News and Announcements

Fees for filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case will increase for cases filed on or after November 21, 2012. The fee increase was included in the Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeships Extension Act of 2012 (Pub. L. No. 112-121) which was signed into law by the President on May 25, 2012.

Judge Frank Whitney joined the United States Army Reserve right out of college. When he was appointed a federal judge for the Western District of North Carolina, he continued to serve his country in the military. Last year the two jobs merged.

Federal and state applications for orders authorizing or approving wiretaps dropped 14 percent in 2011, with 85 percent of all applications citing illegal drugs as the offense under investigation.

The Supreme Court has handed down the last of its decisions for the 2011 Term. A Term of the Supreme Court begins, by statute, on the first Monday in October and Court sessions continue until late June or early July. Learn more about how the court operates.d down the last of its decisions for the 2011 Term. Learn more about how the court operates.

Some 30 years after the federal district courts started experimenting with alternative dispute resolution, more than one third of all federal trial courts regularly offer multiple forms of ADR, according to an informal survey by the Federal Judicial Center.

Senior District Judge Robert J. Kelleher, at 99, the oldest-serving federal judge in the nation, died on June 20, 2012.

The William O. Douglas U.S Courthouse and Federal Building in Yakima, Washington celebrates its 100th birthday on June 21, 2012. The courthouse is home to district, magistrate and bankruptcy judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington.

U.S. bankruptcy courts increasingly are concerned with abuses committed by some non-lawyers in the business of helping prepare bankruptcy filing documents for a fee.

In early March 1891, Congress passed what has become known as the Evarts Act, which established the U.S. Courts of Appeals to ease the burden on the Supreme Court. The legislation took effect June 16, 1891.

The House Judiciary Committee has released its official prints of the federal rules package transmitted to Congress by the Supreme Court—House Documents 112-103 and 112-104. The amendments are under review in both the House and the Senate.