8 ms·

Attacking a Pay Wall That Hides Public Court Filings

193 points by howard941 8y ago

mchannon 8y ago
My PACER bill always manages to end up north of $25 a quarter. Reforms are sorely needed. Imagine google charging you (and your lawyer) $.10 per search plus $.10 per returned result.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  In the scheme of waste in the legal field, I'm not sure PACER is a blip. (That's not a reason to never address it, but if we're prioritizing...) For me (not a lawyer), my PACER usage never reaches the threshold where I get sent a bill. I can go research a case I'm interested in, download the relevant filings, read them over, search for related materials, and not get billed. If I really got into a case or couple of cases, maybe I'd get a bill that is less than an average hardcover book. Meanwhile, I've have spent some multiple of that amount on my own time. I'd much rather a system like this than an ad-supported social network for legal filings. My larger beef with PACER is the insanely poor user interface. However, it gets the job done. Edit to add afterwards: Despite the above, I fully support making PACER taxpayer-funded and free-to-access.
  - mchannon 8y ago
    Lucky you. I’ve seen legal professionals not limit their queries, downloading 50 pages at $.10 each, when they’ve already downloaded the document umpteen times and only want to see the first or last page. That also goes out the window when you want to read a 283-page filing including attachments. Audio recordings (free) are starting to be made public at the 10th circuit. Looking forward to wider availability of them nationwide.
    - phonon 8y ago
      > That also goes out the window when you want to read a 283-page filing including attachments. PACER has a $3 cap per document (no matter how many pages).
      - mchannon 8y ago
        Last month I got billed $10.00 for a 100-page transcript. March of last year I got billed $12.60 for a 126-page transcript. Not sure where you're getting your information from.
        justinclift 8y ago
        As a data point, the article did mention a $3 cap.
        phonon 8y ago
        We're both correct... "Please note that there is a 30-page cap for documents and case-specific reports (e.g., docket report, creditor listing, claims register). You will not be charged more than $3 when you access documents or case-specific reports that are more than 30 pages. However, the 30-page cap does not apply to name search results, lists of cases, or transcripts (when available online)." https://www.pacer.gov/psc/faq.html https://www.pacer.gov/psc/faq.html
robdachshund 8y ago
Why is NY times allowed here? It has a paywall and most users cannot read the article.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Bigger question: why is public documentation and legal filings paywalled at all? Wasn't there an old legal precept that that law needs to be public? (Even Draco saw that as a requirement.) And judicial opinions are part of the law in our system with precedent.
- geggam 8y ago
  They used to use the cost of creating copies as a threshold to prevent folks from getting things. We just need a lawyer to take the time to point out that cost is negligible and the hosting costs would be nothing if they would do something like torrent the legal records :)
- elliekelly 8y ago
  > Wasn't there an old legal precept that that law needs to be public? The Federal Courts argue that PACER is just "one avenue" of making the information public and that people can access the information for free by going to any Federal Courthouse. I might buy that argument in 1999, but not in 2019.
- anaphor 8y ago
  I think the word you're looking for is "promulgation"
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Because of a misguided doctrine/dogma that 'systems should pay for themselves directly and never levy any taxes'. While conceptually it might fit with getting revenue to scale with operating costs it has major issues including moral hazard that make it far more expensive. In effect it ends up being a parasite on the system akin to corruption or literal highway robbery and it would have been far more sensible to just leave it free and do taxation and budgeting centrally. It is akin to why bandits were treated with such harshness historically compared to other thieves of almost always being a capital crime. They did damage to the flow of goods and effectively 'broke the roads' because people feared to travel. That was a bad thing for everyone including the people in charge of force of arms so they dealt with the problem using the tool they knew best - violence.
payne92 8y ago
Even crazier: the local courthouse in my home town (in West Virginia) charges $1/page even when you make the copies yourself with your cell phone. Governments are sometimes just like people -- they get addicted to revenue streams and have a hard time adapting when those revenues change or go away.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- comtn 8y ago
  It could be said that because they have to physically go and find the document, and hand it over for you to take a photo of is the reason for the costs.
  - codedokode 8y ago
    Then the price should be per document and not per page.
  - payne92 8y ago
    That would make sense, but in this particular case the fee is for copies of deeds and other public documents that are in bound volumes in the record room. It’s entirely self service.
    - Someone 8y ago
      There still is the cost of making and maintaining those volumes, for building and maintaining the record room, for having somebody check how many photos you made, for billing, etc, etc. With fairly high fixed costs and, likely, demand varying a lot as a function of price, picking a break-even price point isn’t really possible up-front. For example, if they were to charge $1,000,000.— per page, chances are they won’t recover costs, but that doesn’t imply they should ask more. I think governments should just give up on the idea of recovering costs on this kind of service. That may mean some people will benefit more from it than others, but then, be that so. Alternatively, put a reasonably high cap on the ability to query the system.
stuart78 8y ago
Library of Congress document search is great, and a good model for how PACER could be done more effectively. No user accounts, no paywalls, no ads. Just free access to documents owned by all of us.
