The federal judiciary consists of the Supreme Court, regional circuit courts of appeals, district courts, bankruptcy courts, as well as courts of special jurisdiction including the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Court of International Trade, and the Court of Federal Claims.1 provides an overview of the district and bankruptcy courts. There are 94 federal judicial districts—at least 1 for each state— organized into 12 regional circuits. Each judicial district is served by at least one district court location, and 91 are served by a U.S. bankruptcy court in one or more locations—a separate unit of the district court. District courts also have probation and pretrial services offices to assist the courts in the fair administration of justice and protect the community. As shown in figure 1, AOUSC within the judicial branch provides a wide range of services for the federal judiciary. The Judicial Conference supervises the Director of AOUSC, is the principal policy-making body for the federal judiciary, and recommends national policies and legislation on all aspects of federal judicial administration. Congress vested original jurisdiction over all bankruptcy cases in the U.S. District Court. 28 U.S.C. § 1334(a). Congress also provided that the district court could refer all cases in bankruptcy and any and all proceedings arising under, in, or related to cases in bankruptcy, to the bankruptcy court. 28 U.S.C. § 157(a). Some claims, however, must be adjudicated by the district court, even if they arise in a bankruptcy proceeding, such as those that involve both the bankruptcy code and other federal laws regulating organizations or activities affecting interstate commerce, or state law matters. See 28 U.S.C. § 157(d); Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct. 2594 (2011). appeals of the circuit in which the district is located and serve 14-year terms. District courts and bankruptcy courts can have courthouses in multiple cities in 1 district. In addition, within one city, district courts and bankruptcy courts can be colocated in the same building or can be located in separate buildings. District courts and bankruptcy courts vary in size as shown by the number of authorized judgeships in table 1. The clerks’ offices of individual courts have varying numbers of staff, from 7 to 268 for district courts and from 10 to 266 for bankruptcy courts, with more than half of the clerks’ offices staffed with under 50 people and the vast majority staffed with under 100 people. Funding for the clerks’ offices of federal district and bankruptcy courts is appropriated under the account for “court of appeals, district courts, and other judicial services—salaries and expenses.” This account makes up the majority of the judiciary’s budget—approximately $5 billion in fiscal year 2011 and $5.02 billion in fiscal year 2012, with a fiscal year 2013 budget of about $4.78 billion after the effect of the sequester is taken into account. As shown in figure 2, funding allocated from this account for the clerks’ offices staff of the district and bankruptcy courts decreased from fiscal year 2011 to 2013. During this time period, the clerks’ offices’ staff numbers were reduced in the bankruptcy courts—from 4,515 to 3,896 staff as of April 2013—and were reduced in the district courts—from 6,225 to 5,755 staff as of April 2013. Prior to the passage of the Bankruptcy Act of 1978 federal district courts employed a system whereby “referees” were appointed by the district court judges to serve as administrators for bankruptcy cases. Recognizing that this system was designed in 1898—with the last major overhaul in 1938—and that, among other things, there had been a steady growth in the number of bankruptcies leading to great stresses and strains in the bankruptcy system, after almost 10 years of study and investigation, Congress passed a comprehensive revision of the bankruptcy laws. The 1978 act established U.S. bankruptcy courts in each federal judicial district and gave them the authority to hire their own clerks and other staff, among other significant changes to the bankruptcy code. Subsequently, in response to Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., in which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the grant of bankruptcy court jurisdiction to independent courts composed of judges who did not have life tenure and the other protections of Article III of the Constitution, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984. This law established bankruptcy courts as units of each district court and also authorized the bankruptcy judges in a district to appoint a clerk of the bankruptcy court, upon a certification of need to the judicial council of the circuit involved and to the Director of AOUSC. Once established, the bankruptcy courts began hiring their own clerks of court to oversee the bankruptcy court clerks’ offices. In 1986, a new statutory provision was added prohibiting the consolidation of the offices of the district and bankruptcy clerks of court without the prior approval of the Judicial Conference and Congress.further clarified the process for consolidation of clerks’ offices in the district courts and bankruptcy courts, which was promulgated in the Guide to Judiciary Policy. The policy states that the voluntary consent of both the district and bankruptcy