SECTION C - Jury Management Modernization SOO DRAFT.pdf

March 20, 2016

Jury Management Modernization Initiative

1.0 Background

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (Government) currently operates a legacy Jury Management System (JMS) that supports district-wide jury operations for all 94 federal district courts. The system is built on outdated technology, offers increasingly limited flexibility, and is difficult to maintain.

Federal district courts must comply with Title 28, U.S.C. § 1863 et seq. (Jury Selection and Service Act) and related policies governing random selection, qualification, summoning, and compensation of petit and grand jurors.

A modernized jury management solution is required to ensure continued compliance, operational efficiency, and improved service to the public.

The Government has included, as attachments to this SOO, the mandatory federal and Judiciary standards governing security, cloud hosting, identity and access management, accessibility, data protection, and continuity of operations. Contractors shall review all attachments, acknowledge these requirements, and ensure that the proposed JMS can fully comply with and operate within these standards.

2.0 Scope

The Government seeks to acquire a secure, cloud-based jury management solution that supports the full lifecycle of federal jury operations. The solution shall be delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) and hosted in a FedRAMP High authorized environment, with a clearly defined path for migrating existing data and capabilities to the cloud.

The solution shall support the selection, qualification, summoning, management, and tracking of both prospective and impaneled jurors for courts using either one-step or two-step processes. It shall perform required financial and statistical functions and provide standards-based integration with the Government’s current financial management system, while being designed to support integration with future systems through open interfaces.

The Government requires a configurable solution that improves the juror experience, increases operational efficiency, and provides courts with real-time, data-driven insights to support informed decision-making. The solution shall preserve mission-critical capabilities of the current system while enabling future enhancements, improved usability, and long-term maintainability, security, and sustainability.

3.0 Operational Objectives

The JMS shall deliver a secure, fully integrated capability that supports the complete jury lifecycle that enhances operational efficiency across jury administration processes, ensures accurate and compliant juror financial processing, and enables a smooth, coordinated nationwide transition from the current on-premises system. The solution shall also provide the Government with a scalable, flexible, and secure cloud-hosting model that meets current judiciary needs and is designed to adapt to evolving requirements over time.

3.1 Jury Lifecycle Support

Objective: Ensure the JMS fully supports all jury operations from qualification through service completion, providing secure tools for staff and accessible services for jurors.

1. Supports the full jury lifecycle from qualification through completion of service, including all associated operational activities.

2. Provides a secure, web-based interface accessible only to authorized court personnel.

3. Provides an online portal that allows individuals to complete court-required forms and submit documentation for postponement and excusal requests.

3.2 Operational Tools & Technology Integration

Objective: Enable efficient court operations by integrating the JMS with essential technologies used for document processing, communication, and juror check-in.

1. Provide scanning capabilities sufficient to support the volume and operational needs of federal courts, which currently utilize approximately 99 scanners nationwide, to enable efficient processing of juror forms and correspondence.

2. Integrate with scanning technology, which must be supplied, to support efficient processing of juror forms and correspondence.

3. Supports multi-channel communication, including interactive voice response (IVR), email, SMS/text messaging, and mobile devices.

4. Supports proximity-based technologies to streamline juror check-in and associated workflows.

3.3 Financial & Data Integration

Objective: Ensure accurate financial processing and seamless integration with the current Momentum financial management system and with future judiciary financial systems.

1. Integrates with the Government’s current financial management system (Momentum) by producing an export file using specified column definitions.

2. Supports secure transition to future financial systems without interruption of services.

3. Provides accurate and timely financial and statistical calculations.

4.0 System Performance Objectives

The JMS shall achieve the following high-level performance outcomes that collectively ensure a secure, interoperable, and operationally resilient capability for all federal district courts.

4.1 Modernization and Capability Enhancement

Objective: Deliver a scalable, cloud-hosted jury management capability that improves usability for court staff and jurors while expanding operational functionality.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Provide an intuitive, accessible user experience for courts and jurors.

