Judicial Conference of the United States

The Judicial Conference of the United States, formerly known as the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, was created by the United States Congress in 1922 with the principal objective of framing policy guidelines for administration of judicial courts in the United States. The Conference derives its authority from 28 U.S.C. § 331, which states that it is headed by the chief justice of the United States and consists of the chief justice, the chief judge of each court of appeals federal regional circuit, a district court judge from various federal judicial districts, and the chief judge of the United States Court of International Trade.^[1]

History

Responding to a backlog of cases in the federal courts, in 1922 Congress enacted a new form of court administration that advanced the institutionalization of an independent judiciary.^[2] The establishment of an annual Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, later to be known as the Judicial Conference of the United States, culminated more than a decade of public debate on the reform of judicial administration. The Conference of Senior Circuit Judges provided the first formal mechanism by which members of the federal judiciary might develop national administrative policies, reassign judges temporarily, and recommend legislation.

Chief Justice William Howard Taft, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1921, had led a public campaign for federal judicial reform since leaving the White House in 1913. Taft proposed the appointment of at-large judges, what he called a "flying squadron", that could be assigned temporarily to congested courts. In Taft's plan, a conference of judges would serve primarily to assess the caseload of the lower courts and assign the at-large judges to courts in need. Taft, supported by a group of federal judges and legal scholars, hoped that the establishment of a more efficient federal judiciary would deflect the efforts of Senator George W. Norris and others who advocated an end to life tenure on the federal bench and the restriction of the lower federal courts' jurisdiction.

By the time Taft became Chief Justice, the increased caseload resulting from World War I and the enforcement of Prohibition had contributed to broad support for reform of the federal judiciary. Assuming a role as leader of the judiciary as well as the Supreme Court, Taft joined with Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge legislation. A large majority in Congress agreed with the need for reform, but both the Senate and the House of Representatives insisted on revising Taft's proposals so that they conformed more closely to the traditions of the federal judiciary.

Congress established an annual conference of the chief justice of the United States (or the senior associate justice if the chief is unable), and the senior circuit judge (now called the chief judge) from each judicial circuit and charged the conference with a general mandate to advise on the administrative needs of the federal courts. The act required the senior judge in each district to prepare an annual report of the business of the district's court. The conference would use these reports to prepare suggestions for the temporary transfer of judges, pending the approval of all courts involved. This expansion of the authority to transfer judges fell far short of Taft's concept of a permanent corps of at-large judges. Congress established 24 temporary judgeships, but adhered to the principle of fixed residency for district judges. Congress also declined to make the attorney general a member of the conference, although the act permitted the chief justice to request the attorney general to report on the business of the courts. Even without a formal relationship with Congress or the Department of Justice (which then administered the federal courts), the conference offered the judiciary a means of communicating its administrative needs.

The conference was renamed the Judicial Conference of the United States in 1948.^[2] In 1956, Congress provided for the inclusion of the chief judge of the Court of Claims.^[3] At that time, the judges of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) declined to include a representative on the conference. The size of the conference nearly doubled following an act of 1957 that provided for the appellate and district judges in each circuit to elect a district judge to represent the circuit on the conference for a term of three years. In 1961 the chief judge of the CCPA began serving on the conference.^[3] The chief judges of these Court of Claims and the CCPA served on the conference until 1982 when their courts merged to become the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.^[3] In 1990, Congress provided for the inclusion of the chief judge of the United States Court of International Trade.^[3] In 1996, Congress expanded the district judge term up to five years and allowed senior district judges to serve.^[3]

Committee activities

The Judicial Conference last revised its Advisory Committee structure in 1987, then naming a total of 20 Standing Advisory Committees, seven of which were then newly organized, and several of which absorbed other, previous Committees:^[4]

Committee on Administration of the Bankruptcy System, 1968–present
Committee on Administration of the Magistrate Judges System, 1991–present
Committee on Audits and Administrative Office Accountability, 2009–present
Committee on the Budget, 1959–present
Committee on Codes of Conduct, 1987–present
Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, 1990–present
Committee on Criminal Law, 1992–present
Committee on Defender Services, 1987–present
Executive Committee, 1968–present
Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction, 1987–present
Committee on Financial Disclosure, 1992–present
Committee on Information Technology, 2002–present
Committee on Intercircuit Assignments, 1968–present
Committee on International Judicial Relations, 1993–present
Committee on the Judicial Branch, 1980–present
Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability, 2007–present
Committee on Judicial Resources, 1987–present
Committee on Judicial Security, 2006–present
Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 1958–present
Committee on Space and Facilities, 2006–present

Each Advisory Committee is charged, respectively, with drafting proposed amendments for submission to the:

Members of the Advisory Committees include judges, representatives from the Department of Justice, law professors, and practicing attorneys. The Advisory Committees propose rules, subject them to public comment, and then submit them to the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, which in turn submits them to the Judicial Conference, which recommends them to the Supreme Court for approval. Explanatory notes of the drafting Advisory Committee are published along with the final adopted rules, and are frequently used as an authority on the interpretation of the rules.

