At its September 2011 session, the Judicial Conference approved changes to the miscellaneous fee schedules for the Courts of Appeals, District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, the Court of Federal Claims, and the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1913, 1914, 1930, 1926, and 1932, respectively. These changes will become effective November 1, 2011 and include case opening fees as well (Item No. 8) Please see the attached for details.

Misc Fee Schedule

Are you interested in learning how to access federal court records online, or want to sharpen the record-searching skills you already have? A training site for the federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service recently became available.

The site features data from real cases filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in 2007. There is no charge. Current and future users of PACER can benefit from the training site.

On May 19, 2011, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court signed General Order 11-006 entitled, "Amendment to Local Rule 7067-1 Registry Funds".  This order amends local rule 7067-1 to comply with the registry procedures outlined in General Order 11-005.

On May 19, 2011, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court signed General Order 11-005 entitled, "Amended Order Regarding Deposit and Investment of Registry Funds".  This order amends local procedures to reflect the transition of accountability and administration of the Court Registry Investment System (CRIS), from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Beginning on May 4, 2011, the Court is modifying its courtroom calendar procedure to begin at 9:50 AM with the Courtroom Deputy conducting a First Call at which time the parties should indicate whether their matter is now formal (settled) or will proceed to hearing before Judge Votolato. Once Judge Votolato takes the bench, those matters reported as formal will be called first and placed on the record, before the Court begins the call of the rest of the calendar. Agreed continuances do not constitute a formal matter and must proceed in the normal course of the calendar. Chapter 13 confirmation cases without objection will not be called formal, and will proceed in the normal course of the calendar.

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of RI is seeking volunteers to assist the Court in presenting our CARE program, which helps to raise awareness of the dangers of credit card abuse and it's lifelong consequences. Please read the attached flyer, contact our CARE coordinator and lend a hand (only 2 presentations per year)!! We would be delighted to have you!

On March 17, 2011 the US Bankruptcy Court signed General Order 11-004 Amending Local Rule 7067-1 entitled, "Registry Funds".  This order establishes the procedure for participation in the Court Registry Investment Program (CRIS), a management tool for handling court registry funds.
This order is effective immediately.

On March 16, 2011 the US Bankruptcy Court signed General Order 11-003: Amendments to Motions, Objections, Responses, and Memoranda of law.  This order requires the amended pleading clearly state in bold print that it is an amendment, and that the amended pleading include either a bolded supporting statement in the preface of the document, or a separate memorandum that explains how the amended pleading differs from the original and why the amendment is necessary. This order is effective March 21, 2011

Please take notice that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island has adopted amendments to its local rules and forms effective February 28, 2011

Notice of Adoption
Local Rules Amendments Redlined
Local Rules Amendments Clean Version

Notice to Fund Locators of requirement to electronically file petitions for payment of unclaimed funds The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island has amended Local Bankruptcy Rule 3011-1, to require that unclaimed fund petitioners who file five (5) or more petitions for unclaimed funds in a twelve month period, file such petitions and supporting documentation electronically in the Court's electronic filing system, or request an exemption pursuant to R.I. Local Rule 5005-4. Click here for more information.

PACER-Net AT&T Internet Data Center Activation are migrating the CM/ECF Centralized Authentication and Billing services to AT&T, so our expectation is that CM/ECF will be down from 8AM ET to 1PM ET with intermittent outages from 1PM ET until 5PM ET. During the 1PM ET to 5PM ET time frame, a user may not able to log onto CM/ECF, or their session may be terminated. If one of these situations occurs, we recommend that users wait 30 minutes before attempting to re-establish their session.

