In September 2006 the Judicial Conference adopted a policy that provides for disclosure of certain relevant information by educational program providers and judges who attend those programs. The Conference’s overarching objective in adopting this policy was greater transparency.
The disclosure by program providers will better enable judges to determine whether they should attend a program. The disclosure also will enable a party, an attorney or the public to determine whether a judge has recently attended an educational seminar covered by this policy.
In implementing the reporting system, it was determined that litigants and their attorneys would best be served if they could access information about a judge’s seminar attendance and the relevant information provided by the seminar provider at their local court web site. But linking that information meant the information submitted by a seminar provider would not become publicly available until a judge reports having attended the seminar. In retrospect, this approach does not appear to be consistent with the Conference’s policy.
Accordingly, the reporting system will be amended so that the information provided by seminar providers is posted on the federal courts’ web site (www.uscourts.gov) promptly after it is received. It is important to note that this information, however, may in some instances be amended (i.e. speakers added or dropped) by providers. Litigants should be advised of that possibility.
Implementation of any new reporting system requires the imposition of an effective date. In this instance, the decision was made to apply the system to seminar invitations that were issued after January 1, 2007. Given the complexity of setting up such a reporting system, there was no practical way to make seminar information available to judges, litigants, and their nationwide any earlier. This issue soon will be moot.
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