Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

New PACER Training Web Page Made Available

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an online service of the United States Judiciary that provides case and docket information from Federal appellate, district and bankruptcy courts. While the growth of PACER accounts appears to be very robust based on the findings of the "United States Courts Electronic Public Access Program - PACER Service Assessment (Sept. 2010).

PACER management appears to be doing more marketing and outreach recently. It is unclear whether this might be a response to re-occuring criticism that the Judiciary keeps much of their "public" information behind what is termed a "paywall". Or the occassional inquiries from the likes of Senator Lieberman about how the PACER generated funds are being spent. See:     

 Lieberman: Why Do We Have to Pay for PACER?   

 DOJ Pays $4M a Year to Read Public Court Documents  

Use RECAP To Bypass Court Document PACER Paywall

Perhaps just like any entity that sells a service, PACER may just want to increase the usability of their service and expand its use into new markets ? Another graph from the PACER assessment about user constiuencies can be instructive.

While 75% of the users are lawyers and litigants, there are some other sectors that could be making greater use of the service. Several of the other sectors identified as 5% or less, could probably be grown by a more user -friendly site, expanded marketing, and accessible training for  PACER.

The Office of the US Courts appears to me moving on all these fronts :

• Released the Case Locator, formerly the U.S.
Party/Case Index (March 2010)
• Increased the fee waiver to $10 per quarter
(March 2010)
• Redesigned the PACER website, pacer.gov
(May 2010)

And most recently have introduced a web site that provides basic orientation and training for PACER, using a subset of actual court filings for users to work with.

PACER Training Site (District Court CM/ECF Version 4.2) - Document Filing System

"Welcome to the PACER training site. Use this site to learn how to use PACER. The site is free of charge and has been populated with real case data from New York Western District Court from cases filed between 1/1/2007 and 7/1/2007."

The page provides suggested searches to try using the tabbed functions at the top of the page. Exeprimenting with the results from the training subset can orient a new user to the PACER interface.

It is also suggested that potential users download the "PACER Service Center User Manual" to familiarize themselves with the service.

 

 

 

 

"GPO Access" Goes Archive Only

Since the early 1990s, GPO ( Government Printing Office ) provided "GPO Access" on the internet, a service that has provided free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. But over the years, GPO had failed to update its technological abilities to keep pace with changes in the information dissemination environment. The development of new technologies and new demands necessitated the development of a new information management and distribution system for government information.

The new system,”FDsys”, Federal Digital System, has been in development for several years.  FDsys, should provide GPO with the technical and management capabilities to not only catch up the changes in it's environment  but to aggressively move forward in the 21 Century. The two systems have been running in parallel, as data was migrated to FDsys.  FDsys became the U.S. Government Printing Office's (GPO’s) system of record for online Federal Government information in December 2010. GPO is now in the process of a phased shutdown of GPO Access.

As of November 2011, GPO Access will be available only as an archive, with no new information added to it. While GPO Access will no longer be updated, it will remain accessible to the public. In the final phase, GPO Access will shut down permanently and will no longer be available for public use. A date has not yet been established for the final shutdown of GPO Access; however, it is slated for fiscal year 2012.

Libraries should take this opportunity (if they have not already done so) to review their Web sites, presentations, brochures, and other materials that reference GPO Access and work to update or replace these materials.

View instructions on how to create links to FDsys content   ( For information on the URL structure for each collection, visit the Sample Searches and URLs page for the collections listed on this page)

 

Latest GPO/PACER Pilot Looks Promising

While many individual federal courts make some  of their opinions accessible on their websites, the periods covered and length of time they remain available, can vary widely. The Government Printing Office (GPO) has been working for years to try to make the court opinions from the Judiciary's for-fee PACER online service, available to the public through the  federal depository library program (FDLP).

The first pilot project was in 2007 with access at 15 physical depositories having direct access to the PACER service with a password.. The second was in 2010 allowing access via the internet but to records from only from 12 courts. The latest pilot approved in 2011 plans to provide access to 30+ courts via the GPO online service, FDsys ( Beginning with 3,then 12, then more than 30 courts).

For the previous pilots the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC)  said they wanted to use the pilots to assess whether there was public demand for such a service through the GPO FDLP. However, given the very limited number of courts whose opinions were being made available, it was questionable whether the pilots could really provide an accurate reading of public demand. With 12 courts of Appeal and 90+ District and Bankruptcy Courts respectively, even the latest offering of 30 courts, seems too small to be a real test of user demand.

However, this time the joint project with GPO, seems to portend a possibly expanding service using the publicly accessible Fdsys service from GPO. GPO has created specific item numbers and SUDOC number designations for the court opinions to be made available. This would indicate the establishment of a permanent service that could expand over time to include many more courts. At least one hopes that is the implication.