NOTICE OF AMENDMENTS TO FEDERAL RULES OF BANKRUPTCY PROCEDURE, ENACTMENT OF NEW RULE, AND AMENDMENTS TO OFFICIAL BANKRUPTCY FORMS, EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 1, 2010

Please take notice that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island has adopted amendments to its local rules effective December 1, 2010.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals is seeking applicants for a bankruptcy judge position for the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico headquartered in Ponce. To serve in this position, a person must be or must become a resident of Puerto Rico within 3 months of appointment. This requirement may be waived by the appointing authority upon a showing of good cause. Attorneys with broad or specialized litigation or commercial experience are encouraged to apply, whether or not such experience is in bankruptcy law. Click here for more information.

Notice of Proposed Local Rule Amendments effective December 1, 2010. (Notice of Proposed LBR, Redlined, Clean Copy) . The Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island invites public comment through November 22, 2010 on proposed local rule amendments.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit is seeking a full-time staff attorney. The incumbent will confer with judges, conduct legal research, and draft proposed decisions. Experience in the area of bankruptcy law a plus. Required: graduation from an accredited law school; admission to practice; at least three years experience (federal law clerk experience desirable). The starting salary range is CL 30/1, $84,556 to CL 30/25, $105,702. For a full description of the position and application requirements, visit the BAP website at: www.bap1.uscourts.gov Applications will be accepted through December 1, 2010.

THE FEDERAL COURTS ARE EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYERS.

CM/ECF will be unavailable on Friday 11/5/2010 from 5am - 8:30am due to server migration. As of 8:30am we will be running on new hardware, please contact us using the following email address if your encounter any issues filing or accessing CM/ECF. ribecfsupport@rib.uscourts.gov

Loss Mitigation training at the RI Law Center will take place on Tuesday, November 16 from 9am-4pm. Please click here for more details.

Effective October 1, 2010, The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Northeast Region-Boston, Federal Records Center, at 380 Trapelo Road, Waltham, MA will no longer provide on-site bankruptcy court case review services to the public. Public customers seeking to review bankruptcy court cases will need to contact the court directly to arrange to review the case file at the court. NARA will continue to provide copies of bankruptcy court case files directly to the customer using their current fax, mail and scan order services. Public customers seeking copies of bankruptcy court case files directly from NARA can contact the research room staff at 866-329-6465, Monday, Wednesday, or Friday (excluding Federal holidays), 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

ELECTRONIC FILERS PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: Effective Monday, September 20, 2010, the Clerk’s office will change its method of notifying external filers of certain types of case corrections. The current method of entering “corrective entry” on the case docket will be replaced with an automated process called “Edit/Notify”. Case participants will continue to receive an NEF (Notice of Electronic Filing), but the reason for the edit/correction will be noted in the description section of the NEF. A separate “corrective entry” event will no longer be entered on the docket in the majority of circumstances that require a case edit. Click here for more info.

Discounted Parking Rates
We are pleased to announce that effective September 1, 2010, The Federal Center, in negotiation with InTown Parking Inc., will offer visitors to the building discounted parking rates at InTown Parking, Inc’s operated lots. For more info click here.
The InTown Inc. parking lots are located at:

Lot 1: 357 Westminster Street (across from Federal Center between Snow and Aborn Streets).
Lot 2: 80 Snow Street at Grace Church
Lot 3: Chapel Street (Behind the Federal Center) at corner of Empire and Weybosset.

InTown Lot Location Map

Local Rule Amendments
Notice of Adoption of Amendments to Local Bankruptcy Rules, Forms and Appendix effective August 23, 2010 -click here (link removed).
Redline Local Rules and Forms August 2010
Clean Copy Local Rules and Forms August 2010

The Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island invites public comment through August 11, 2010 on Proposed Local Rules, Forms, and Appendix Amendments.