Other active policy areas concern the operation of CM/ECF, the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system, and PACER, the electronic public access service for United States federal court documents.

On occasion, the Conference has authorized investigations of federal judges accused of criminal malfeasance. Those deemed guilty have been referred to the House Judiciary Committee for impeachment. This has happened three times during the 21st century.

Administrative Office of the United States Courts

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) is the administrative agency of the United States federal court system. The AO is the central support entity for the federal judicial branch. It provides a wide range of administrative, legal, financial, management, program, and information technology services to the federal courts. It was established in 1939.

The AO is directly supervised by the Judicial Conference, and implements and executes Judicial Conference policies, as well as applicable federal statutes and regulations. The AO facilitates communications within the judiciary and with Congress, the executive branch, and the public on behalf of the judiciary.

Judicial councils

Judicial councils are panels of each federal judicial circuit that are charged with making "necessary and appropriate orders for the effective and expeditious administration of justice" within their circuits.^[5]^[6] Among their responsibilities is judicial discipline, the formulation of circuit policy, the implementation of policy directives received from the Judicial Conference, and the annual submission of a report to the Administrative Office on the number and nature of orders entered during the year that relate to judicial misconduct.^[7]^[6] Each judicial circuit consists of the chief judge of the circuit and an equal number of circuit judges and district judges of the circuit.^[8]

Lists of members

Current members

Membership as of October 2024^[9] ^† denotes presiding officer
Name	Title	Court
John Roberts ^†	Chief Justice	Supreme Court
David J. Barron	Chief Judge	First Circuit
William E. Smith	Judge	District of Rhode Island
Debra Ann Livingston	Chief Judge	Second Circuit
Margo Kitsy Brodie	Chief Judge	Eastern District of New York
Michael Chagares	Chief Judge	Third Circuit
Mitchell S. Goldberg	Chief Judge	Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Albert Diaz	Chief Judge	Fourth Circuit
John P. Bailey	Judge	Northern District of West Virginia
Jennifer Walker Elrod	Chief Judge	Fifth Circuit
Debra M. Brown	Chief Judge	Northern District of Mississippi
Jeffrey Sutton	Chief Judge	Sixth Circuit
S. Thomas Anderson	Judge	Western District of Tennessee
Diane S. Sykes	Chief Judge	Seventh Circuit
Virginia Mary Kendall	Chief Judge	Northern District of Illinois
Steven Colloton	Chief Judge	Eighth Circuit
Roberto Lange	Chief Judge	District of South Dakota
Mary H. Murguia	Chief Judge	Ninth Circuit
Leslie E. Kobayashi	Senior Judge	District of Hawaii
Jerome Holmes	Chief Judge	Tenth Circuit
William P. Johnson	Chief Judge	District of New Mexico
William H. Pryor Jr.	Chief Judge	Eleventh Circuit
Lisa Godbey Wood	Judge	Southern District of Georgia
Sri Srinivasan	Chief Judge	District of Columbia Circuit
James Boasberg	Chief Judge	District of Columbia
Kimberly A. Moore	Chief Judge	Federal Circuit
Mark A. Barnett	Chief Judge	Court of International Trade
Ex officio members: Robert J. Conrad, Conference Secretary, Director Administrative Office of the United States Courts Judge Timothy Adam Baker, Magistrate Judge Observer Chief Judge Alan S. Trust, Bankruptcy Judge Observer

All members

The following list of Judicial Conference service is organized by the circuits and courts represented. It was compiled largely from the Reports of the Proceedings of the Judicial Conference and is complete through the most recent meeting of the conference. The list contains the names of those judges who were members of the conference, but not those who may occasionally have attended in their absence. District Judges are identified by the district in which they served.^[10]

Supreme Court of the United States

William Howard Taft, 1922–1929

Charles Evans Hughes, 1929–1941

Harlan Fiske Stone, 1941–1945

Frederick Moore Vinson, 1946–1953

Hugo Lafayette Black, 1953

Earl Warren, 1954–1969

Warren E. Burger, 1969–1986

William Rehnquist, 1987–2005

John Paul Stevens, 2005

John Roberts, 2006–present