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Courts say that 75 Percent of PACER Users Won’t Pay for Access Under New Fee Schedule
75 Percent of PACER Users Won’t Pay for Access Under New Fee Schedule. Press Release. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (July 09, 2010). The complete release:
A recent change in the fee exemption policy of the Federal Judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records system means that 75 percent of PACER users won’t pay any fee this year. The policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States approved last March 16 an adjustment to the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule so that users are not billed unless they accrue charges of more than $10 of PACER usage in a quarterly billing cycle. That adjustment was implemented almost immediately after the Conference action. Previously, users were not billed until their accounts totaled at least $10 in a one-year period. The result of the adjustment has the effect of quadrupling the amount of data available without charge. About 50 percent of all PACER users did not pay a fee in 2009, and preliminary indications are that the percentage will climb to 75 in 2010 under the new fee schedule.Hat tip to BeSpacific. Continue reading
PACER updates
There is no new good news about PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), but at least the issues are being aired and investigated. On Tuesday, June 22, the Advisory Committee on Transparency will host a briefing entitled “Transparency Made Easy: How to Make the Government More Open and Accountable” (announcement). There are useful background documents about PACER listed in the announcement:
- One pager description of The Problem with PACER, Princeton University, June 15, 2010
- What Does It Cost to Provide Electronic Public Access to Court Records, Stephen Schultze, May 29, 2010
- Electronic Public Access Fees and the United States Federal Courts’ Budget: An Overview, September 4, 2009, Working Paper by Stephen? Schultze.
- RECAP "Better Access to Public Court Records." (RECAP is a free extension for Firefox that improves the experience of using PACER, the electronic public access system for the U.S. Federal District and Bankruptcy Courts.)
The costs of PACER
The results of a survey designed to learn more about actual library expenses for PACER. Respondents included law firm libraries and law school libraries who reported how much they spent on using PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records).
- PACER Spending Survey, by Erika Wayne, Legal Research Plus (August 28, 2009).
The unknown/potential costs of using PACER hold back most law school libraries from letting their patrons fully utilize PACER.Continue reading
PACER and Crowdsourcing Court Records
Here is a first hand account by a user of court documents about why we need better access to court records than the 21 year old PACER system.
- Crowdsourcing Court Records, by Gautham Nagesh NextGov "Tech Insider" (08/31/09).
Last week I made a visit to the District of Columbia's federal courthouse to look up some documents for a story I've been working on. Since I don't have an account for the federal court records database known as PACER, heading down to the courthouse was the only way I could download and print the records I needed at a cost of eight cents per page. I sat down and dutifully printed out the first lengthy set of documents, only to find that somehow all of the text printed out backwards on the page. The second computer printed correctly, but proved slow and unresponsive. What I thought would be a a relatively straightforward task ended up consuming much of my afternoon. I was told users with accounts can access the records online, but even then the records are not searchable, making navigation time consuming and difficult.See also: Federal Courts Wary of Document-Sharing Plugin Recap Firefox Extension: "turning PACER around" Continue reading
Federal Courts Wary of Document-Sharing Plugin
Federal Courts Wary of Document-Sharing Plugin, By Ryan Singel, Wired (August 25, 2009).
Yu, a Princeton University computer science graduate student, helped code RECAP, a Firefox-only plugin that helps lawyers who use the PACER system, the government’s antiquated computer system for federal court records. With the plugin installed, the user’s browser uploads whatever documents a user looks at in PACER to an online repository hosted by the Internet Archive. Then when the next person using RECAP searches for that file, RECAP grabs the copy, sparing the user the cost for the document. Federal judiciary spokesman Dick Carelli says the courts are reserving judgement until they’ve had more time to study the plug-in. But that hasn’t stopped warning emails and warning notices to PACER users that spread a bit of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.Continue reading
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