2. Support scanning, pool, panel, and attendance management, and online engagement throughout the jury lifecycle.

3. Enable the design, generation, and management of Government-defined juror forms and communications (including juror qualification questionnaires, jury summonses, and supplemental questionnaires).

4. Ensure all forms comply with current statutory requirements and judiciary policy for the life of the award.

5. Allow courts to configure and version-controlled forms while preserving required standard language and approval controls.

4.2 Operational Continuity

Objective: Maintain uninterrupted jury operations during transition from the legacy system and throughout ongoing use of the JMS.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Support court-specific transition, cutover, and rollback strategies.

2. Prevent any reduction in the availability, performance, or accuracy of ongoing court operations during migration.

3. Provide proactive monitoring and rapid recovery mechanisms.

4. Minimize downtime and avoid rescheduling of jury events during transition and steady-state operations.

4.3 Security, Governance, Risk, and Compliance

Objective: Ensure the JMS operates in a secure, compliant environment that protects sensitive juror and court data and meets all judiciary security requirements.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Operate in a Government-approved cloud environment compliant with the NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF) (NIST 800-37 revision 2) and other best practices such as Federal Risk Authorization and Management Program (FedRAMP), GovCloud, and Cloud Security Foundation (CSF).

2. Integrate with Government identity and access management services such as Personal Identity Verification (PIV), Single Sign-On (SSO), System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM), and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

3. Support Government approved standards based single sign-on using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), OAuth 2.0, SCIM.

4. Enforce role-based access control (RBAC) and provide comprehensive, immutable audit logging of all user and system activities.

5. Support continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, and incident response in accordance with judiciary security policies and NIST guidance.

6. Encrypt data in transit and at rest using Government-approved cryptographic standards.

7. Provide authentication, document governance, and auditable activity logs that support judiciary oversight, visibility, and transparency.

8. Collaborate with the Government on developing governance processes that align with judiciary stakeholders, services, and resources.

9. Provide authorization to operate (ATO) documentation and security artifacts including the defined system security boundary and risk information for all environments.

10. Maintain a cybersecurity program that aligns with the agency’s cybersecurity strategic goals, including Zero Trust Architecture principles, Defense-in-Depth, DevSecOps automation, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) secure-by-design practices, and rapid response and remediation.

4.4 Interoperability

Objective: Enable secure, standards-based data exchange with judiciary systems and external services to support operations, reporting, and future migrations.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Provide documented Representational State Transfer (REST) / JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) APIs that support secure, standards-based interoperability.

2. Support scheduled and event-driven data exchanges with configurable mappings, error handling, and monitoring.

3. Enable export of data in non-proprietary formats for reporting, archival, and future migrations.

4.5 Openness and Vendor Independence

Objective: Ensure the JMS uses open standards and that the Government, or any authorized third party, can access and use system data at the Government’s discretion.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Avoid vendor lock-in by ensuring that data structures, configuration metadata, and integration mechanisms do not rely on proprietary formats or contractor-unique customizations.

2. Ensure all core data entities, including juror records, forms, communications, and configuration metadata, are exportable in non-proprietary, machine-readable formats (e.g., JSON, Comma-Separated Values (CSV), Extensible Markup Language (XML)).

3. Support long-term sustainability by maintaining compatibility with standard upgrade paths and minimizing customizations that increase lifecycle costs or impede modernization.

4.6 User Experience

Objective: Improve the experience of jurors and court staff by providing intuitive interfaces, streamlined workflows, and clear artifacts that support consistent adoption across all courts.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Provide intuitive, responsive web design, and accessible user interfaces for both jurors and court personnel.

2. Support multi‑channel engagement to simplify communication and reduce burden on staff.

3. Enable creation and use of workflow artifacts that document, guide, and support new processes to ensure effective adoption across courts.

4.7 Reporting, Analytics, and Integration with Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)

Objective: Provision operational and analytical data that is collected, curated, managed, and/or maintained in JMS for downstream consumption by the Judiciary Enterprise Data Warehouse

(EDW).

