Note: Links in archived news items may no longer be valid.

December 22, 2005 - Pro Hac Vice Admission Policy
Administrative Order 2005-08 was signed approving a pro hac vice admission policy.

December 20, 2005 - Web Server Maintenance
The web server hosting our Internet website at http://www.miwb.uscourts.gov will be going offline for maintenance first thing tomorrow morning for scheduled maintenance which should be complete by 9:30AM or shortly thereafter.  While this will prevent access to the court's Internet website, the case filing system (ECF) located at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov will be unaffected and will continue to be available during this period.  Please update your bookmarks if you haven't done so already.

December 15, 2005 - Memorandum Re: Compensation for Court-Appointed Officials
A memorandum has been entered regarding allowance of compensation and reimbursement of expenses for court-appointed professionals and is effective January 1, 2006.

November 29, 2005 - Administrative Order Re: Payment Advices
On November 28, 2005, Administrative Order 2005-07 was signed adopting procedures for the filing of payment advices pursuant to 11 U.S.C. §521(a)(1)(B)(iv). 

November 23, 2005 - 2006 Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference
You are cordially invited to attend the 2006 Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference. The Conference will be held May 17-20, 2006 at the Marriott Detroit Renaissance Center and is open to all attorneys admitted to federal practice in the Sixth Circuit. All attorneys who attend will receive credit toward life membership in the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference.  See the announcement for more information.

November 22, 2005 - Administrative Order 2005-06
On November 21, 2005, Administrative Order 2005-06 was signed adopting procedures for Payment and Cure of Pre-Petition Judgment of Possession Involving Residential Property and for Receiving Rent Deposits. 

November 14, 2005 - CM/ECF System Maintenance
The Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system will be undergoing system maintenance starting at 5:00 p.m. on November 18, 2005 through Sunday, November 20, 2005.  During this time CM/ECF will be available, however, the response time will be very slow due to the maintenance being performed.

November 1, 2005 - CM/ECF System Maintenance
The Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system will be undergoing system maintenance starting at 5:00 p.m. on November 11, 2005 until Monday morning, November 14, 2005.  During this time CM/ECF will be available, however, the response time will be very slow due to the maintenance being performed. 

October 27, 2005 - Unclaimed Funds System Maintenance
Please be advised that our Unclaimed Funds database is now back online.  Please contact us if you notice any problems.  We appreciate your patients during the recent downtime.

October 25, 2005 - Adoption of Interim Bankruptcy Rules
On October 19, 2005, Administrative Order 2005-4(Amended) was signed adopting the Interim Bankruptcy Rules.  The rules conform with the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA). 

October 19, 2005 - Unclaimed Funds System Maintenance
Please be advised that our Unclaimed Funds data will be temporarily unavailable while some maintenance is performed on the system.  We will have this back online again as soon as possible, so check back again soon.

October 12, 2005 - Administrative Order 2005-05
Due to upgrading the court's Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system for the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, the CM/ECF system will be unavailable starting 12:00 a.m. on October 17, 2005 until the upgrade is completed.  Administrative Order 2005-05 was signed October 12, 2005 allowing for the extension of time for pleading or documents due October 17, 2005.

October 6, 2005 - Server Maintenance
Please be advised that the network connecting our Internet services to the public will down for an upgrade starting at midnight (12AM) until 5AM on October 7th, 2005.  The court's Internet website located at http://www.miwb.uscourts.gov and our CM/ECF server located at http:\\ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov will be unavailable during this time.

October 5, 2005 - Bankruptcy Appellate Panel
Administrative Order 05-098 was signed September 8, 2005 approving participation in the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Sixth Circuit ("BAP").  Effective October 1, 2005, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Sixth Circuit is authorized to hear and determine appeals from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court - WDMI.  For more information regarding BAP, please visit the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit's web site.

October 4, 2005 - Adoption of Interim Bankruptcy Rules
On September 28, 2005, Administrative Order 2005-4 was signed adopting the Interim Bankruptcy Rules.  The rules conform with the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA).  The court has provided information regarding some of the changes to the Bankruptcy Code, bankruptcy rules and forms (BAPCPA).

