Officers

President
Daniel L. Kaplan
(602) 382-2767

President-Elect
Paul E. Burns

Treasurer
Karin Scherner

Secretary
Alison Bachus

Immediate Past President
Nina J. Rivera
 
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Calendar of Events

Chapter Luncheon Series are held the third Thursday of every month. DATES AND TOPICS

October 18, 2007
2007 FBA Phoenix Chapter Luncheon Series
The year's second luncheon presentation will feature Bankruptcy Judge Randolph J. Haines and Snell & Wilmer lawyer Donald Gaffney, who willdiscuss hot topics in bankruptcy law and practice.
Location: Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse, Jury Assembly Room, 401 W. Washington Street Phoenix, Arizona 85003, (602) 322-7200
Time: 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Cost: $15.00
For more information, please contact Dan Kaplan at (602) 382-2766.

November 15, 2007
2007-2008 FBA Phoenix Chapter Luncheon Series
The year's third luncheon presentation will feature Phoenix attorney and former United States Attorney Paul Charlton, who will discuss "The Role of the Prosecutor."
Location: Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse, Jury Assembly Room, 401 W. Washington Street Phoenix, Arizona 85003, (602) 322-7200
Time: 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Cost: $15.00
For more information, please contact Dan Kaplan at (602) 382-2766.

Recent Events

District of Arizona Chief Judge John M. Roll (left) and FBA Phoenix Chapter President Daniel L. Kaplan (right), just after Chief Judge Roll's annual "State of the District" luncheon presentation on January 17, 2008 at the Sandra Day O'Connor United States Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona.

David G. Campbell Settles in at Federal District Court — David G. Campbell was welcomed as the newest U.S. district court judge for the District of Arizona in a Sept. 26 ceremony held at the Sandra Day O'Connor Courthouse.MORE

News of the Court
U.S. District Court Calendars on the Internet MORE

Bankruptcy Court News MORE

Recent Events

David G. Campbell Settles in at Federal District Court

David G. Campbell was welcomed as the newest U.S. district court judge for the District of Arizona in a Sept. 26 ceremony held at the Sandra Day O'Connor Courthouse.

After graduating in 1979 from the University of Utah College of Law, Judge Campbell clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist. He then spent 23 years as a litigator at Osborn Maledon P.A. and its predecessor, Meyer, Hendricks, Victor, Osborn & Maledon. Judge CampbellÕs practice included a broad range of civil matters, including environmental contamination, Savings and Loan failures, business fraud, and professional liability. Judge Campbell also served on a number of bar committees, including most recently the Task Force on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice and the Commission on Judicial Performance Review.

Interviewed recently in his chambers at the O'Connor Courthouse, Judge Campbell identified the Savings and Loan cases, as well as more recent state-court litigation in which he represented Arizona's Tourism and Sports Authority, as perhaps the most interesting cases on which he had worked. He explained that he had enjoyed his years as a litigator, but had decided to pursue a judgeship because he "wanted to do something in the form of public service." Judge Campbell now has a docket of about 320 cases. About one-third of these are criminal, and a large proportion of them deal with immigration and employment issues. Among the more interesting matters he has dealt with so far was a case involving the Geneva Convention on International Child Abduction, in which a Mexican woman sought to regain custody of her child.

Although he has had to learn quickly as the court's newest member, Judge Campbell has been consistently impressed with the support he has received from all of his colleagues and from the court staff. "The staff here is amazing," he said, adding that they "really work hard to make my job easier." He has also appreciated how the other judges on the court had "bent over backwards to make [him] feel welcome." And with his new perspective from the other side of the bench, Judge Campbell also has a new understanding of how helpful good advocacy is to a judge. As a judge, he said, "you really appreciate the lawyers who can hit bullseye," and can "zero in on where the real dispute lies."

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News of the Court

U.S. District Court Calendars on the Internet
By Ronnie Honey, Chief Deputy Clerk of Court

WebCal is the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona's new Web calendar system that provides civil and criminal case calendar information for any nonsealed hearing, conference, or trial. This system is currently in a beta test mode, with Chief Judge McNamee and Judge Rosenblatt participating in Phoenix, and Judge Bury participating in Tucson. The beta test phase has been very successful, and we will soon begin to incrementally bring the rest of the district judges' calendars online with a goal of having them all available by Spring of this year. WebCal for the magistrate judges presents some unique challenges due to the unexpected and rapidly changing nature of their calendars and will be addressed in a Phase II development effort later this year.

Court staff strive to assure that the calendar information appearing on the Web is accurate and as current as possible. Updates to the calendars are entered by the courtroom deputy clerks and are propagated to the Internet every 30 minutes. Calendar information for the current week is always available, and information for the following week is posted by noon on the Friday of the current week.

