District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands

NEXTGEN ANNOUNCEMENT

November 24, 2021

Hafa Adai,

The United States District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands will be upgrading its CM/ECF software to the Next Generation (NextGen) of CM/ECF in the upcoming months. We anticipate going live with NextGen by the end of January 2022. An exact date will be provided in early 2022. NextGen is the culmination of a multi-year project headed by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to provide for the current and future filing and case management needs of all CM/ECF users.

In the upcoming weeks, the court will email all registered attorneys information on NextGen and what they must do to prepare for the upgrade. We take this opportunity to reach out to you in advance so you know what is changing with NextGen and what will be required of all registered attorney users.

What is new for attorneys in NextGen?
Central Sign-On (CSO) is new functionality that will allow attorneys to maintain one account across all Next Gen courts (appellate, bankruptcy, and district). This means that attorneys will be able to use one login and password to access all NextGen courts, where they have permission to file, and PACER for all courts.

What must an attorney do to prepare for NextGen?

• Attorneys MUST have their own individual PACER accounts.  If an attorney does not have an individual PACER account, the attorney must create one before the Court upgrades to NextGen. Shared PACER accounts cannot be used by filing attorneys once the court has upgraded. Firms may set up a PACER Administrative Account to help manage multiple attorney accounts and have the individual accounts centrally billed for PACER access fees. To register for a PACER Administrative Account, please visit https://pacer.uscourts.gov/register-account/group-billing
  
  
• Existing “Legacy” PACER accounts (accounts issued prior to August 11, 2014) must be upgraded. Go to https://pacer.uscourts.gov/my-account-billing/manage-my-account-login, Manage My Account and login with the attorney’s current PACER credentials. Note the display in Account Type. If “Legacy,” then select Upgrade, and update the information
  
  
• Attorneys must know their current CM/ECF login/passwords for filing documents. Take note of your current CM/ECF login and password before the court upgrades to NextGen. If the login information is stored in your browser, it will be lost and not recoverable. Once the court upgrades, attorneys must link their existing ECF accounts to their upgraded PACER accounts for Central Sign-On. If an attorney does not know the current login or password, please use the password reset feature from the CM/ECF login page at https://ecf.nmid.uscourts.gov.
  
  Attorneys will NOT be able to file in NextGen until their individual ECF account is linked to their upgraded individual PACER accounts. This linkage, however, cannot be completed until AFTER the court upgrades to NextGen. We will provide step-by-step  instructions at a later date about how to link an ECF account to an upgraded PACER account.

For more information on the improvements and the upgrade process, please visit: https://pacer.uscourts.gov/file-case/get-ready-nextgen-cmecf.

Questions may be emailed to the ECF helpdesk at ecfhelpdesk@nmid.uscourts.gov, or feel free to contact the Clerk’s Office directly at (670) 237-1200.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation as the court prepares to upgrade to NextGen ECF.

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