The Court has entered Standing Order 22-6: Order Exempting Trustees and their Employee Filing Agents from Electronic Public Access Miscellaneous Fee Schedule Item 1; Procedures for Granting Exemptions from the Item 1 Fee. The Order’s entry addresses two needs: First, the existing standing order generally required updating. Second, the Order addresses what are categorized as “filing agents”, in Bankruptcy NextGen CM/ECF, given the Court’s impending implementation of that system, and the mandatory use of that system’s Central Sign-on Module—linking external users’ upgraded PACER accounts with their CM/ECF accounts forming one combined account. In part, the entered standing order is designed to facilitate specific needs for trustees who may have filing agent-type employees who directly perform trustee-related work that would make them eligible for PACER fee exemption consideration. Per Item 9 of the Electronic Public Access (EPA) Miscellaneous Fee Schedule, a court may exempt trustees from the Item 1 fee set forth in that Schedule. The rescinded standing order did so. In addition, the Court’s CM/ECF Policy Statement, at Policy 2D(2) states: “(2) Proper Use of Password: Any password issued for the ECF System shall be used exclusively by the User to whom the password is assigned and any employee to whom the proper authorization is given. A User will not knowingly permit a password to be used by anyone not so authorized. Using a login and password constitute the official signature of the User on all documents filed.” This also could include employees of attorneys and the U.S. trustee’s office who are authorized to act as filing agents, although they would not be eligible for EPA Miscellaneous Fee Schedule exemption consideration. The standing order further addresses the consideration of requests that the Court receives periodically from parties seeking an exemption from Item 1 of the Schedule, as did the rescinded standing order. The attached public notice and the order itself provide additional information. The public notice includes two Bankruptcy NextGen CM/ECF System-related announcements—the first addressing the set-up of a Filing Agent account, and the second provides additional information for trustees. These documents have been combined into a single PDF document, which is attached.
REMINDER: The Court’s Bankruptcy NextGen CM/ECF Web Page includes very important new mandatory upgraded PACER account-CM/ECF combined account login procedures.