pseudolus 8y ago
In the interim there is a solution for some users in the form of an extension - "RECAP" - for Chrome and Mozilla that adds to an archive every initial download of a docket or case file (accessed through PACER) [0]. Thereafter, users with the extension installed will be alerted as to whether the docket or file is available for free in the archive. Practically, this only helps to the extent that the RECAP extension is installed by users, primarily attorneys and support staff, and for dockets and case files that are generally sought out. In passing, charging fees is clearly unfair given the role courts play in our society. At the state level, such as in New York state courts, filings are freely accessible. [0] https://free.law/recap/ https://free.law/recap/
- smelendez 8y ago
  New York has free access, but that really varies widely by state/county/district. Some are paywalled, some aren't online at all.
buildbuildbuild 8y ago
PACER's antiquated interface and dirty data have fueled a wildly profitable legal services industry. The public deserves more than the base line of free access to court records. Give the public access to clean normalized case data like in LexisNexis and Westlaw's outrageously-priced products, including a full database dump for civic hackers to improve. Aside: I worked on a product which relied on scraping PACER. A foolish integration test on our CI server once racked up a $50,000 PACER bill which we didn't notice until the end of the quarter.
- rayiner 8y ago
  The concept of “civic hacking” is an error of projection. Because user-generated data is valuable in other areas of tech, techies assume its valuable in civics. Unlike with Internet technology, user-generated data has little value in politics and the law. Knowing that 76% of district courts did something one way has little persuasive value compared to knowing two or three well-reasoned court of appeals opinions. The data is in fact out there-all federal cases are available for free on Google Scholar and various other sites. And nobody has done anything interesting with that information. That is not to say that politics and law can’t be data driven. But the data we need in those areas is not data you can derive by analyzing user or government generated databases. We need “hard data” such as how different tax policies impact economic growth. That’s not the sort of data analysis “civic hacking” can give us.
  - buildbuildbuild 8y ago
    The users are generating the data already: getting arrested and sued. This data is not yet a URL you can share. Sign up for PACER and see how hard it is to associate a credit card and look up one case. It is not accessible to the casual user. Perhaps we have witnessed different types of citizen contribution. I am not suggesting data science. Many would happily join a volunteer endeavor to clean up our country's case database and build a great UI on top of it which encourages public interest in the judicial system. > The data is in fact out there It is not. There is no complete, real-time, or normalized open case data out there, and LexisNexis and Westlaw's products are not priced to be accessible to individual citizens.
rayiner 8y ago
The attacks on PACER suffer from a few misconceptions: 1) That PACER charges for people to access "the law." As the article points out, "judicial opinions are free" on PACER. They're also typically published as PDFs on the courts' websites. 2) That the "costs of storing and transmitting data have plunged, approaching zero." That may be true, but the cost of maintaining and upgrading an electronic filing and access system have not approached zero. And there is no free off-the-shelf system that does what PACER does. 3) That PACER is meant for access to public records. PACER is a read-only view of the courts' filing system for lawyers and the court to use. Because lawyers use it, lawyers pay for it. (Individuals representing themselves pro se can use it for free.) It may indeed be desirable to make these legal filings publicly available through some system. But PACER is not that system. The issue is not really that "PACER should be free," because it's quite reasonable to charge lawyers a fee for a service they use that's provided by the courts. What you really want is something like the various "Open Government" searchable data sites that are out there. PACER is not that system--it's not easy for the public to use, it's search features are primitive, there is no way to do bulk downloads, it's running on the same systems as mission-critical ECF filing functions, etc.
- pseudolus 8y ago
  It's not mentioned in the article but unlimited access to the full docket of a case is, or at least used to be, available for free at the courthouse itself using a courthouse computer. Of course, there's no guarantee the printers will be working and printing is not free.
  - mhb 8y ago
    "People seeking free access, the judicial system’s brief said, can visit the courthouse."
    - pseudolus 8y ago
      Missed that. However, visiting the courthouse is of little utility as they charge more to print per page than if you printed at home. Also, given the complexity of many cases, it's simply not feasible to go the Courthouse and wade through an entire docket - especially for neophytes unfamiliar with legal terminology.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bellerose 8y ago
The obvious wrong about Pacer is when a person doesn't have the financial means and wants to pursue by pro se. The law was constructed in the interest of the public and self representation was deemed reasonable for justice to be always administered when a wrong has been committed and a person wants to seek a verdict. Well if you're a person who has low finances and in a situation where no lawyer will take your case by interest or financial reasons. You can still file a lawsuit and have the filing fees waived. The problem will be how much it costs to print copies for yourself, the number of defendants and the judge (court). People underestimate how much is needed to print if you're unable to electronically file. Lawyers have access to the online filing system but pro se doesn't necessarily (depending on the state) and has to file in paper with mailing everything out. Further more, the defendants may be a corporate entity with expensive lawyers on retainers, who have full access to every previous court verdict (similar to the situation) on PACER. They likely have a local database of the downloaded documents and where they can do advance searches. On the other hand the pro se is restricted by PACER in fear of the financial bill when searching and viewing documents to find something similar to his/her own situation.
