Justice picks contractor for litigation case management

The Justice Dept. awarded a $42 million contract to Computer Sciences Corp. to develop a next-generation Litigation Case Management System, or LCMS. It will be used by DOJ's seven litigating divisions - Antitrust, Criminal, Civil Rights, Civil, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions, as well as the 94 US Attorney's Offices - as a replacement for existing systems. Currently, each division has its own case management software, none of which make data available easily available to the other divisions.

The system will also integrate with the FBI's Sentinel Case Management System, which replaces the government IT disaster known as Trilogy. Sentinel is expected to be online by late 2009. Trilogy cost $170 million before it went down in flames.

"I expect LCMS to provide a valuable service to the Department's seven litigating divisions," said Vance Hitch, the Department's CIO in a press release. "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."

CSC will accomodate the needs of each division by building unique user interfaces to the centralized application and database. The architecture will allow DOJ officials to have a single repository for all litigation case management information and reporting.