Justice poised to recompete $950m litigation support services contract

The Justice Department likely will issue a request for proposals in late April for a $950 million recompetition of its support services contract for litigation case management systems, according to market research firm Input Inc. of Reston, Va., and procurement documents.Justice now is relying on the Mega 2 contracts for services to support its automated litigation support systems, according to Input. Those contracts, awarded in April 2001, went to Affiliated Computer Services Inc. of Dallas, Labat-Anderson Aspen Systems Corp. and CACI International Inc.Justice now seeks to shift to the Mega 3 series of multiple award contracts for the support services, according to Input's analysis of Justice procurement documents. The department is using the National Institute of Health's CIO-SP2 contract vehicle for the procurement, according to information posted on the FedBizOpps.gov Web site.Since the award of the original Mega 2 contracts, Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., has purchased Aspen Systems Inc. and the Justice operations of Affiliated Computer Services. ACS said it likely would not bid on Mega 3. Lockheed spokesman Joe Wagovich said his company does expect to bid on Mega 3.Procurement documents specify that the contracts will be indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity task orders issued via CIO-SP2. Input has estimated that Justice will award the contracts in November for one base year and four option years.The Mega 2 support services contracts expire in November, according to Justice.The Mega 3 litigation case management support services contracts are intended to help attorneys manage the information flow for civil and criminal cases by providing several kinds of services, including:The essence of such systems is that they allow attorneys to manage, process and analyze larger amounts and more complex kinds of evidence and other information very quickly, so as to win lawsuits and spend less money doing so.Justice now uses Mega 2 systems support services to help operate case management systems in its Civil, Antitrust, Civil Rights, Criminal, Environmental and Natural Resources divisions, as well as the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.The Office of Management and Budget is sponsoring the case management Line of Business that covers investigative case management systems such as the FBI's recently launched Sentinel project as well as litigation and administrative case systems. Justice is sponsoring the fledgling Litigation Case Management System project to build a next generation IT system under OMB's program. Washington Technology's .(Originally posted March 24 at 5:22 p.m. and updated March 28 at 12:53 p.m.)