muratsu 8y ago
Is there a tracker/email reminder that allows you tracking cases? It would be nice to get updates about this case.
codedokode 8y ago
10 cents per page is expensive. The paper and ink to print the document would probably cost less.
born2discover 8y ago
As somebody who lives outside of US, this is rather shocking. In Switzerland all judicial proceedings are free and open for access and that is anchored in Law. Everything is accessible on the internet with no fees, registrations or any kind fo "wall".
- coderintherye 8y ago
  This isn't just the U.S. Switzerland may be better, but Norway has similar issues https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns Furthermore, as discussed in that link the entire EU has a 15-year "database" directive that limits free and open access [0] [0] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-databases https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-dat...
  - born2discover 8y ago
    Thank you for the links. I have to admit it was an eye opening experience. We take our access to judicial proceedings (as well as laws, but that's beyond the point) as essentially a civic right, that seeing others nations embracing a different philosophy on the matter is quite shocking.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      I think you’re conflating two different things. The US has one of the strongest traditions of free access to judicial proceedings. You can walk into pretty much any courtroom to watch a proceeding. Even when it’s a big corporate disputes involving confidential information, the court will only be sealed for so long as the confidential information is being actively discussed. And the court will force the parties, at their own expense, to carefully redact filings with confidential information so that they can be available publicly. In one court I practice in, the Federal Circuit, you need special permission to redact more than 15 unique words in a brief, even if it’s a big business disputes with tons of confidential information. That level of access is not the norm in Switzerland as I understand it: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/understanding-the-justice-system_a-swiss-court-throws-opens-its-doors-to-visitors/44164790 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/understanding-the-justi.... > However, no other initiatives are anticipated to make the justice system more public. The judge is, for example, not too keen on the idea of publishing all judgments online. “That would require far too much effort to make things anonymous,” he explains. But the court does already publish the most interesting judgments. But the government here is also not big on paying for things. Building a whole electronic system to disseminate these filings costs a lot of money. Philosophically there is a strong trend in the US that having a right to do something doesn’t mean the government has to pay to help you exercise that right.
saltvedt 8y ago
There is a very similar case going on in Norway, where Håkon Wium Lie (creator of CSS) is being sued: https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/06-11-blog.html https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/06-11-blog.html
- coderintherye 8y ago
  With update: https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns It recaps most of what is in the first link while talking about how they both lost and won the court case
Andre607 8y ago
Surprised the article (or the comments here), don't mention earlier efforts to tear down court paywalls, such as Aaron Swartz's scraping of 2.7 million documents from PACER: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story-of-aaron-swartzs-campaign-to-liberate-court-filings/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story... .
1024core 8y ago
I'm sure a company like Google or Bing would be more than happy to store, index and serve the pages.
- hendzen 8y ago
  its very important that this be handled by an independent party. Imagine if google was party to a lawsuit and could monitor what filings their legal opponents were looking at.
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    Independent in what sense? Is there any entity who couldn't be sued? Also, I'd imagine (hope) Google wasn't _the_ source, but instead a better interface/search engine over the data.
  - sthu11182 8y ago
    i think you misunderstand some of the purposes monitoring a filing. the general purpose of monitoring a filing is to hopefully have a legal opinion that supports your argument. the whole purpose is to cite it so your opponent responds to it and the judge agrees with you. knowing what filings your legal opponents are looking at does not provide an advantage. the law is the law. your opponent is going to cite the case in a brief, and you will respond to their citation. despite what tv shows, there is no perry mason moment. trials are not about surprises, the main gist is set in stone. and you will piss off a judge if you start citing cases in oral arguments that are not in your brief. ive seen it happen.
- sthu11182 8y ago
  While it does not include filings, Google Scholar does have legal opinions. However, as far as I can tell, the collection of material has always been a bit random to me. By this, I mean Google Scholar includes published cases with proper citations (though I'm not sure for what years and its completeness) and a random collection of unpublished cases (not sure the rhyme or reason for some rulings being there and others not). Random side note, Bloomberg Law is the only service I am aware of that allows you to do a pretty complete keyword search of PACER (at least for federal district courts, state courts vary). I'm pretty sure Westlaw and Lexis do not do this (also they charge an exorbitant price to do a search, while Bloomberg charges the PACER fee for the first time a document is pulled by anyone plus the seat the license fee). Docket Navigator is a pretty good product too.
drefanzor 8y ago
I got pay walled to read this. Cleared cookies. Paywall climbed; now reading about pay walls...