courts is necessary before combining or merging functions of the district and bankruptcy court clerks’ offices. In 1998, the Judicial Conference The Guide to Judiciary Policy also details the process for seeking approval for consolidation. According to the policy, the district and bankruptcy courts are to conduct a cost-benefit and programmatic study of the proposed consolidation to describe the expected programmatic and financial impacts of the consolidation and demonstrate that the consolidation will result in cost savings without decreasing quality of service. The chief district judge and chief bankruptcy judge then are to submit the consolidation proposal, including the cost-benefit and programmatic information, to the circuit judicial council for consideration, and as shown in figure 3, the proposal is to then be considered and approved by the Judicial Conference and Congress. Although full consolidation of clerks’ offices is a multistep process culminating in Judicial Conference and congressional approval, district and bankruptcy clerks’ offices are allowed to share administrative services provided by the clerks’ offices without undergoing such formal approval. For example, the sharing of services may be initiated by a memorandum of agreement between a district and a bankruptcy court or may be an informal arrangement. Like full consolidation, however, pursuant to the Guide to Judiciary Policy, the sharing of services that falls short of consolidation requires the voluntary consent of both the district and bankruptcy courts. In addition, shared services may occur across district lines, between, for example, two bankruptcy courts in two separate districts. Shared services can include administrative or operational services in a variety of formats. For example, different court units may share a joint contract for telephone service, share individual staff, or share space, among other arrangements. Of the 91 federal judicial districts served by bankruptcy courts, 4 function with consolidated district and bankruptcy clerks’ offices. Three of the 4 districts consolidated clerks’ offices in the mid-1980s, and the fourth court consolidated in 2006, as shown in table 2. Consolidation of clerks’ offices generally results in one clerk of court serving both the district and bankruptcy courts.consolidated clerks’ offices have varying management structures, such as managers or chiefs with responsibilities for operational or administrative functions, or cross-trained staff who serve both courts. Figure 4 shows a sample of an organizational chart for a district with a consolidated clerk’s office, compared with districts with two separate clerks’ offices that do and do not share administrative services. Since the extent of cost savings and other benefits in courts with consolidated clerks’ offices or shared services is unclear at this time, AOUSC is assessing whether additional arrangements would be beneficial. Because, according to AOUSC officials and court officials we interviewed, consolidation of clerks’ offices in additional districts is unlikely, AOUSC has focused on assessing whether shared services results in cost savings, and its efforts are ongoing. In August 2011, AOUSC began a study to determine the extent to which court units have been sharing administrative services; what the results have been, including any cost savings; and how courts may be able to contain costs through sharing more services. For the study, AOUSC distributed surveys to district and bankruptcy courts and probation and pretrial services offices to collect data on the number of court units that are sharing services and the number of court unit employees categorized as performing administrative versus operational functions. As previously discussed, the first survey asked the court units to report whether they had a substantial sharing arrangement with other court units. The responses indicated that over half of the court units that responded to the survey are involved in some sort of sharing arrangement, although the extent of the sharing was not requested, so the range of what constitutes a substantial sharing relationship could vary widely—for example, from sharing a contract for telephone service to sharing a human resources staff person to sharing a training room. The second survey requested information from the court units about the breakdown of their administrative and operational employees, and how much time staff spend on administrative tasks. For example, court unit employees are sometimes cross-trained in both operational and administrative positions, or in some cases they work in more than one administrative area. AOUSC plans to use the data collected from these surveys to conduct an analysis of the percentage of time devoted to administrative work in court units that share services and consequently whether there are associated cost savings with sharing services. According to officials, AOUSC is still analyzing the data and has drafted a report from the study, which after further review, they anticipate providing to the Judicial Conference’s Committee on the Budget in July 2013, but they did not know when the report would be final. While AOUSC studies the potential cost savings, the Judicial Conference continues to encourage shared services as a way to save money while maintaining high-quality court services.