Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts AO

Until 1939 the Justice Department, the government's chief litigator in federal court, also handled the courts' budgets and supplies, an arrangement judges increasingly saw as a threat to their independence. The Administrative Office Act of 1939 moved those functions into the judicial branch. The AO's director is appointed by the Chief Justice after consultation with the Judicial Conference, and the agency works under the Conference's supervision.

The AO prepares and defends the judiciary's budget before Congress, roughly nine billion dollars a year, and manages payroll, human resources, and benefits for about thirty thousand judges and court employees. It builds and runs the courts' information technology, including the electronic case filing system and PACER, the public system for viewing court records. It compiles the judiciary's official statistics on caseloads and staffing, and it supports the Judicial Conference and its committees.

Because the courts depend on Congress for money, the AO is the judiciary's main voice on appropriations, security funding for judges, and courthouse construction. Its work drew attention after a 2020 cyberattack on the judiciary's case systems and amid debates over PACER fees for public access to court records, and in recent years over rising threats to judges and the cost of protecting them.