193 points by howard941 8y ago

My PACER bill always manages to end up north of $25 a quarter. Reforms are sorely needed. Imagine google charging you (and your lawyer) $.10 per search plus $.10 per returned result.

sokoloff 8y ago
In the scheme of waste in the legal field, I'm not sure PACER is a blip. (That's not a reason to never address it, but if we're prioritizing...) For me (not a lawyer), my PACER usage never reaches the threshold where I get sent a bill. I can go research a case I'm interested in, download the relevant filings, read them over, search for related materials, and not get billed. If I really got into a case or couple of cases, maybe I'd get a bill that is less than an average hardcover book. Meanwhile, I've have spent some multiple of that amount on my own time. I'd much rather a system like this than an ad-supported social network for legal filings. My larger beef with PACER is the insanely poor user interface. However, it gets the job done. Edit to add afterwards: Despite the above, I fully support making PACER taxpayer-funded and free-to-access.
- mchannon 8y ago
  Lucky you. I’ve seen legal professionals not limit their queries, downloading 50 pages at $.10 each, when they’ve already downloaded the document umpteen times and only want to see the first or last page. That also goes out the window when you want to read a 283-page filing including attachments. Audio recordings (free) are starting to be made public at the 10th circuit. Looking forward to wider availability of them nationwide.
  - phonon 8y ago
    > That also goes out the window when you want to read a 283-page filing including attachments. PACER has a $3 cap per document (no matter how many pages).
    - mchannon 8y ago
      Last month I got billed $10.00 for a 100-page transcript. March of last year I got billed $12.60 for a 126-page transcript. Not sure where you're getting your information from.
      - justinclift 8y ago
        As a data point, the article did mention a $3 cap.
      - phonon 8y ago
        We're both correct... "Please note that there is a 30-page cap for documents and case-specific reports (e.g., docket report, creditor listing, claims register). You will not be charged more than $3 when you access documents or case-specific reports that are more than 30 pages. However, the 30-page cap does not apply to name search results, lists of cases, or transcripts (when available online)." https://www.pacer.gov/psc/faq.html https://www.pacer.gov/psc/faq.html

robdachshund 8y ago

Why is NY times allowed here? It has a paywall and most users cannot read the article.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Bigger question: why is public documentation and legal filings paywalled at all? Wasn't there an old legal precept that that law needs to be public? (Even Draco saw that as a requirement.) And judicial opinions are part of the law in our system with precedent.

