The Federal Judicial Center

The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the federal judicial system. It was established by Congress in 1967 (28 U.S.C. §§ 620-629), on the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States. The many specific statutory duties of the Center and its Board fall into a few broad categories:

• conducting and promoting research on federal judicial procedures and court operations;
• conducting and promoting orientation and continuing education and training for federal judges, court employees, and others;
• conducting and fostering the study and preservation of federal judicial history; and
• providing information and advice to further improvement in the administration of justice in the courts of foreign countries and inform federal judicial personnel of developments in foreign court systems that could affect their work.
  

By statute, the Chief Justice of the United States chairs the Center's Board, which also includes the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and seven judges elected by the Judicial Conference. The Board appoints the Center's director and deputy director; the director appoints the Center's staff. Since its founding in 1967, the Center has had ten directors. Judge Jeremy D. Fogel became director in 2011. He was appointed U.S. district judge for the Northern District of California in 1998, but has been resident in Washington, D.C. since becoming director. The deputy director is John S. Cooke.

The Director's Office is responsible for the Center's overall management and its relations with other organizations. Its Systems Innovation & Development Office provides technical support for Center education and research. Communications Policy & Design edits, produces, and distributes all Center print and electronic publications, and through the Information Services Office maintains a specialized library collection of materials on judicial administration.

The Education Division plans and produces educational programs, services, and resources for judges and for nonjudicial court personnel, such as those in clerk's offices and probation and pretrial services offices. Its products include travel-based and in-court programs that participants attend in person, Web-based programs and publications, streaming video programs, and manuals, monographs, and other print publications.

The Research Division undertakes empirical and exploratory research on federal judicial processes, court management, and sentencing and its consequences, often at the request of the Judicial Conference and its committees, the courts themselves, or other groups in the federal system.

The Federal Judicial History Office develops programs relating to the history of the judicial branch and assists courts with their own judicial history programs.

The International Judicial Relations Office carries out the Center's statutory mission to provide information about federal courts to officials of foreign judicial systems and to acquire information about foreign judicial systems that will help the Center perform its other missions.

The Center makes many of its publications available on the Web.


The Board of the Center
The Chief Justice of the United States, Chair
Judge Catherine C. Blake, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Magistrate Judge Jonathan W. Feldman, U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York
Judge James F. Holderman, Jr., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Judge Michael M. Melloy, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Chief Judge C. Ray Mullins, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia
Judge Edward C. Prado, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Judge Kathryn H. Vratil, U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas
Judge John D. Bates, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts

Senior Staff of the Federal Judicial Center
Jeremy D. Fogel, Director of the Federal Judicial Center, B.A. Stanford University; J.D. Harvard Law School.
Bruce M. Clarke, Director, Education Division, B.A. Ithaca College, J.D. Georgetown University Law School.
John S. Cooke, Deputy Director of the Federal Judicial Center, B.A. Carleton College; J.D. University of Southern California; L.L.M., University of Virginia.
Esther DeVries, Director, Information Technology Office, M.S. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ed.D. Lehigh University
James B. Eaglin, Director, Research Division, B.A. Grambling University; J.D. State University of New York at Buffalo.
Mira Gur-Arie, Director, Interjudicial Relations Office, B.A. Cornell University; J.D. New York University.
Bruce A. Ragsdale, Director, Federal Judicial History Office, B.A., Ph.D. University of Virginia.
Sylvan A. Sobel, Director, Communications Policy & Design Office, B.A. Georgetown University; J.D. University of Wisconsin.


download the Center's 2012 Annual Report in Adobe Acrobat format