Throughout the summer of 2006, bankruptcy courts around the country will be upgrading their electronic filing systems (CM/ECF) to the newest version: Release 3.0. This upgrade will yield a significant improvement to the CM/ECF system for both internal court users and the thousands of attorneys, trustees and creditors using these systems as it addresses 145 modification request enhancements and/or fixes. Many of these improvements introduce much-desired, new functionality over the current application, particularly in the areas of claims and creditor processing, quality control, calendaring, reports and enhanced docketing features.

A second major upgrade to the CM/ECF system will take place just a few months later. By Oct. 17, 2006, the bankruptcy courts will install Release 3.1, which will address the necessary statistical requirements contained in BAPCPA for congressional reporting purposes, among other improvements.

There are several documents currently posted to the Pacer site for external filers to become familiar with Release 3.0's enhancements and fixes. These can be downloaded at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov to obtain the CM/ECF Bankruptcy Release 3.0 Notes for PACER users. On the Pacer Developer page at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ cmecf/developer/index.html, users (in particular, large-claim filers) can download a detailed document describing the procedures for electronic filing of bankruptcy claims as a batch transaction (filers will be able to electronically file batches of 1-25 claims and receive electronic notice of the filings). Some of the major highlights of Release 3.0 that will directly interest attorneys, trustees and creditors include the following:

1. Case-Opening Developments. A new type of debtor has been added for nonprofit organizations, and the check-boxes for type of debtor have been changed to radio buttons, which are mutually exclusive to avoid statistical errors. Depending on how the court configures the application, the "party role" field may be eliminated from the case-opening screens. Debtor, joint-debtor, petitioning creditor, defendant and plaintiff would then appear appropriately on case-opening party screens. Also, there is now an open involuntary case menu option on the first screen. At least one petitioning creditor must be added to the case, and you can select the attorney who is representing each petitioning creditor. Also, more than one nature of suit can be designated when opening an adversary proceeding for statistical reporting.

2. Claims Upload. This new item on the bankruptcy events menu will allow users to add, amend or transfer claims through the uploading of a file. Also, a creditor who is filing a claim may be added to the case. A new claims-upload log utility lists the claim actions you submitted during the specified date range.

3. Creditor and Claims Processing. Many new enhancements have been made to the creditor and claims-processing features. Depending on court preference, you may find one or two new links under "claims filing," "edit creditor" and/or add "common creditor," which lets you select from a list of persons designated as common creditors. Also, when an existing creditor is selected for editing, there is a link to the related claim (if any). A notice of electronic claims filing (NECF) may be generated if a claim is edited. The notice is sent only to active attorneys/trustees and any additional addresses specified for their accounts. Amended claims will receive an extension number from the original claim rather than a new claim number. Other improvements include a hyperlink provided from the query screen to the claims register, and the notice of electronic filing will include links for the claims register and for filing another claim.

4. Transfer of Claims. An event that records the transfer of claims will now allow the transfer of multiple claims from different transferors to one transferee. These transfers will now appear on the claims register under a new feature called claim history and will include a link to transferor name/address. Once transferred, the transferee is shown as the owner of the claim on the claims register.

5. New Docketing Features. When an event prompts you to select an attorney, the selection list will now show the role of the party the attorney represents. Also, for multipart motions, the docket text previously listed the parts in alphabetical order but will now display the parts in the order selected by the filer. This release also corrects the problem of duplicate docket entries when the "submit" button is clicked more than once. Another improvement is that the NEF will now be sent to recipients at the addresses specified for those particular cases, rather than to their general addresses.

6. Additional Query Capability. The query menu now includes options for the claims register and the creditor mailing matrix. Party/person searches can now be done with first and middle names rather than just the last name.

7. New and Improved Reports. The claims register report now includes the date of entry and the date of last modification for each claim, and the type of person who filed the claim. Additionally, the report will display the most recent status under status, and earlier statuses from prior docket entries will be shown in the new history section. Also, a match is now made on a creditor name if the string entered is found anywhere in the name, not just at the beginning. Filers will now have access to the docket activity report, which allows users to search for docket activity in a specified date range and may be filtered only to cases to which they are linked. Another new report, which will be available free of charge, is the written opinions report. CM/ECF will list all opinions that match the selection criteria entered; displaying the case number, date filed, case title and hyperlink to the opinion. Opinions will be text searchable within a document.

8. Corrections Made to the Automatic Assignment of Judge/Trustee. Previously, the trustee calendar was created based on the current date of running the schedule, rather than the actual filing date of the case. This has been fixed in Version 3.0. This correction may significantly change the assignment of an attorney's cases: Previously, a group of cases with different filing dates could be assigned to one trustee, whereas now the group might be divided among several trustees.

9. Miscellaneous Items. The party-case index now includes the disposition of a terminated case. Also, with respect to Pacer billing, the 30-page cap for pdf documents has been extended to charges for queries and for the cases, claims activity and docket-activity reports. There is now no limit on charges made for transcripts, and opinions may be viewed without charge.

10. Public Access Enhancements. Finally, in Version 3.1, several useful login screen improvements will be available to help users differentiate between the Pacer and CM/ECF screens, including better instructions, different-colored screens and the ability to customize the client code function. Also, user preferences will be available to tailor whether or not the user wishes to view the transaction receipt after each billable transaction.

As these coming attractions reveal, there are many new and exciting improvements to the CM/ECF application on the way for our attorneys, trustees and creditors. To bring you these valuable enhancements, we rely heavily on your communications, suggestions and problem-reporting for improving the system. Please continue to do this by communicating with your local courts on ways to ensure the application will work even better. Through teamwork, we can produce and benefit from the most advanced case management/electronic case filing system in the world.