Additional Stakeholders Functional Requirements Group
The Administrative Office Support Team has developed and implemented two methods for soliciting suggestions and comments for the CM/ECF Next Generation Project from outside users. These include a "Suggestion Box" which provides an opportunity to submit discrete information for future electronic filing systems directly to the Support Team via electronic mail, as well as a survey. For more information click here

When a bankruptcy court mails notices to a creditor, the court is required to use the address a debtor provides on its creditor mailing list unless a creditor has provided the court with a different address. The court uses the Bankruptcy Noticing Center ("BNC") to mail notices, but the BNC can only do so if an address is valid. If an address is not valid, the United States Postal Service treats this as sending mail to an undeliverable address. Reasons for undeliverable mail may include:  incomplete address; moved to a foreign address; moved and left no forwarding address; post office box closed; and forwarding order expired.
 In some instances the USPS will forward mail when a creditor has given the USPS a forwarding address, but only for a limited time. It is up to the debtor or creditor to file a change of address with the court. (Click here to read more and  see our local court procedure for updating a creditor's address)

Hon. Arthur N. Votolato, U.S. BANKRUPTCY JUDGE, District of RI, is currently seeking applications for the position of Career Law Clerk. To view the complete job description, click here for more info. Please respond by email to: Leah_Waterman@rib.uscourts.gov, with attached letter of application, resume and writing sample (10 pages maximum), no later than 7/31/2010. Equal Opportunity Employer. FBI fingerprint background check required.

The Judicial Conference amended the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule for the appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation. The fee schedule was amended to waive fees of less than $10 in a quarterly billing cycle rather than in a year, and to establish a fee of $2.40 for access to digital audio files.The change from a yearly to a quarterly waiver is effective immediately. The digital audio fee change will become effective this summer. In the interim, the current charge of $0.08 per file will remain in place.In addition, The federal judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, which allows users to access more than 500 million court documents on-line, is improving its search functions. Please click here to view this short video describing search feature enhancements.

Chief Judge Sandra L. Lynch of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit announced today that on March 19, 2010, Judge Mildred Cabán was sworn in as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Puerto Rico. Judge Cabán will sit in Ponce, Puerto Rico and Judge Brian Tester will now sit permanently in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For more information click here.

The Judicial Conference of the United States today approved key steps to improve public access to federal courts by increasing the availability of court opinions and expanding the services and reducing the costs for many users of the Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) system. Click here for more information.

On April 1, 2010, automatic adjustments to the dollar amounts stated in various provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and one provision in Title 28 of the United States Code will become effective. The amended dollar amounts will apply to cases filed on or after April 1, 2010. For more Information click here.

The 2010 Edition of the Local Bankruptcy Rules and Forms for the US Bankruptcy Court District of Rhode Island is now available in paperback form. To order please click here, a fed ex account number is required for ordering this way.

Modified documents have been posted on the Loss Mitigation page to address issues that have been arising in court recently. Most notably, the Best Practices and Frequently Asked Questions have been amended to include (1) the procedure for seeking compliance with deadlines in a LM Order -- file a Motion to Compel; and (2) the procedure for notifying the court when additional time is needed for LM negotiations -- file a Written Status Report before scheduled hearing date (the matter will be removed from the calendar). In addition, a new Loss Mitigation category of events has been created in ECF under the Bankruptcy menu. All of the events related to LM are contained in this category. Recently we added an Objection to LM event and two additional events will soon be added (Motion to Compel Compliance with LM Order and Motion to Approve LM Agreement). The Attorney Instructions have been updated to cover these changes.

Please note that on 1/14/2010, The U.S. Bankruptcy Court issued General Order 10-001, amending the Loss Mitigation Program and Procedures, Form A and Form C, effective 1/15/2010.
Red-lined Amended Loss Mitigation Procedures
Amended Loss Mitigation Procedures (clean copy)
Form A
Form C

Please file the Cover Sheet and Reaffirmation Agreement as a single pdf using the Reaffirmation Agreement event located in the Bankruptcy Events- Other category in ECF.
In addition, the Reaffirmation Agreement (Official Form B240A) has been amended effective December 1, 2009. In order to allow filers sufficient time to implement the form change, the Court will allow a six-month transition period during which time either the old (1/07), or new (12/09), versions of the Reaffirmation Agreement may be filed.
Note: Effective April 1, 2010, the newly amended Reaffirmation Agreement form will become mandatory.

