the type of claim.
Typically, the software is used to create
documents required for Social Security,
employment, and civil rights complaints.
It’s available online, so pro se filers can
use E Pro Se anywhere they have internet
access, and only need to visit the court to
file the document.
Non-prisoner pro se litigants in a
number of courts will encounter warnings
that their case may be dismissed if they fail
to file all the necessary documents, fail to
file on time, or fail to pay any required fees.
For that reason, a little over half of the
district courts appoint counsel to represent
a pro se litigant for the full case, with 56
percent of the districts also appointing
counsel in limited circumstances, such as
in a mediation or trial. Fifty-five percent
of the districts do both. A quarter of the
districts have a provision in their local rules
for payment of costs. Forty-nine percent of
the courts conduct a review to determine
the need for counsel. A third of the courts
also provide pro se litigants with handouts
or a web notice about obtaining free or
low-cost legal services or information about
retaining an attorney. Local rules or general
orders in 14 percent of the districts require
pro bono service from members of the
bar; 21 percent maintain pro bono panels
or lists of attorneys willing to serve on a
pro bono basis. A small number of courts
maintain an automatic e-mailing list to alert
the bar to a case needing representation.
Altogether, 90 percent of the ninety clerks
responding to the survey report that their
districts have taken one of these steps to
help pro se litigants find pro bono counsel.
Help Desks & Guides for Pro Se LitigantsIn FY 2010, the Central District of
California had the highest number of pro
se filers of all federal district courts. The
district’s website welcomes these filers to
the court with information organized by
topic, with links to court forms, and with a
helpful brochure.
The website also directs individuals
representing themselves to the Pro Se
Clinic located in the U.S. Courthouse
in downtown Los Angeles. The Clinic
is staffed by a nonprofit public interest
law office, Public Counsel. The Clinic’s
attorneys, who are not court employees
or officials, provide information about the
procedures, filing requirements,
and deadlines involved in a federal civil
lawsuit; general guidance on how to
draft complaints, responses, motions and
other pleadings; answers to jurisdiction
and venue questions; information about
discovery procedures; and alternatives to
litigating in federal court. According to the
Clinic’s first annual report, covering the
period from February 2009 to February
2010, most of the substantive issues raised
by Clinic visitors arise from foreclosures
and civil rights, employment discrimi-
nation, and intellectual property claims.
Pro se litigants in the U.S. District Court
for the Northern District of Illinois may
make an appointment at the clerk’s intake
desk to see an attorney in the court’s Pro Se
Assistance Program. With special funding
from the Chicago Bar Foundation, attorneys
from the Legal Assistance Foundation
of Metropolitan Chicago provide pro se
litigants with information about federal
court procedure; assistance preparing
certain pleadings, motions, or other court
documents; and help in accessing other
sources of information about legal issues.
The Northern District of Illinois’
program was the model for a program
initiated by Federal Court Bar Association
of the Northern District of New York
where the bar maintains an office and
employs a program manger to oversee
volunteer attorneys who assist civil pro se
litigants. “We’ve found that, of those who
filed claims with the court, the pleadings
Leveling the Playing Field: Help for Self-Filerscontinued from page 9
About a fifth of the districts responding to the survey have established mediation proce-dures for non-prisoner pro se litigants; a smaller number also provide mediation for prisoner pro se litigants.
“ . . . A disturbingly large number of litigants come to the Clinic with basic reading and comprehension problems; some cannot even read Court orders and the opposition’s filings. Others can decipher the words in the documents but cannot comprehend even the
simplest of Court orders.”
Annual Report, The Public Counsel
Federal Pro Se Clinic
Central District of California
The Third Branch � July 2011 11
were more properly constructed, saving
time for both chambers and the clerk’s
office,” said Clerk of Court Larry Baerman
in the Northern District of New York.
To help un-represented individuals
filing for bankruptcy in the District of New
Jersey, the bankruptcy court there has
developed and is piloting a web appli-
cation, Pro Se Pathfinder.
“After BAPCPA, filing for bankruptcy
became more expensive for individuals,”
said Bankruptcy Clerk of Court Jim
Waldron, “while fewer bankruptcy lawyers
were available to take a case. Our pro
se initiative was our way of making filers
aware of what it takes to file a petition
while improving the accuracy of the
data they submit in their petitions. It is
as comprehensive as we could make
it with references to every resource we
could find. We were careful not to cross
the ‘legal advice’ threshold that all clerks’
offices must avoid.”
In the pilot, unrepresented filers
entering the court’s web page find infor-
mation and forms they’ll need to file.
By responding to a series of questions,
they may electronically complete and
submit a bankruptcy petition. “It’s a fine
balance,” Waldron admits. “Bankruptcy is
so very complicated, we don’t encourage
individuals to file without an attorney.
But so many pro se filers come in with
petitions that are all wrong. At least this
gives structure to their filing.”
In the District of Arizona, approxi-
mately 20 percent of all bankruptcy
litigants file pro se.
“Due to the complexity of the
bankruptcy means test and how compli-
cated the process of filing for bankruptcy
is, most people get some kind of help
filing—sometimes on the Internet or
through individuals who specialize
in filling out bankruptcy forms,” said
Bankruptcy Judge Eileen Hollowell (D.