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Deliver reporting and analytics capabilities that support operational decision making, trend analysis, and workload management across the jury lifecycle.

2. Provide reporting tools that meet statutory and Judiciary policy requirements at both the court and national level.

3. Deliver and facilitate automated ingestion of JMS data into the EDW on an agreed-upon cadence and format.

4. Publish and maintain the data model, data access restriction model (if any), glossaries and dictionaries, and other metadata to accurately reflect JMS data structures.

4.8 System Performance and Reliability

Objective: Ensure the JMS delivers high availability, fast response times, and resilient operations that scale to nationwide demand and protect continuity of service.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Provide at least 99.9% availability.

2. Maintain average response times of 3 seconds or less under normal load.

3. Scale to peak demand while maintaining required performance thresholds. Meet defined recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) requirements.

4. Use geographically redundant backup and disaster recovery to protect continuity and data integrity.

4.9 Transition and Data Migration

Objective: Ensure a smooth, accurate, and low risk transition from legacy systems through a rigorous, validated data migration process.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Profile, cleanse, transform, validate, and reconcile legacy data.

2. Conduct test migrations, parallel operations, and verification activities.

3. Confirm data accuracy and completeness before cutover for each court.

4.10 Training and Knowledge Transfer

Objective: Equip all users with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively operate the JMS and sustain proficiency throughout the contract.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Provide role-based training via instructor-led, virtual, and self-paced formats.

2. Maintain current training materials and job aids for each release.

3. Provide training for new users throughout the contract period.

4.11 Nationwide User Support Coverage

Objective: Ensure all courts and jurors receive timely, consistent support regardless of location or time zone.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Provide support for all users across all 94 federal district courts and two Administrative Office (AO) sites, including Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS) locations.

2. Offer support during judiciary working hours, defined as 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, excluding weekends and federal holidays.

3. Assist court staff and court technical personnel responsible for integration and operations for all parts of the solution.

4. Maintain sufficient staffing to meet service level agreement requirements, with a greater number of staff during the first-year handling transitional questions.

4.11.1 Support Coverage Aligned with the National IT Operations Office

Objective: To ensure operational requests for user assistance are aligned with the AO’s National IT Operations Office (NIOO).

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Support Hours: Provide Tier II support during National Support Desk (NSD) Normal Business Hours.

2. Process Integration: Integrate Tier II operations into NIOO’s Incident, Problem, and Request Fulfillment processes using the NSD’s Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) ticketing system.

3. Incident Response: Meet Judiciary restoration targets, including less than 2 hours for Priority 1 incidents and less than 8 hours for Priority 2 incidents.

4. Communication & Reporting: Join NSD communication bridges for critical issues and provide a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) within three business days of resolution.

5. Readiness & Training: Provide NSD staff with training and knowledge articles three weeks prior to any production release, followed by two weeks of Early Life Support

(ELS).

6. Monitoring & Security: Provide the government with view access to system performance dashboards and report security incidents immediately to the AO Security Operations Center (SOC) via the NSD.

7. Knowledge Management: Maintain a Known Error Database (KEDB) and provide documented workarounds to Tier 1 support.

4.12 Technology Modernization and Future Proofing

Objective: Ensure the JMS remains sustainable, maintainable, and upgradeable over time through configuration driven design, minimal customizations, and a sustainable upgrade path.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Preserve a sustainable upgrade path with a documented roadmap and upgrade strategy.

2. Undergo regression testing across all courts for each release.

3. Maintain an open, portable design that enables the Government to transition to future solutions by providing complete data exports, schemas, metadata, and configuration artifacts in non-proprietary formats.

4.13 Hosting and Environments

Objective: Provide a SaaS solution hosted by a FedRAMP high cloud service provider (CSP).

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

• Operate the solution in a FedRAMP cloud architecture supporting all required environments: production and test environments for each court and the AO; and a vendor development and testing environment for external testing.