August 16, 2005 - Increase in Fee for Adversary Proceedings
The Judicial Conference, upon recommendation from the Committee on Court Administration and Case Management (CACM), approved an increase in the fee for filing a civil action under 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) from $150 to $250.  Effective Tuesday, September 20, 2005, the fee for filing a complaint commencing an adversary proceeding will be increased to $250.00 (until that date, the fee remains at $150.00).  Other fee changes will be effective October 17, 2005 and can be viewed on the fee schedule.

August 4, 2005 - Administrative Order 2005-3
The Grand Rapids Bankruptcy Court will be relocating to its new home of One Division on Thursday, September 29, 2005.  During this time the court's web site and Case Management/Electronic Filing (CM/ECF) system will be temporarily unavailable. Administrative Order 2005-3 was signed August 3, 2005 permitting walk-in paper filings by anyone during the move as well as an extension of time for pleadings or documents that need to be filed on Thursday, September 29, 2005 or Friday, September 30, 2005.  Please review Administrative Order 2005-3 for details.

July 26, 2005 - Urgent Information on Pay.gov
Effective August 28, 2005 - all CM/ECF users making fee payments by Internet credit card through Pay.gov must use Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher as their browser. This is the only browser supported by the most recent version, 3.2, of the Treasury’s Pay.gov system, which is scheduled to be deployed on August 28, 2005.  Netscape will continue to work with CM/ECF so long as interaction with Pay.gov for fee payments is not necessary.

July 1, 2005 - Server Maintenance
Please be advised that the webserver hosting our Internet website at http://www.miwb.uscourts.gov will be going offline for maintenance for a few hours potentially over both Saturday and Sunday this weekend.  This maintenance will not affect access to our ECF (Electronic Case Filing) system at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov.  Please update your bookmarks.

June 02, 2005 - 17th Annual FBA Bankruptcy Section Seminar
The 17th Annual FBA Bankruptcy Seminar will be held July 28th thru 30th at Boyne Highlands in Boyne Falls, Michigan.  The registration forms are available here, and you can contact Lori L. Purkey at (269) 383-5847 or Mary K. Viegelahn Hamlin at (269) 343-0305 for more information.

May 23, 2005 - Insolvency Centralization (IRS)
The Internal Revenue Service is continuing to move forward with the decision to redesign the organizational structure of the Insolvency operation.  Effective May 23, 2005 the Philadelphia campus began processing work for the state of Michigan.  We request that you change the official mailing matrix to the following address for all correspondence directed to the IRS for MI - We also have a list of other government agency addresses.

Internal Revenue Service
P.O. Box 21126
Philadelphia, PA  19114

May 20, 2005 - Debtor's Declaration Re: Electronic Filing Form
The Declaration Re: Electronic Filing form has been revised to reflect the debtor(s) social security number.  The declaration is replacing both the Debtor Statement of Social Security Number and the Prefiling Notice for electronically filed bankruptcy cases.  You can find a copy of the updated form in the Local Forms section of our website.

May 12, 2005 - Proposed Style Revisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
The Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure has completed its style revisions of the Civil Rules in accordance with uniform drafting guidelines and invites comments from the bench, bar and general public. The comment deadline is December 15, 2005. You may access the proposed amendments at the following link: http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/newrules1.html

April 29, 2005 - Guidelines for Attorney Fees & Court Appointed Professionals
Parties in interest have continued to lodge objections to applications for the allowance of compensation and reimbursement of expenses. In an attempt to reduce the number of these objections, the judges of this court have determined that it is in the interests of all debtors, creditors, their respective attorneys, and other parties in interest, including the United States Trustee, that the following general guidelines respecting the context of fee applications be established and published.

April 25, 2005 - Unclaimed Funds Database
Due to an issue with query access to the unclaimed funds database, we've taken the system offline for maintenance and troubleshooting.  We hope to have it back up and running this week and apologize for any inconvenience.

April 19, 2005 - Server Maintenance
Please be advised that the webserver hosting our Internet website at http://www.miwb.uscourts.gov will be going offline for maintenance at 5PM this afternoon for about 1 hour.  This maintenance will not affect access to our ECF (Electronic Case Filing) system at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov.  Please update your bookmarks.

