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> Lesson #3) Anyone can sign up for Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) to search and retrieve your own legal documents [...] getting them yoursel

> Lesson #3) Anyone can sign up for Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) to search and retrieve your own legal documents [...] getting them yourself at $0.10 a page. It sounds cheap, but one bad search and you may be fetching 100s of pages (IIRC, the number of pages returned by your search is what counts - https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work). If you do so, you can also use RECAP: https://free.law/recap https://free.law/recap. It's like the internet archive for PACER documents. It's a browser extension that helps create a crowdsourced archive of the PACER content. You can then search that archive (this time for free) in https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ For stuff not on RECAP, then PACER can be used, and fee is waived if less than $30 that quarter according to https://free.law/pacer-facts https://free.law/pacer-facts

AlbertCory 5y ago
Hear, hear on RECAP. It is surprisingly complete. See [1] for the Theranos trial. I think most of the lawyers at Big Law must have the Chrome extension. A high percentage of the docs you would want are on there. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v-holmes/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...
- freejazz 5y ago
  It's not the biglaw attorneys, its the reporters
KennyBlanken 5y ago
FYI RECAP means you're technically in violation of PACER's terms of use which prohibit redistribution or publishing. Violating terms laid forth by the federal court system ends (for wealthy internet tech celebrities) in the EFF picking up your legal tab and the FBI saying "okay FINE, just don't do that again." For you and me, it ends in tens of thousands in legal costs and at best probation terms that likely substantially interfere with your ability to make a living.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  This very much assumes the person is within US jurisdiction, correct? What would happen if the archive is based in Russia or some similar country that doesn't care about US jurisdiction?
- Aaronn 5y ago
  Can you actually point to a sentence in the terms of use which say that? I see nothing like that on the PACER website.
  - nyanpasu64 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(law)#Costs,_revenues_and_free_alternatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(law)#Costs,_revenues_an... > Some courts such as the District Court for the District of Massachusetts have explicitly stated that "fee exempt PACER users must refrain from the use of RECAP,"[13] I'm not sure if this is binding, or applies to fee-paying users.
    - phonon 5y ago
      Generalia specialibus non derogant so yeah, the warning was specifically for fee-exempt (like if a judge gives you research waiver from the $.10 fee because you're indigent, pro se etc.) users.
- phonon 5y ago
  Ummm...what are you talking about? You just made that up. https://free.law/recap/faq https://free.law/recap/faq Is sharing court documents a violation of copyright law? The court-created documents provided by PACER are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. The question is a little bit more complicated for documents filed by third parties, so we asked a prominent legal scholar about it. He told us that such documents may be under copyright, but he thought redistributing copyrighted court documents was legal under copyright's fair use doctrine. However, there is very little case law in this area (some examples are here and here), so it's impossible to be sure. We certainly believe citizens ought to have the freedom to share public court documents, and we hope RECAP users will help to establish that precedent. The PACER "policies and procedures" prohibit "any attempt to collect data from PACER in a manner which avoids billing." Is this what RECAP is designed to do? Absolutely not. PACER charges users for the documents they download from PACER. RECAP users pay for every document they download from PACER, just like any other user. RECAP simply gives users a second option: to easily share documents directly with one another, as they're permitted to do under copyright law. When a user downloads a RECAP document, the document comes directly from our server; the process imposes no additional load on PACER's web servers.
danmur 5y ago
RECAP, what an amazing name. Love it.

AlbertCory 5y ago

Hear, hear on RECAP. It is surprisingly complete. See [1] for the Theranos trial. I think most of the lawyers at Big Law must have the Chrome extension. A high percentage of the docs you would want are on there. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v-holmes/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...

freejazz 5y ago
It's not the biglaw attorneys, its the reporters

KennyBlanken 5y ago

FYI RECAP means you're technically in violation of PACER's terms of use which prohibit redistribution or publishing. Violating terms laid forth by the federal court system ends (for wealthy internet tech celebrities) in the EFF picking up your legal tab and the FBI saying "okay FINE, just don't do that again." For you and me, it ends in tens of thousands in legal costs and at best probation terms that likely substantially interfere with your ability to make a living.

Nextgrid 5y ago
This very much assumes the person is within US jurisdiction, correct? What would happen if the archive is based in Russia or some similar country that doesn't care about US jurisdiction?
Aaronn 5y ago
Can you actually point to a sentence in the terms of use which say that? I see nothing like that on the PACER website.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(law)#Costs,_revenues_and_free_alternatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACER_(law)#Costs,_revenues_an... > Some courts such as the District Court for the District of Massachusetts have explicitly stated that "fee exempt PACER users must refrain from the use of RECAP,"[13] I'm not sure if this is binding, or applies to fee-paying users.
  - phonon 5y ago
    Generalia specialibus non derogant so yeah, the warning was specifically for fee-exempt (like if a judge gives you research waiver from the $.10 fee because you're indigent, pro se etc.) users.
phonon 5y ago
Ummm...what are you talking about? You just made that up. https://free.law/recap/faq https://free.law/recap/faq Is sharing court documents a violation of copyright law? The court-created documents provided by PACER are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. The question is a little bit more complicated for documents filed by third parties, so we asked a prominent legal scholar about it. He told us that such documents may be under copyright, but he thought redistributing copyrighted court documents was legal under copyright's fair use doctrine. However, there is very little case law in this area (some examples are here and here), so it's impossible to be sure. We certainly believe citizens ought to have the freedom to share public court documents, and we hope RECAP users will help to establish that precedent. The PACER "policies and procedures" prohibit "any attempt to collect data from PACER in a manner which avoids billing." Is this what RECAP is designed to do? Absolutely not. PACER charges users for the documents they download from PACER. RECAP users pay for every document they download from PACER, just like any other user. RECAP simply gives users a second option: to easily share documents directly with one another, as they're permitted to do under copyright law. When a user downloads a RECAP document, the document comes directly from our server; the process imposes no additional load on PACER's web servers.

danmur 5y ago

RECAP, what an amazing name. Love it.