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NextGen CM/ECF

Monday, August 21, 2017

On August 21, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upgraded its CM/ECF system to NextGen CM/ECF, the latest iteration of the national case management and electronic case filing system.

If you have a legacy CM/ECF account, you will need to complete a two-step process in order to file documents in the NextGen system. The first step is to upgrade your PACER account and the second step is to link your legacy CM/ECF account to your upgraded PACER account. A list of the users who have a legacy CM/ECF account in this court is attached.

STEP 1: Upgrade Your PACER Account

In the legacy system, users were required to have their own CM/ECF account but could share a PACER account with others in their office. In the NextGen system, all e-fiers must have their own PACER account. Law firms and other organizations can set up a PACER Administrative Account (PAA) to manage all their user accounts and have central billing for PACER access fees.

If you have been using a shared PACER account to view documents, you will need to go to www.pacer.gov and register for a new PACER (Case Search Only) account. Your new account will be an upgraded PACER account.

If you have been using an individual PACER account to view documents, go to www.pacer.gov, select Manage My Account and login. If you have forgotten your username and/or password, there are links available on the login page for retrieving your credentials. Once you have successfully logged in, the type of account you have will be listed in the Account Type field. If you already have an upgraded PACER account, proceed to step two. If you have a legacy PACER account, click the Upgrade link to begin the process of upgrading your account.

STEP 2: Link Your Legacy CM/ECF Account to Your Upgraded PACER Account

If you are linking accounts for someone else, be sure you know whose accounts you are linking because you will not be able to undo this process once you click Submit.

  1. Make sure you are completely logged out of PACER and close your browser.
  2. Open a new browser and go to the CM/ECF login screen for this court.
  3. Login using your upgraded PACER account credentials.
  4. Click Link My Filer Account to My PACER Account.
  5. Enter your legacy CM/ECF credentials and click Submit. If you have forgotten your legacy credentials, go to www.pacer.gov and select the Help option for resetting your legacy appellate filer password.
  6. If the linking process was successful, you will see the new NextGen landing page. From this point forward, use your upgraded PACER account credentials to login to file and/or view case information. If the linking process failed, make sure your username is all lowercase and try again.