April 7, 2005 - ECF System Maintenance
Please be advised that the ECF system will be unavailable on Friday, April 8 from 7:00AM to 7:30AM while we perform maintenance on the servers.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

February 18, 2005 - Implementation of the ECF Lockout Program
As a result of ever increasing unpaid filing fees, commencing March 7, 2005 the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan will implement a new procedure regarding nonpayment of filing/motion fees.  To ensure compliance with our policy, registered e-filers who have not paid the required fees within seven (7) calendar days from the date they were incurred will be automatically placed in “Lock Out” status.  Please review the notice for more information.

February 9, 2005 - ECF System Maintenance
Please be advised that the ECF system will be unavailable on Monday, February 14 from 5:00PM to 7:00PM while we perform maintenance on the servers.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

January 28, 2005 - Administrative Orders
The court has posted a few new Administrative Orders regarding electronic filing.

• 2005-01
  RE: Debtors who file a subsequent bankruptcy case
• 2005-02
  RE: Clerk's Authority to Address Motion for Leave to file Conventionally

December 28, 2004 - Guidelines for Attorney Fees & Court Appointed Professionals
Parties in interest have continued to lodge objections to applications for the allowance of compensation and reimbursement of expenses. In an attempt to reduce the number of these objections, the judges of this court have determined that it is in the interests of all debtors, creditors, their respective attorneys, and other parties in interest, including the United States Trustee, that the following general guidelines respecting the context of fee applications be established and published.

December 28, 2004 - ECF (PACER) Downtime
Please be advides that our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline between 5PM and 6PM on Wednesday, December 29 due to a system upgrade.

December 23, 2004 - Filing Fees for Lift Stay Motions and Adversary Proceedings
At its September 2004 session, the Judicial Conference approved an increase in the fee for filing a civil action under 28 U.S.C. 1914 (a) from $150. to $250.  Two fees contained in the bankruptcy miscellaneous fee schedule (28 U.S.C. 1930) are linked to this civil filing fee.

• One, the fee for filing a motion to lift the automatic stay (Item 20) was amended by the Conference by deleting the language linking the fee to the amount required for filing a civil action under section 1914 and retaining the amount for filing a motion to lift stay fee at $150. Accordingly, the amount of the fee for filing a lift stay or other motion under Item 20 will not change.
• The second miscellaneous fee linked to the civil filing fee (Item 6) , which sets forth the fee for filing an adversary proceeding, was not addressed by the Judicial Conference and was deferred until the September, 2005, Judicial Conference for any action. Thus, the amount required to file an adversary proceeding will also remain at $150 for the present time, notwithstanding the language of Item 6 of the Miscellaneous Fee Schedule.

More information - Bankruptcy Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule (effective 1-1-2005)

December 9, 2004 - PACER Fee Increase
Please be advised the PACER fee is increasing on January 1, 2005 from 7 cents per page to 8 cents per page, with a maximum cost per document of $2.40.

December 1, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline between 6:30 AM and 9:30 AM on Thursday, December 2, 2004 due to system maintenance.

November 9, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline between 6:30 AM and 7:30 AM on Tuesday, November 10, 2004 due to system maintenance.

October 28, 2004 - Proposed Amendments to Rules and Forms
The Judicial Conference's Advisory Committees on Bankruptcy Rules, Civil Rules, Criminal Rules, and Evidence Rules have proposed amendments to various rules and forms. They are seeking public comment on the proposed changes. The rules committees welcome all comments, whether favorable, adverse, or otherwise. Written comments or comments sent electronically must be received by the Secretary to the Standing Committee no later than February 15, 2005. You
may review the proposed changes at http://www.uscourts.gov/rules, or review the synopsis at http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/comment2005/CompleteBrochure.pdf

October 22, 2004 - PACER Internet Access Fee Increase
The Judicial Conference, at its September 21, 2004 session, amended the language of Section 1 of the EPA Fee Schedule that increases the PACER Internet access fee from seven cents per page to eight cents per page effective January 1, 2005.  You can read the flier for more information.