As you may be aware, the time-computation amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure go into effect on December 1, 2009. These amendments implement a consistent method of calculating time periods throughout the federal rules. Most of the amendments lengthen time periods by a few days. To learn more click here. View a powerpoint regarding the time-computation changes.To view rules being reduced by the time computation changes, including the filing of schedules and statements, click here.

Click here to view the Press Release announcing the selection of Melvin Hoffman as bankruptcy judge for the District of Massachusetts, at Worcester, succeeding Bankruptcy Judge Joel B. Rosenthal   

Effective November 1, the US Bankruptcy Court issued General Order 09-003 announcing a new Loss Mitigation Program. To view the press release, general order and program details, click here.

Chief Judge Sandra L. Lynch of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit announced that attorney Mildred Cabán has been selected to fill the vacancy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Click here for more information.

A notice has been added to the “CM/ECF Filer or PACER Login” screen, reminding electronic filers of their responsibility to eliminate all personal identifiers from a document before filing it in CM/ECF. The text of the message is as follows:
IMPORTANT NOTICE OF REDACTION RESPONSIBILITY: All filers must redact: Social Security or taxpayer-identification numbers; dates of birth; names of minor children; and financial account numbers, in compliance with Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9037. This requirement applies to all documents, including attachments. The rule title is a hyperlink to the text of the rule. Below the message, a checkbox appears to affirm that the notice has been read and understood. All outside filers must check this box to log in.

It has been brought to our attention that fraudulent phone calls are being made claiming to be on behalf of the US Bankruptcy Court. These calls are placed by an automated voice messaging system which is in no way affiliated with the court. If you receive one of these calls please record the number (if possible) and contact us at (401) 626-3100.

The average citizen knows a great deal about how members of the legislative and executive branches are selected (typically regularly-scheduled partisan elections), but often less about how judges are chosen. This panel of experts will discuss how judges are chosen across the country. For more information click here.

The telephonic status conference in Twin River scheduled for Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 2:00 PM, will be held in the Bankruptcy Courtroom rather than by telephone.

Please be advised that the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit has recently amended its local rules to include a provision permitting the conducting of oral argument for BAP appeals in the district from which the appeal originates. Click here for more info

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island is excited to announce the implementation of Court Talk. This resource will grant ECF users access to recorded proceedings posted on the docket. These recordings will be docketed as PDF files that will contain MP3 attachments, identified by a small speaker symbol on the docket. For privacy information Click Here. For Instructions on how to access recorded proceedings Click Here.

Please remember that these digital recordings are copies of court proceedings and are provided as a convenience to the public. In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 753 (b) "[n]o transcripts of the proceedings of the court shall be considered as official except those made from the records certified by the reporter or other individual designated to produce the record."

Notice of Proposed Local Rule and Form Amendments effective April 1, 2009. The Bankruptcy Court for the District of Rhode Island invites public comment through March 16, 2009 on proposed Local Rule and form amendments." Comments can be submitted to the Court electronically by clicking here (link removed).

If the forms you are submitting to CM/ECF have fill-able fields in them , after populating these fields you will need to reprint the document to PDF to remove the fill-able fields (not the text). Click Here for instructions

Cm/Ecf Version 3.3 Info

Effective March 9, 2009 - The Court will go 'live' on CMECF Version 3.3. Please review the following PDF documents regarding the upcoming changes to CM/ECF.

• What's New in 3.3 for Attorneys
• What's New in 3.3. for Pacer Users

Effective March 1, 2009 -- all pro se debtors will be required to show proof of identification in order to file bankruptcy, or the filer must have a power of attorney authorizing them to file on behalf of another person. Please read the following documents for more information.

• General Order 09 001
• Notice to Debtors Filing a Bankruptcy Petition Without an Attorney (Pro Se Debtors)

The Office of the United States Trustee is seeking resumes from persons wishing to be considered for appointment to the panel of trustees who administer cases filed under chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. Click Here for more information.