geggam 8y ago
They used to use the cost of creating copies as a threshold to prevent folks from getting things. We just need a lawyer to take the time to point out that cost is negligible and the hosting costs would be nothing if they would do something like torrent the legal records :)
elliekelly 8y ago
> Wasn't there an old legal precept that that law needs to be public? The Federal Courts argue that PACER is just "one avenue" of making the information public and that people can access the information for free by going to any Federal Courthouse. I might buy that argument in 1999, but not in 2019.
anaphor 8y ago
I think the word you're looking for is "promulgation"
Nasrudith 8y ago
Because of a misguided doctrine/dogma that 'systems should pay for themselves directly and never levy any taxes'. While conceptually it might fit with getting revenue to scale with operating costs it has major issues including moral hazard that make it far more expensive. In effect it ends up being a parasite on the system akin to corruption or literal highway robbery and it would have been far more sensible to just leave it free and do taxation and budgeting centrally. It is akin to why bandits were treated with such harshness historically compared to other thieves of almost always being a capital crime. They did damage to the flow of goods and effectively 'broke the roads' because people feared to travel. That was a bad thing for everyone including the people in charge of force of arms so they dealt with the problem using the tool they knew best - violence.

payne92 8y ago

Even crazier: the local courthouse in my home town (in West Virginia) charges $1/page even when you make the copies yourself with your cell phone. Governments are sometimes just like people -- they get addicted to revenue streams and have a hard time adapting when those revenues change or go away.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
comtn 8y ago
It could be said that because they have to physically go and find the document, and hand it over for you to take a photo of is the reason for the costs.
- codedokode 8y ago
  Then the price should be per document and not per page.
- payne92 8y ago
  That would make sense, but in this particular case the fee is for copies of deeds and other public documents that are in bound volumes in the record room. It’s entirely self service.
  - Someone 8y ago
    There still is the cost of making and maintaining those volumes, for building and maintaining the record room, for having somebody check how many photos you made, for billing, etc, etc. With fairly high fixed costs and, likely, demand varying a lot as a function of price, picking a break-even price point isn’t really possible up-front. For example, if they were to charge $1,000,000.— per page, chances are they won’t recover costs, but that doesn’t imply they should ask more. I think governments should just give up on the idea of recovering costs on this kind of service. That may mean some people will benefit more from it than others, but then, be that so. Alternatively, put a reasonably high cap on the ability to query the system.

stuart78 8y ago

Library of Congress document search is great, and a good model for how PACER could be done more effectively. No user accounts, no paywalls, no ads. Just free access to documents owned by all of us.

pseudolus 8y ago

In the interim there is a solution for some users in the form of an extension - "RECAP" - for Chrome and Mozilla that adds to an archive every initial download of a docket or case file (accessed through PACER) [0]. Thereafter, users with the extension installed will be alerted as to whether the docket or file is available for free in the archive. Practically, this only helps to the extent that the RECAP extension is installed by users, primarily attorneys and support staff, and for dockets and case files that are generally sought out. In passing, charging fees is clearly unfair given the role courts play in our society. At the state level, such as in New York state courts, filings are freely accessible. [0] https://free.law/recap/ https://free.law/recap/

smelendez 8y ago
New York has free access, but that really varies widely by state/county/district. Some are paywalled, some aren't online at all.

buildbuildbuild 8y ago

PACER's antiquated interface and dirty data have fueled a wildly profitable legal services industry. The public deserves more than the base line of free access to court records. Give the public access to clean normalized case data like in LexisNexis and Westlaw's outrageously-priced products, including a full database dump for civic hackers to improve. Aside: I worked on a product which relied on scraping PACER. A foolish integration test on our CI server once racked up a $50,000 PACER bill which we didn't notice until the end of the quarter.