WebCal offers court calendar information in a variety of views such as date/time, judge, case name or divisional office. Detailed information about the hearing is available by double clicking on a specific calendar event. The search capability is very flexible, allowing users to query by any word that is contained in the text of the calendar, such as case number, party name, attorney name, judge name, or type of hearing. The information is presented in a simple, straightforward way and can be easily printed.

While the current fax/mail/phone procedures for attorney notification of hearings and calendar changes will continue, WebCal is a great way to quickly confirm that a hearing is on the court's calendar. It is also a good way to check a particular judge's calendar, or to query other scheduled matters of interest. To access WebCal, visit our Web site at www.azd.uscourts.gov and click on the "Court Calendars" link. "Today's Calendar" is the first display of calendar information that will appear.

WebCal is easy to use and very flexible. But why take our word for it? See for yourself at www.azd.uscourts.gov. And while you're there, please submit any comments or suggestions you may have about the product by clicking on the "Your Comments" link.

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News from the Bankruptcy Court — District of Arizona
By Michael R. Temple, Chief Deputy Clerk

Those members of the FBA who practice in the bankruptcy court have seen some major changes in the past year. We have moved from paper filings to the electronic filing of documents using the CM/ECF system. The filing of documents electronically became mandatory in the district on June 20. While attorneys are not able to file a bankruptcy petition online at this time, we hope to have that feature available by the first of the year along with the capability of paying petition filing fees and other filing fees on-line with a credit card as part of the filing process.

A new feature to CM/ECF that is available now is the ability to submit proposed orders electronically using CM/ECF. The order can then be electronically signed by the judge and then docketed and filed without the need to print any paper at all. Below is the recent announcement concerning this new feature.

Another new matter effective Dec. 1 are the revisions to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure that concern the use of social security numbers. The amendments allow the court to collect a debtor's full Social Security number (SSN), but display only the last four digits. Official Form 1 (petition) has been revised to contain only the last four digits of an individual debtor's SSN (Business Tax ID numbers are not affected and will continue to be fully displayed). An individual debtor will be required to submit a verified statement containing the debtor's full nine digit SSN. This statement will neither be filed in the case nor become part of the case file available to the public either at the court or over the Internet. This statement will be maintained be the clerk's office separately from the case file.

The debtor's full SSN will be included in the 341 Meeting of Creditors notice mailed to creditors, but the copy filed in the case file will show only the last four digits of the SSN. Subsequent notices in the case will contain only the last four digits.

Other personal identifiers such as dates of birth, financial account numbers and names and SSN's of minor children should also not be included in documents filed with the bankruptcy court. It is the filing party who is responsible for redacting this information before the document is filed. The clerk's office is not required to remove the information if it is included by the filer.

Also, after Dec.1, in all cases, creditors should not include the full SSN of the debtor or any other individual in a proof of claim or any other document filed with the bankruptcy court. This requirement of the judiciary's privacy policy applies to cases filed prior to Dec. 1. Filing parties must ensure they are in compliance with this policy.

Announcement Regarding Submission of Orders Electronically Using the ECF System

A new feature is now available in the ECF system. This feature is the ability to upload, in pdf format, proposed orders directly into ECF. Orders uploaded into ECF can then be electronically routed to and signed by the judge, without the need to print any paper. This new feature is called E-Orders and it is now available to all attorney and trustee ECF filers who may start using it immediately. The attached instructions provide step-by-step guidance on how to upload orders into ECF.

Uploading proposed orders into the ECF system is intended to replace the current process by which proposed orders are e-mailed to the court using the special ecforders e-mail addresses. These e-mail addresses will continue to be available only until the end of October 2003, (to allow users sufficient time to transition to the new ECF Order Upload) at which time the e-mail addresses will be disabled. Please submit an order through either the ECF Order Upload or the e-mail address, but do not use both to submit the same order. After Oct. 31 to submit a proposed order electronically, you will be required to use the Order Upload option in ECF. Submission of proposed orders on paper in lieu of electronic submission remains an acceptable alternative. Please do not submit the same order both electronically and on paper. The special ecfhearing e-mail addresses for each chambers will not be affected and you can continue to use those e-mail addresses to obtain hearing dates and times.

While the national application of CM/ECF is certified to work with Netscape 4.6x, Netscape 4.7x and Internet Explorer 5.5., the Order Upload feature is only fully functional using Internet Explorer 5.5 (one of the upload options does not work properly in Netscape and this has been reported to the court that locally developed this module).

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