August 26, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that access to our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be unavailable between 5PM and 7PM on Tuesday, August 31, 2004 due to system maintenance.  Please contact the ECF Helpdesk if you have any questions.

August 26, 2004 - Bankruptcy Workshops
As part of its ongoing Civil Enforcement Initiative, the Office of the United States Trustee, together with the Chapter 7 and 13 trustees for the Western District of Michigan, will present free training workshops on how to prepare bankruptcy schedules.  For more information and a copy of the registration form, please download the flier.

July 14, 2004- Administrative Order Mandating Electronic Filing
Administrative Order 2004-06 was signed July 14, 2004 Mandating Electronic Case Filing.  Effective January 1, 2005, all petitions, pleadings and other papers filed in all cases and proceedings, whether pending or new, shall be filed electronically according to the procedures established by the Court.  For information regarding Electronic Case Filing (ECF) training, click here.

June 6, 2004 - Closure of Federal Offices on June 11, 2004
The Clerk’s Office of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan will be closed on Friday, June 11, 2004, to observe a National Day of Mourning for our 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Any pleadings or documents due to be filed on June 11th will be considered timely filed if received by the court on or before Monday, June 14th, pursuant to Bankruptcy Rule 9006. A copy of the administrative order can be found here.
Please note that, except as may be modified by Judge Hughes, the Traverse City court docket will proceed as scheduled on June 11th.

May 12, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline between 1PM and 5PM on Sunday, May 16, 2004 due to system maintenance.

May 6, 2004 - ECF Training (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that our Training CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline May 6, 2004 starting at 5 pm until May 11, 2004 due to system maintenance.

April 30, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be offline between 5PM and 6PM on Monday, May 3, 2004 due to system maintenance.

April 29, 2004 - Administrative Orders
Administrative Order 2004-03 was signed April 29, 2004 amending the current Administrative Procedures dated January, 2004.  Administrative Order 2004-04 was also signed April 29, 2004 revising the local rules. 

April 7, 2004 - ECF (Electronic Filing System) Downtime
Please be advised that the availability of our CM/ECF (electronic filing system) will be intermittent between 5PM and 6PM on Wednesday, April 7, 2004 due to system maintenance.

March 23, 2004 - Michigan UIA Address Update
The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) moved its headquarters in 2001 and is no longer located at 7310 Woodward in Detroit. If you haven't already updated your address information for this agency, (We have an index of Federal and State of Michigan agency addresses available from our website) it is requested that all bankruptcy notices involving the UIA as a creditor for either unemployment taxes or restitution of unemployment benefits be directed to the new address -

State of Michigan
Unemployment Insurance Agency
Proof of Claim Unit
3024 W. Grand Blvd, Suite 11-500
Detroit, MI  48202

March 19, 2004 - NEW! Online Reservations for ECF Training
Online signup for our ECF (electronic filing) training sessions is now available via this website.  Check out our CM/ECF pages for more information about the system and the included training pages for session schedule\registration information.

March 15, 2004 - Adjustment of Dollar Amounts in Bankruptcy Code
On April 1, 2004, automatic adjustments to the dollar amounts stated in various provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, Title 11, U.S. C., will become effective.  These amended dollar amounts will apply to cases filed on or after April 1, 2004.  For more information, click here.

March 11, 2004 - Internet Service Downtime
Please be advised that maintenance is scheduled on our Internet gateway which could cause an interruption of service as follows:

• Saturday, March 13 from 9:00 AM -- noon
• Saturday, March 20 from 9:00 AM -- noon

February 4, 2004 - New Form Required for Electronic Filing (CM/ECF)
When the original petition is filed electronically, the attorney for the debtor(s) shall file with the court, in paper form, the Debtor's Declaration Form.  This form must be filed within five (5) business days of the electronic filing, and is now available from the Local Forms section of our website. For more information, see our newly adopted Administrative Procedures.

February 4, 2004 - Administrative Procedures for Electronic Filing
An administrative order adopting the administrative procedures for the electronic filing, signing, verification, and service of documents was signed February 3, 2004. Administrative Order 2004-02 and the new Administrative Procedures are now available from our CM/ECF pages.