rayiner 8y ago
The concept of “civic hacking” is an error of projection. Because user-generated data is valuable in other areas of tech, techies assume its valuable in civics. Unlike with Internet technology, user-generated data has little value in politics and the law. Knowing that 76% of district courts did something one way has little persuasive value compared to knowing two or three well-reasoned court of appeals opinions. The data is in fact out there-all federal cases are available for free on Google Scholar and various other sites. And nobody has done anything interesting with that information. That is not to say that politics and law can’t be data driven. But the data we need in those areas is not data you can derive by analyzing user or government generated databases. We need “hard data” such as how different tax policies impact economic growth. That’s not the sort of data analysis “civic hacking” can give us.
- buildbuildbuild 8y ago
  The users are generating the data already: getting arrested and sued. This data is not yet a URL you can share. Sign up for PACER and see how hard it is to associate a credit card and look up one case. It is not accessible to the casual user. Perhaps we have witnessed different types of citizen contribution. I am not suggesting data science. Many would happily join a volunteer endeavor to clean up our country's case database and build a great UI on top of it which encourages public interest in the judicial system. > The data is in fact out there It is not. There is no complete, real-time, or normalized open case data out there, and LexisNexis and Westlaw's products are not priced to be accessible to individual citizens.

rayiner 8y ago

The attacks on PACER suffer from a few misconceptions: 1) That PACER charges for people to access "the law." As the article points out, "judicial opinions are free" on PACER. They're also typically published as PDFs on the courts' websites. 2) That the "costs of storing and transmitting data have plunged, approaching zero." That may be true, but the cost of maintaining and upgrading an electronic filing and access system have not approached zero. And there is no free off-the-shelf system that does what PACER does. 3) That PACER is meant for access to public records. PACER is a read-only view of the courts' filing system for lawyers and the court to use. Because lawyers use it, lawyers pay for it. (Individuals representing themselves pro se can use it for free.) It may indeed be desirable to make these legal filings publicly available through some system. But PACER is not that system. The issue is not really that "PACER should be free," because it's quite reasonable to charge lawyers a fee for a service they use that's provided by the courts. What you really want is something like the various "Open Government" searchable data sites that are out there. PACER is not that system--it's not easy for the public to use, it's search features are primitive, there is no way to do bulk downloads, it's running on the same systems as mission-critical ECF filing functions, etc.

pseudolus 8y ago
It's not mentioned in the article but unlimited access to the full docket of a case is, or at least used to be, available for free at the courthouse itself using a courthouse computer. Of course, there's no guarantee the printers will be working and printing is not free.
- mhb 8y ago
  "People seeking free access, the judicial system’s brief said, can visit the courthouse."
  - pseudolus 8y ago
    Missed that. However, visiting the courthouse is of little utility as they charge more to print per page than if you printed at home. Also, given the complexity of many cases, it's simply not feasible to go the Courthouse and wade through an entire docket - especially for neophytes unfamiliar with legal terminology.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bellerose 8y ago

The obvious wrong about Pacer is when a person doesn't have the financial means and wants to pursue by pro se. The law was constructed in the interest of the public and self representation was deemed reasonable for justice to be always administered when a wrong has been committed and a person wants to seek a verdict. Well if you're a person who has low finances and in a situation where no lawyer will take your case by interest or financial reasons. You can still file a lawsuit and have the filing fees waived. The problem will be how much it costs to print copies for yourself, the number of defendants and the judge (court). People underestimate how much is needed to print if you're unable to electronically file. Lawyers have access to the online filing system but pro se doesn't necessarily (depending on the state) and has to file in paper with mailing everything out. Further more, the defendants may be a corporate entity with expensive lawyers on retainers, who have full access to every previous court verdict (similar to the situation) on PACER. They likely have a local database of the downloaded documents and where they can do advance searches. On the other hand the pro se is restricted by PACER in fear of the financial bill when searching and viewing documents to find something similar to his/her own situation.

muratsu 8y ago

Is there a tracker/email reminder that allows you tracking cases? It would be nice to get updates about this case.

codedokode 8y ago

10 cents per page is expensive. The paper and ink to print the document would probably cost less.

born2discover 8y ago

As somebody who lives outside of US, this is rather shocking. In Switzerland all judicial proceedings are free and open for access and that is anchored in Law. Everything is accessible on the internet with no fees, registrations or any kind fo "wall".