• Deliver timely, reliable, high performing changes without degrading availability or performance.

4.14 Security Requirements for Government System Connectivity

Objective: Ensure the JMS can securely connect to and interoperate with all required Government systems while maintaining compliance with judiciary security standards.

To achieve this objective, the solution shall:

1. Support secure integration with required Government systems using approved protocols and authentication mechanisms.

2. Maintain compatibility with legacy interfaces where required.

3. Provide secure, standards-based connectivity (REST/JSON, SFTP, message queues, etc.).

4. Authenticate and authorize system-to-system connections in compliance with Judiciary Application and Authentication standards.

5. Support continuous monitoring and audit logging for all connections and data exchanges.

6. Avoid custom code that limits portability or future migration.

7. Provide documentation and configuration artifacts enabling the Government to validate and maintain its side of integrations.

8. Support transitions to new Government systems without service disruption.

9. Coordinate with Government security teams to ensure compliance with the NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF) and court-specific controls.

4.15 Beta Deployment and Transition Readiness

Objective: Validate that the JMS is functional, usable, secure, and operationally ready before nationwide rollout, reducing transition risk and protecting continuity of operations.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Beta Environment & Pilot Courts

a. Establish a fully functional beta environment mirroring production.

b. Deploy the SaaS solution to one or more pilot courts to validate workflows, integrations, and performance.

2. Operational Readiness Testing

a. Validate workflows, forms, scanning, financial calculations, communications, and proximity check‑in.

b. Confirm preservation of mission‑critical capabilities.

3. User Feedback & Iterative Improvement

a. Collect structured feedback from court staff and jurors.

4. Beta Exit Criteria

a. Define measurable criteria for completion, including functional completeness, performance benchmarks, security compliance, integration stability, and defect thresholds.

5. Reporting & Transparency

a. Provide progress reports, defect logs, remediation plans, and readiness assessments.

5.0 Deployment Requirements and Operating Constraints

Objective: Ensure the JMS SaaS solution is deployed nationwide in a secure, compliant, accessible, and operationally seamless manner that protects court operations, supports transition from legacy systems, and enables long-term sustainability and portability.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Support deployment of the SaaS solution across all federal district courts (currently 94) and the AO site, including OCONUS locations, within Government-defined timelines.

2. Comply with all Government information security, infrastructure, and data residency requirements applicable to SaaS solution.

3. Ensure all user interfaces comply with Section 508 accessibility standards.

4. Execute implementation activities in a manner that avoids material disruption to court operations.

5. Coordinate with the legacy system contractor to support a seamless transition.

6. Provide nationwide user support for all 94 federal district courts and two AO sites, including OCONUS locations, with coverage aligned to judiciary working hours across all U.S. time zones. Support shall include functional, technical, and operational assistance for court personnel and jurors and must scale to the full nationwide deployment footprint.

7. Provide JMS, online portal, and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform support and maintenance at zero recurring cost to the Government for the first twelve (12) months after production acceptance for each Government site (AO and court), exclusive of separately priced subscription, hosting, platform, and telecommunications usage charges.

8. Support transition from legacy systems without degrading ongoing court operations.

9. Minimize service interruptions during migration and cutover activities.

10. Enable continuous improvement and future enhancements throughout deployment and transition.

11. Maintain operational continuity and support nationwide rollout across all federal district courts.

5.1-5.2 Transition Planning and Cutover Readiness

Objective: Ensure a smooth, low-risk transition from the legacy system to the JMS by providing a comprehensive, court-specific transition and cutover approach that protects continuity of jury operations.

To achieve this objective, the contractor shall:

1. Develop and maintain a comprehensive Transition and Cutover Plan aligned with Section

4.2 (“Operational Continuity”).

2. Describe a phased transition strategy for each court, including pre-migration preparation, data profiling and cleansing, parallel operations, and post-cutover validation.

3. Provide tailored cutover and rollback procedures for each district court to ensure no disruption to qualification, summoning, the jury wheel, or jury events.