January 12, 2004 - Proposed Changes to Federal Rules of Procedure
Public comments are sought by February 16, 2004, on proposed amendments to various Federal Rules of Procedure, including the Bankruptcy Rules. A public hearing is scheduled in Washington, D.C., concerning the Bankruptcy Rules on January 30,2004. You can look here for a summary of the proposed changes.

December 31, 2003 - Internet Website Maintenance
Our Internet website, located at http://www.miwb.uscourts.gov, will be going offline for maintenance and will be unavailable beginning sometime on Thursday, January 8, 2004. The system should be back up and available again prior to Monday, January 12, 2003. This maintenance will not disable access to the ECF/PACER website which is located at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov - Please update your shortcuts or bookmarks if necessary. We apologize for any inconvenience this downtime may cause.

November 28, 2003 - Amendments to Federal Rules and Official Forms
The recently updated forms, including the Proof of Claim (B10), Schedules, Statement of Financial Affairs, Statement of Social Security Numbers, and Voluntary Petition, have been relocated on our Internet website. The new Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure take effect on December 1, 2003, and these forms can now be found on our local forms page along with other forms we have made available.  For details regarding these changes, please read the letter from our clerk.

October 21, 2003 - Fee Schedule Amendments
Please be advised that the fee schedule has been updated and the new fees will take effect starting November 1, 2003.  See the updated Fee Schedule for details. 

October 21, 2003 - Electronic Public Access (EPA) Fee Schedule Change
The Judicial Conference, at its September 2003 session, amended the language of Section I of 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 Multidistrict Litigation. The previous schedule placed a cap on the seven cents per page charge for Internet access to data obtained electronically from the public records of individual cases in the courts, with a maximum of $2.10, the equivalent of 30 pages, for electronic access to any single document.  The amendment extends this cap to all case documents, including docket sheets and case-specific reports, with the exception of transcripts of federal court proceedings.  The implementation of the document cap extension will not take place until the necessary billing software is completed.  See the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule, effective 9/23/2003.

October 20, 2003 - 2004 Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference
The 2004 Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference will be held from May 5-8, 2004 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.  This will be an open conference with all attorneys admitted to practice in the federal courts in the Sixth Circuit eligible to attend.  Attorneys wishing to attend may get more information online at http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov, by emailing ca06-conf@ca6.uscourts.gov, calling (513) 564-7200, or picking up a brochure from our front desk. The registration deadline is January 15, 2004.

August 27, 2003 - H.R. 2465
H.R. 2465 was signed by the President on August 15, retroactively extending Chapter 12 of the Bankruptcy Code until January 1, 2004.

July 30, 2003 - Online RACER application going offline
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court, WDMI converted to the new CM/ECF case management and electronic filing system on July 14, 2003. All imaged documents previously available in the RACER application have been imported to the new system and RACER will be taken offline at 5pm this afternoon.  For continued access to these imaged documents, and all new case information, please log on to the new ECF/PACER system at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov

July 24, 2003 - Three (3) Column Mailing Matrices
Mailing Matrices are now available through the ECF/PACER system in the standard 3-column PDF format. To access this updated feature, logon to ECF and navigate to Utilities/Mailings/Mailing Labels by Case. After inputting the case number, you can select "3-col PDF" as the print format.

July 22, 2003 - Status of PACER and RACER Systems
The court went online with the new CM/ECF system on July 14, 2003.  This system replaces the court's older case management system and the public access systems (PACER and RACER). All case data previously available from PACER is now available in CM/ECF, so PACER has been taken offline. The images available in the RACER system are currently being imported into the new CM/ECF system and access to the RACER application will continue to be available until this conversion is completed. You can access the CM/ECF system at http://ecf.miwb.uscourts.gov and the RACER system at http://racer.miwb.uscourts.gov

July 8, 2003 - New Procedure : Submitting a Mailing Matrix
Effective July 9, 2003, the Clerk’s Office will only accept creditor matrices on diskette. To introduce and familiarize court customers with the concept of filing electronic documents, to minimize noticing errors and to increase the efficiency of creditor information input into the court’s database, the court is requesting customers file their creditor matrices in text format on disk. For more information regarding this change and instructions for submitting a matrix on diskette, click here.