PACER has to be supported by user fees because of the law that created it. It requires the creation of a billing account to use it. It contains not only the final court opinions but also all the electronic filings in these cases. This creates a massive store of online docket information in addition to the opinions. While PACER has not been charging for the opinions themselves, users still need to create an account to access them. The docket information has not been considered for no-fee distribution.

It would seem that PACER could make the opinions that they are not charging for anyway, more easily available by having GPO make them available online. The danger of hacking to the PACER site would be eliminated and users would not have to have an account on PACER to get them. PACER could continue to charge for access to  the detailed docket entries, to support the PACER service.

The current joint project has the court records coming directly from the PACER service which GPO then processes  and makes them available through their own interface on FDsys. This insures that the records can be authenticated by GPO and allows advanced FDsys searching capabilities to be provided for this new material.

The new collection is called, United States Courts Opinions collection. It can be linked to from the general FDsys page. "Initial testing is with three courts: the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, United States District Court District of Rhode Island, and United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Florida. The number of courts participating in the pilot will rapidly expand to twelve and, after testing, to more than thirty. The content of this collection dates back to April 2004, though searchable electronic holdings for some courts may be incomplete for this earlier time period."

The database includes both Browse and Search functions. The advance search includes such fields as :

•    Case Number
•    Court Name
•    Court Type
•    District Case Type
•    District Cause
•    Docket Text
•    Nature of Suit
•    Party Name
•    Party Role
•       Year
This is more than the native PACER site provides.

"Having opinions accessible through FDsys provides the ability for users to search for opinions from one court, from select courts, and from all available courts, along with the ability to search for opinions in conjunction with other FDsys content."

This joint project appears to be the most promising of those undertaken by GPO and AOUSC. Public users can only hope that it is eventually expanded to include all the public opinions to be issued by the federal courts which should be freely available to all citizens.

40 Year Old NOLO Publisher Embarks On Legal Website Network

NOLO was established in 1971 as the first publisher of do-it-yourself legal books for consumers. Their bread & butter has been well-regarded, plain language legal guidance conveyed in affordable print publications. They also provided Online links to such reference information as State Laws & Info, Law Dictionary, Supreme Court Cases, Historic Documents and Law Blogs. Also available are  nearly a dozen NOLO-produced, Free Legal Books on consumer issues plus a host of short articles for various consumer legal topics.

This past Summer, NOLO unveiled their first "Nolo Network website", www.landlordtenantlawfirms.com. This is to be the first in a series of NOLO-produced websites covering specific legal areas. This online initiative is a result the acquisiton of NOLO by Internet Brands, a new media company which operates online media, community, and e-commerce websites. Internet Brands' online expertise will make the NOLO Network part of its own Experthub website. ( www.experthub.com )

It looks like the marketing model connects free online consumer and small business content, to for-sale NOLO print publications and to referrals to attorneys working in specific areas of law. The listed attorneys pay a fee to Experthub for the leads.

The acquition of NOLO seems like a synergistic one. NOLO will continue to publish it's very popular print books. But will now also be able to produce and market new online content as part of the Internet Brands family.

Jake Warner, executive chairman and co-founder of Nolo, stated that "Nolo has always advocated for a more accessible and affordable legal system while giving consumers the plain-English information they needed to tackle everyday legal tasks,"  "We're confident that Internet Brands' proven expertise in e-commerce, consumer-focused products, and online SMB marketing services will maximize Nolo's online presence."

 

 

Bloomberg-Law Acquistion of BNA, Means Business

Last month Bloomberg Law announced a re-design of their interface to provide improved search capabilities. Other additions included new practice specific resources and enhanced workflow and collaboration features.

As the latest corporate entry into the lucrative legal research market, Bloomberg has had to build a system from the ground up to try to compete with the longtime market leaders, LexisNexis and Westlaw. It has taken a few years to create the comprehensive content and search capabilities to seriously challenge the incumbents.

Periodic reviews by Robert Ambrogi have charted the continuing growth and improvements of Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law: Can it be a Contender?  

Bloomberg Law: My Extended Review 

Former Lexis CEO Takes Helm of Bloomberg Law   

 Bloomberg Law Releases Next Version of its Research Platform 

But nothing signals competitive seriousness as much as the announcement yesterday that Bloomberg is planning to acquire the last of the independent major legal publishers, Bureau of National Affairs  (BNA). They are paying a hefty premium to acquire BNA. This move makes it abundantly clear that Bloomberg Law intends have a major presence in this market.

At present, BNA online products can also be accessed via Lexis and Westlaw subscriptions through licensing. The press release indicates that existing BNA contracts will be honored. While possible antitrust concerns may be raised, there is plenty of money to be made through continuing these licensing agreements, even with it's competitors.