coderintherye 8y ago
This isn't just the U.S. Switzerland may be better, but Norway has similar issues https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns Furthermore, as discussed in that link the entire EU has a 15-year "database" directive that limits free and open access [0] [0] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-databases https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-dat...
- born2discover 8y ago
  Thank you for the links. I have to admit it was an eye opening experience. We take our access to judicial proceedings (as well as laws, but that's beyond the point) as essentially a civic right, that seeing others nations embracing a different philosophy on the matter is quite shocking.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I think you’re conflating two different things. The US has one of the strongest traditions of free access to judicial proceedings. You can walk into pretty much any courtroom to watch a proceeding. Even when it’s a big corporate disputes involving confidential information, the court will only be sealed for so long as the confidential information is being actively discussed. And the court will force the parties, at their own expense, to carefully redact filings with confidential information so that they can be available publicly. In one court I practice in, the Federal Circuit, you need special permission to redact more than 15 unique words in a brief, even if it’s a big business disputes with tons of confidential information. That level of access is not the norm in Switzerland as I understand it: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/understanding-the-justice-system_a-swiss-court-throws-opens-its-doors-to-visitors/44164790 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/understanding-the-justi.... > However, no other initiatives are anticipated to make the justice system more public. The judge is, for example, not too keen on the idea of publishing all judgments online. “That would require far too much effort to make things anonymous,” he explains. But the court does already publish the most interesting judgments. But the government here is also not big on paying for things. Building a whole electronic system to disseminate these filings costs a lot of money. Philosophically there is a strong trend in the US that having a right to do something doesn’t mean the government has to pay to help you exercise that right.

saltvedt 8y ago

There is a very similar case going on in Norway, where Håkon Wium Lie (creator of CSS) is being sued: https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/06-11-blog.html https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/06-11-blog.html

coderintherye 8y ago
With update: https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns https://www.wiumlie.no/2018/rettspraksis/10-22-returns It recaps most of what is in the first link while talking about how they both lost and won the court case

Andre607 8y ago

Surprised the article (or the comments here), don't mention earlier efforts to tear down court paywalls, such as Aaron Swartz's scraping of 2.7 million documents from PACER: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story-of-aaron-swartzs-campaign-to-liberate-court-filings/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story... .

1024core 8y ago

I'm sure a company like Google or Bing would be more than happy to store, index and serve the pages.

hendzen 8y ago
its very important that this be handled by an independent party. Imagine if google was party to a lawsuit and could monitor what filings their legal opponents were looking at.
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  Independent in what sense? Is there any entity who couldn't be sued? Also, I'd imagine (hope) Google wasn't _the_ source, but instead a better interface/search engine over the data.
- sthu11182 8y ago
  i think you misunderstand some of the purposes monitoring a filing. the general purpose of monitoring a filing is to hopefully have a legal opinion that supports your argument. the whole purpose is to cite it so your opponent responds to it and the judge agrees with you. knowing what filings your legal opponents are looking at does not provide an advantage. the law is the law. your opponent is going to cite the case in a brief, and you will respond to their citation. despite what tv shows, there is no perry mason moment. trials are not about surprises, the main gist is set in stone. and you will piss off a judge if you start citing cases in oral arguments that are not in your brief. ive seen it happen.
sthu11182 8y ago
While it does not include filings, Google Scholar does have legal opinions. However, as far as I can tell, the collection of material has always been a bit random to me. By this, I mean Google Scholar includes published cases with proper citations (though I'm not sure for what years and its completeness) and a random collection of unpublished cases (not sure the rhyme or reason for some rulings being there and others not). Random side note, Bloomberg Law is the only service I am aware of that allows you to do a pretty complete keyword search of PACER (at least for federal district courts, state courts vary). I'm pretty sure Westlaw and Lexis do not do this (also they charge an exorbitant price to do a search, while Bloomberg charges the PACER fee for the first time a document is pulled by anyone plus the seat the license fee). Docket Navigator is a pretty good product too.

drefanzor 8y ago

I got pay walled to read this. Cleared cookies. Paywall climbed; now reading about pay walls...