June 16, 2003 - Vacancy Announcement
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan is accepting applications for a full-time Case Administrator position to be located in Grand Rapids. The incumbent manages the progression of bankruptcy cases, adversary proceedings and appeals from the point the case is given to the case administration team to final disposition or referral. For detailed information or an address to send a resume, click here. Resumes will be accepted through June 25, 2003.

June 16, 2003 - Public Notice
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 case filed under chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code.  For more information, click here. Resumes must be postmarked no later than July 25, 2003.

May 16, 2003 - PACER Service Upgrades
Through the end of June, all PACER web sites will be experience at least one service disruption during business hours. The service disruption is necessary to perform critical infrastructure upgrades to the judiciary's network. These upgrades will help maintain service in the future. Each upgrade will take about an hour.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions, please contact the PACER Service Center at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov

March 26, 2003 - "Best Practices in Bankruptcy" Seminars
As part of its ongoing Civil Enforcement Initiative, the Office of the United States Trustee, together with the Chapter 13 standing trustees for the Western District of Michigan, are pleased to present free training seminars for attorneys and their legal staff who practice in the district and desire to improve their bankruptcy practice before the Court and trustees.  For more information, or to register for a seminar, click here to download the flier.

March 12, 2003 - PACER System Availability
Please be advised that our PACER System will be going offline at 3PM this afternoon for maintenance.  The planned downtime is three (3) hours.  If you have any questions, please contact our systems staff at (616) 456-2056. We apologize for any inconvenience this work may cause.

February 26, 2003 - Court Closing Early
The United States' Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan will close for the day at 10:00 am on Thursday, February 27, 2003, in memory of the Honorable Laurence E. Howard. Please see the attached Administrative Order.

January 15, 2003 - Court Telephone System Maintenance
The court's telephone service will be down today from approximately 4:00 PM -- 6:00 PM for maintenance. If you must talk to someone by phone between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM, please call the automation help desk at 616/299-2699.

January 15, 2003 - Bankruptcy Rule Amendments
Effective 12-1-02 new amendments to the Federal Bankruptcy Rules of Procedure took effect. You may access the newly amended rules at : http://www.abiworld.org/pruposedamendment.pdf

November 25, 2002 - RACER Modifications Complete
The user authentication process of the RACER application has undergone some changes which are aimed at improving the overall speed and performance for users on the system.  While the system is still located at http://racer.miwb.uscourts.gov, the newly centralized authentication process uses a PACER Services Center logon page which displays the PACER logo.  The accounts for accessing both systems are the same, so the system you logon to will depend on the address initially requested.  While these changes should improve logon and billing response times for the application, the time required to download and display data (especially imaged documents in PDF) will be dependant on the speed of your connection to the Internet.  We thank our public users who have been so helpful during this troubleshooting and upgrade process.

September 23, 2002 - Lansing Courtroom Renovation Update
The Lansing Bankruptcy courtroom and chambers renovation project has finally begun. On September 16, 2002, a temporary wall was constructed outside the courtroom to keep noise and construction dust away from the rest of the building tenants. This marks the beginning of a project that started five years ago and will conclude with a completely new, contemporary courtroom equipped to accommodate the latest in courtroom technology. An adjoining chambers will also be constructed as well as an attorney conference room. For those of you who are familiar with the existing courtroom, the obsolete two-story vault will be jack-hammered and reduced to rubble to make room for the extended courtroom and chambers. The new courtroom will be ready for court proceedings by February 15, 2003.

September 10, 2002 - New website goes live
Welcome to the latest version of the court's website! We have been working to improve the navigation and reorganize the content to make it easier for you to find what you are looking for. As always, let us know what you think of the improved design.

September 3, 2002 - Renovation of Lansing Courtroom
Due to the renovation of the Lansing courtroom facilities, Judge Gregg's Lansing motion days scheduled for November 27, December 18, January 7, January 28, and February 19 will be held in Grand Rapids, MI :

Gerald R. Ford Federal Building and Courthouse
110 Michigan Street, 7th Floor
Grand Rapids, MI 49503