The Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch appointed a subcommittee to study judicial evaluations and make recommendations. The subcommittee chose to initiate a pilot project of voluntary, confidential evaluations with the specific goal of judicial self-improvement.

A discussion of the roles and responsibilities of the position of district court executive as implemented in the mid-1980s in five pilot courts. The paper focused on the patterns that emerged from a discussion by chief judges and executives of the pilot districts.

In response to concerns expressed about delay in transmission of proposed opinions and emergency motion papers among the widely-scattered judges of the Temporary Court of Emergency Appeals (TECA), the Federal Judicial Center conducted a pilot project experimenting with the use of IBM Magnetic Car