Hey Readers

On March 1, 2001, our Court went "LIVE" on the CM Portion of the CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Filing) system. For the first two months, our staff scanned and filed all of your documents electronically for you. Beginning May 1, 2001, we began training our external users (attorneys and trustees) and after less than one year on the CM/ECF system, we had approximately 61% of all new cases (across the district) filed electronically, by you! Currently, we have 173 registered users! We want to thank all of you who are moving forward with us, a special thanks to those pioneers who worked diligently to complete the training early on. We've received a lot of positive feedback regarding the numerous benefits to electronic case filing from the user's standpoint. We're very glad to hear that a system driven by the idea of user convenience is paying off.

CM/ECF is being implemented in all bankruptcy courts across the nation. The Bankruptcy Courts for the Southern District of Texas and the Eastern District of Texas went "LIVE" in March of 2002 with the Northern District soon to follow. There is no denying that electronic document management is no longer a concept, but a present day reality. This is the new method for conducting business in our court. The last year has been very exciting to say the least.

There are many things to talk about regarding ongoing system enhancements, tips and suggestions, special features and general announcements that you as users, need to know about. We've created this special newsletter to keep you posted on what is going on with us and the system and we plan to distribute several issues a year. Welcome to our first issue! We hope this newsletter will be of help to you and your staff! Thanks for reading!

Contents:

CM/ECF Updates: Find out the latest enhancements to the CM/ECF Application.
User Tips: Feedback about how to avoid some common problems.
Your Feedback: CM/ECF user comments.
E-mail Notification: An in-depth discussion about the e-mail notification feature of CM/ECF.
Training Information : What's available and how to get it.
Contact Us: Send a letter to the editor.