Ariz.). “But ‘help’ may not mean competent
help. The question is, how do we get
people information they can and will use
to help them make good choices.”
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the
District of Arizona sponsors a “self-help
center” in the Tucson and Phoenix court-
houses staffed by volunteer lawyers from
the local bar.
“We make a lot of information and
help available at the clerk’s desk for pro
se filers,” said Hollowell, whose district
also has a law clerk help coordinate pro
se services. “Before they see an attorney
at the help center, we ask pro se filers to
watch an online video on bankruptcy.
Frankly, it is in the court’s self interest to
provide pro se filers with as much infor-
mation about the process as possible.
Sometimes, though, as a bankruptcy judge
I can only continue the matter for 30 days,
give them the number of the self-help
center and hope they make the contact.”
The Administrative Office Bankruptcy
Judges Advisory Group (BJAG) has
developed a Judiciary website just for pro
se bankruptcy filers at www.uscourts.gov/
bankruptcycourts/prose/html. The website
is straightforward about the complexities of
a bankruptcy case, and the desirability of
proceeding with an attorney. For example,
under current bankruptcy law, prepetition
credit counseling generally is required.
Failure to get counseling before filing the
petition commencing the case may result in
dismissal of the case. As the website warns,
“While individuals can file a bankruptcy
case without an attorney or ‘pro se,’ it is
extremely difficult to do it successfully.”
BJAG also has written a guide, “Assisting
Pro Se Parties in Bankruptcy Cases,” just for
bankruptcy courts. The guide highlights
some of the things bankruptcy courts
can do to educate pro se filers, the filing
information and services filers may need,
and where best to make the guidance
available to reach the pro se audience.
Prisoner Pro SeGenerally fewer online resources are
available to prisoner pro se litigants, who
file one fourth of all civil cases annually.
Prisoners filing pro se who do not have
internet access must rely on the courts to
mail such materials as the rules of federal
procedure or forms. Seventy of the 90
districts surveyed did not know if prisoners
had access to a computer. Twenty districts
reported that prisoners’ access is limited to
preparing pleadings and conducting legal
research. None of the districts reported
that prisoners had access to the court’s
website, PACER or CM/ECF.
Some districts follow the example
of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
which sends forms and information on
the federal judicial system to the federal
and state correctional institutions, where
they are made available to inmates in the
prison library. The district, where 16.5
percent of all non-asbestos civil cases are
filed by prisoners, also has a local rule that
assigns all pro se civil rights cases filed
by an individual to the same judge. “This
gives a judge a familiarity with the plaintiff
and his or her case,” said Clerk of Court
Michael E. Kunz. It also helps identify
frequent or frivolous filers.
In the mid-1970s, as the number of
prisoner pro se petitions began to increase
substantially, the Judicial Conference began
a pro se law clerk pilot program to assist the
courts with this litigation. Today, nearly all
Continued on page 12
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona sponsors a “self-help center” in the Tucson and Phoenix court-houses staffed by volunteer lawyers from the local bar.
Although the courts of appeals were not surveyed, last year 27,209 appeals involved pro se litigants. The largest source of pro se appeals are prisoner petitions.
FIRST CLASS MAIL
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districts have permanent pro se law clerks to
help prisoner pro se litigants and 28 percent
of the districts limit their work to those
cases. Unlike attorneys who represent their
clients, pro se law clerks assist the court by
helping pro se filers understand the rules,
the process of filing and how to move a
complaint through the court system.
Over the years, pro se law clerks
have become experts at helping to
expedite cases, save judges time, and
assist their courts in fully and fairly
addressing each petition.
Under DevelopmentAccording to the survey, 30 of the 90
respondents reported that their districts
are currently developing other measures to
assist with pro se litigation. Many will revise,
expand, or create information items or
systems—for example, update handbooks,
and create a pro se website. Others will
expand or create various forms of personal
assistance—for example, create a pro se
help desk staffed by pro bono attorneys,
develop a more formal pro bono panel,
and create a more formal mediation
process. Nine of the respondents
indicated their districts are exploring use of
e-filing. One district is setting up a Pro Se
Committee to deal with issues raised by the
public and the bar. The CACM Committee
hopes that the FJC survey findings, with
examples of programs and services
provided by district courts, will prove useful
to courts looking for more ways to help
their pro se litigants.
Pro Se E-Filing for Prisoners
To help with the mountain of paper generated in a prisoner petition—sometimes as
many as 50 copies of a document to serve each named defendant—the U.S. District
Court for the Central District of Illinois began a project with the Illinois Department of
Corrections (IDOC) to receive prisoner filings electronically.
The prison library staff scan the inmate’s document into a digital sender, which converts
to PDF format and emails the document to the court. Case managers then e-file in CM/
ECF. The Central and Southern Districts of Illinois have partnered on this project and
expanded to nine IDOC facilities. Originally, the project was intended to handle prison
petitions challenging an inmate’s conditions of confinement or other alleged civil rights
violation, but now includes other types of action, such as habeas corpus petitions.
Help for Self-Filerscontinued from page 11