4. Coordinate with the legacy system contractor to ensure data integrity, interface continuity, and operational alignment.

5. Identify transition risks and define contingency procedures, including rapid recovery mechanisms and fallback workflows.

6. Conduct transition readiness reviews prior to each court’s cutover to confirm data accuracy, integration stability, user preparedness, and support coverage.

7. Provide enhanced monitoring, defect resolution, and operational support during a defined stabilization period following each site’s production acceptance.

5.3 Hosting & Infrastructure Integration

Objective: Provide a secure, flexible hosting model that works today and adapts to future Government infrastructure decisions.

1. Provide the capability to host the JMS in the contractor’s Government-approved commercial Cloud Service Provider (CSP) environment.

2. Support transition to a Government-approved commercial CSP; including full data export, configuration artifacts, and integration documentation required for migration.

3. Supports secure, standards-based integration to ensure timely, accurate, and protected data exchange across all required systems.

5.4 Disaster Recovery and Continuity

Objective: Ensure the JMS remains available during disasters or system failures by requiring resilient hosting architecture, defined recovery objectives, and contractor-supported continuity operations.

To achieve this objective, the solution will:

1. Provide a disaster recovery (DR) capability that meets judiciary requirements for availability, redundancy, and continuity of operations.

2. Support defined Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and (Recovery Point Objective) RPO targets established by the Government, including rapid restoration of critical services and minimal data loss.

3. Maintain geographically redundant environments capable of sustaining operations during regional outages or cloud-provider disruptions.

4. Perform regular backups of all application data, configuration artifacts, and system logs, with retention periods aligned to judiciary policy.

5. Support automated or semi-automated failover to a secondary environment without data corruption or loss of transactional integrity.

6. Provide DR runbooks and operational procedures that enable Government validation, testing, and independent sustainment of Government-side responsibilities.

7. Participate in Government-directed DR and continuity exercises, including annual failover tests and post-test remediation activities.

8. Ensure all integrations, interfaces, and data exchanges recover gracefully after failover, including message queues, batch jobs, and API connections.

9. Notify the Government promptly of outages, degradation, or failover events in accordance with judiciary incident-response requirements.

10. Support continuity during transition and cutover, ensuring DR capabilities are active before production go live.

6.0 Desired Outcomes

Successful performance under this SOO will result in:

1. A modern, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) jury management capability that supports efficient, consistent, and scalable operations across all federal district courts.

2. Improved juror experience through clear communication, intuitive online self-service, and reduced administrative burden.

3. Increased operational efficiency through automation, streamlined workflows, and reduced manual processing.

4. Enhanced data quality, reporting, and analytics that support evidence-based management, statutory compliance, and national-level insight.

5. Strengthened security and privacy protections for juror information through modern cloud security practices and continuous monitoring.

6. A cost-effective, scalable platform that evolves with future technology, judiciary policy, and changing court needs.

7.0 Key Terms and Definitions

The terms defined in this Statement of Objectives establish a common understanding of key concepts used throughout this document. These terms reflect standard practices within federal jury management operations, and prospective contractors are expected to already be familiar with them based on prior experience in this domain. Consistent application of these definitions is essential to ensure accurate interpretation and effective communication throughout the acquisition and implementation process.

1. Jury Lifecycle: The jury lifecycle is the full period of engagement between a court and a juror. It begins when a person receives a qualification questionnaire and/or summons and continues through four key determinations: whether the individual is qualified to serve, whether the individual is summoned to serve, whether the individual serves in a jury, and whether the individual is entitled to any payment and/or reimbursement. The lifecycle concludes when the juror is formally released from further obligation, and all related administrative processes are complete.

2. Legacy System: The judiciary’s current jury management system and associated interfaces being replaced by the JMS.

3. Pilot Court: A district court selected to receive early deployment of the JMS for validation prior to nationwide rollout.

4. Production Acceptance: The Government’s formal confirmation that the JMS is ready for operational use at a specific site.