Legal Research

PACER Turns Twenty [UPDATED]

Here’s an article from The Third Branch celebrating PACER’s 20th birthday.  Usage is up, way up: in 2008 alone, they added more than 130,000 new users.

Even though Carl Malamud of public.resource.org thinks PACER is “broken” and suffers from a “mainframe mentality”, the system is still innovating:

“The latest enhancement to the PACER system is the availability of digital audio recordings of court proceedings.  Five pilot courts make some digital audio recordings available through the CM/ECF system, accessible through PACER.  Not surprisingly, [North Carolina Eastern District Bankruptcy Court justice J. Rich] Leonard’s court is leading the pilot program.  ‘It’s the next level of transparency,’ he said.  ‘And its potential is in opening up the judicial process to the public.  I thought it was interesting that one local paper is picking up hearings and loading them to its Website.  I know attorneys who load them to their MP3 players.  This could be the antidote to mainstream media’s declining coverage of the courts.’”

UPDATE, 12/23: Oops, forgot to give a shoutout to Gary Price for the link.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).