CSC Gets U.S. DoJ Case-Management Contract

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has awarded Computer Sciences (CSC) a US$42 million contract for a new case-management system, the DoJ announced Thursday.

The DoJ’s seven divisions involved in litigating cases, including U.S. attorneys’ offices nationwide, will use the new Litigation Case Management System (LCMS), which will be designed to allow DoJ offices to share information through the use of common technologies and data standards, the DoJ said. CSC, in El Segundo, Calif., earned the contract after an extensive evaluation, the DoJ said.

LCMS will be able to exchange data with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) own Sentinel Case Management System, a replacement for an earlier failed attempt that cost $170 million.

LCMS will be built around a centralized application and database, with unique user interfaces for each of the litigating divisions, the agency said in a press release. The architecture will allow DoJ officials to have a single repository for all litigation case management information and reporting.

“LCMS will allow the department to reduce operational costs and act more like a unified law firm by effectively and appropriately sharing information between the litigating divisions and with the department’s executive leadership,” Vance Hitch, the DoJ’s chief information officer, said in a statement.

The LCMS program will use a phased approach toward the DoJ’s long-term vision for litigation case management, the DoJ said. The first phase of the project will primarily address the requirements of attorney managers and DoJ officials to manage caseload and performance. Under this phase, a common platform for the 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices will be implemented during the 2007 and 2008 fiscal years.

The first phase includes data exchanges with external systems such as the FBI’s Sentinel. The six other DoJ litigating divisions will implement LCMS between the 2008 and 2010 fiscal years, the DoJ said.

In March, the FBI hired defense contractor Lockheed Martin to build its new case-management and information-sharing system at a cost of US$425 million. The Sentinel project at the FBI replaced a failed case-management project called Virtual Case File, by contractor Science Applications International. The FBI scrapped that project in March 2005.

-Grant Gross, IDG News Service

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