NARA Approves of Disposal of Documents Scanned Into CM/ECF
Since the District of Utah began scanning documents into CM/ECF, it has maintained most of those papers in chronological boxes. Thus, there is a box for every filing day in the court archive. See the
May 4, 2005, posting.
As of May 12, 2006, the
National Archives has agreed that the courts need not retain "paper documents scanned in their entirety into the AOUSC Case Management/Electronic Case File (CM/ECF) system" unless a local policy requires retention of the paper document. The
Administrative Procedures provide that some papers are not scanned while others are scanned and retained perpetually, such as documents signed by criminal defendants, or criminal judgments. These items will be retained by the court, but the routine matters filed in paper may be destroyed if scanned in their entirety into CM/ECF. Of course, the court does not receive official paper copies of direct
electronic filings by counsel.