Justice mulling bids for case management system

The Justice Department has received proposals for the Mega 3 multiple-award project to furnish an upgraded litigation case management services to help federal attorneys manage evidence in lawsuits and create databases of case information.

Justice plans to award contracts worth as much as $950 million over six years to succeed the expiring Mega 2 litigation case management system pacts.

The department had planned to invite proposals for the Mega 3 project in April, but that date slipped to Sept. 25, according to contract data compiled by procurement consultancy Input of Reston, Va.

Input projected that Justice would award the Mega 3 contracts, which will be structured as indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery agreements implemented via task orders, in early February.

The Mega 3 project will help Justice consolidate its fleet of litigation case management systems. Currently the Civil, Antitrust, Civil Rights Criminal and Environment Divisions each have litigation case management systems, as does the Executive Office for the U.S. Attorneys, according to procurement documents available via Input. In addition, the Tax Division now is developing a separate litigation support program.

In addition, each of the U.S. attorneys' offices spread across the nation have their own litigation case management systems, which are somewhat customized in many cases, according to department officials.

The six existing programs consist of government specialists who define case- or investigation-specific requirements and then manage contractor-provided case support using contracts designed for automated litigation support. All six programs now rely on four Mega 2 automated litigation support contracts awarded in November 2001 to furnish contractor support. The Mega 2 contracts expire this month, according to the procurement documents provided by Input.

The incumbent Mega 2 contractors are Labat-Anderson, Lockheed Martin Corp. and CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va.

Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas was an original Mega 2 contractor, but Lockheed Martin purchased the company's business arm that handled the Justice work.

Justice earlier had expected to award the Mega 3 contracts this month. The department is using the National Institutes of Health's CIO-SP2 contract vehicle for the procurement, according to information posted on the FedBizOpps.gov Web site.

Wilson P. Dizard III is a staff writer for Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.