Legal Commentary

Peition to Improve PACER

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

A group of law librarians at Stanford Law Library have drafted a very short petition directed at the Administrative Office of the US Courts to improve PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), and you can see it (and sign it) at Improve PACER - The Petition Site:

We ask the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to improve PACER by enhancing the authenticity, usability and availability of the system.

We the undersigned, urge the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO) to make the following changes to the PACER system:

For verification and reliability, the AO should digitally sign every document put into PACER using readily available technology.

PACER needs to be much more readily accessible if it is to be usable for research, education, and the practice of law. Improved accessibility includes both lowering the costs for using PACER and enhancing the web interfaces.

Depository libraries should also have free access to PACER.

This is a great idea, and deserves support.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on June 30, 2009 (boomark / email).