Going Electronic At The COFC

Whether you are a full-fledged webmaster or wedded to doing things manually, if you practice before the United States Court of Federal Claims (COFC) prepare yourself to litigate millennium-style. The reason: Federal Courts including the COFC will be adding even greater electronic capabilities in the next few years. Courtroom renovations will enable the Court and the Bar to engage in electronic communications and presentations -- videoconferencing, video evidence presentations, electronic court reporting and more. In addition, the Court may be transitioning to some or all modules of a new electronic case management/case filing system (CM/ECF), courtesy of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO), sometime between now and the year 2005. Exactly when all this will occur at the COFC, how it will be done and what it will mean for COFC litigants can’t be answered completely by this article; decisions still need to be made. However, to see where the Court is right now and what you can do to help the Court plan for the future, read on.