From the BNA perspective, a merger will significantly extend BNA's premium content to an expanded audience. BNA can also benefit from the data and technology expertise of Bloomberg. Wisely, Bloomberg will operate BNA as a stand-alone subsidiary. This will not disrupt the employee-owned culture that has made BNA a leader in their field.

This merger appears to be a mutually desired combination. As the the board of directors of both companies unanimously approved the transaction which is expected to close later in 2011.

We await Bob Ambrogi's next installment in his reviews of Bloomberg Law. But it appears that with this acquisition, Bloomberg Law may be fully prepared for prime time in the legal research marketplace.

John Marshall Law School Digitizes Unpublished Ilinois Appellate Court Opinions

The John Marshall Law School Library recently completed an initiative to digitize its collection of unpublished Illinois Appellate Court opinions.  The Library inherited the former Chicago Bar Association collection of unpublished opinions.  The collection includes nearly 350 volumes of unpublished opinions from 1900-1975.  The opinions, most of which were typed on onionskin paper, are slowly disintegrating due to age and use.

The school received a grant from the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Illinois (CARLI) to digitize these volumes as part of CARLI’s Book Digitization Initiative.  CARLI partnered with the Open Content Alliance to provide digitization services.  The partnership seeks to digitize important Illinois materials to build a significant digital collection and to promote access to Illinois materials via digitization.

Researchers can access the digitized unpublished opinions from the website http://www.archive.org/details/johnmarshalllawschool.  In order to locate an opinion, one must first locate the appropriate volume of the Illinois Appellate Court Reports.  So, for example one looking to access the full text of the unpublished opinion in People  v. Dismuke, 66 Ill.App.2d 162, would first need to locate volume 66 of the Illinois Appellate Court Unpublished Opinions, Second Series online and then page forward until reaching the opinion.  The easiest way to get started is simply to search for the volume number as such “66 Ill.App.2d.”  Page numbers are not indexed.      (Source: email from Thomas Keefe, JMLS staff )

The digital files are actually maintained at The Internet Archive  which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded in 1996 to build an Internet library.

New Citations For Illinois Supreme Court & Appellate Courts Opinions

Printed volumes for the Illinois Supreme Court and Illinois Appellate Court have been continuously published since 1831. Official citations to the printed opinions has been  required.

Opinions of these courts  have been available online on the judiciary's website since 1996. But this rule prevented citation to the online versions and necessitated the continued production of printed volumes of the opinions.

This will change on July 1, 2001, when a new method of citation to the online opinions becomes official. This will also make the printed volumes unnecessary for providing an official citation. The state plans to end the contract for printing these volumes on July 31, 2011.

Given the dire budgetary condition of the state government, the main motivator for making the citation changes and no longer publishing physical volumes, probably is a financial one.

But also, a public citation system has been recommended by the American Association of Law libraries since 1994. The American Bar Association endorsed this recommendation in 1995. Such a system removes the dependence on commercially published opinions to provide the needed citation information. Of course, attorneys are still free to also provide parallel citations to West print reporter series.

"The changes are contained in amendments to Supreme Court Rules 6 and 23. These changes direct the Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Appellate Court to assign at the time of filing a public-domain case designator number, as well as internal paragraph numbers to all opinions and Rule 23 orders filed after July 1, 2011."

"An example of a Supreme Court citation under the new system would look like this: People v Doe, 2011 IL 102345, ¶15. This shows the name of the case, 2011 as the year of decision, the Illinois Supreme Court as the court of decision, 102345 as the court-assigned identifier number which is the docket number of the case and a pinpoint reference to the 15th paragraph in the opinion."

"An example of an Appellate Court decision from the Third Judicial District would look like this: People v. Doe, 2011 IL App (3d), 101234, ¶15. In the Appellate Court, the unique identifier number would consist of the last six digits of the docket number."

Illinois joins over a dozen states that have adopted a vendor neutral citation that depends on characteristics that are inherent in the opinions of the courts and not on the publications of private publishers.

 

State Laws "On the Run"... Mobile Apps, That Is.

Whether you are a fugitive crossing state lines or an attorney or law student who needs quick access to the texts of the laws of a particular state, the developer Tekk Innovations LLC, has the apps you need for your IPhone, IPod Touch & iPad.

Tekk, a small technology firm in Mountain View, California, provides apps for about a dozen states: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Misourri, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Washington. Comprehensive compilations ( e.g. laws, statutes, codes etc.) are priced at $29.99. Topical collections and rules ( e.g. Family Code, Rules of Evidence, Criminal Procedure) seem to be priced between $5.99 & $9.99. The collections are both browseable and searchable.

A posting from, "iPhone J.D.",a site for lawyers using iPhones and iPads published by Jeff Richardson, an attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana, provides a detailed description of these capabilities:

“The app contains a standard browse feature.  The main page of the app lists all of the titles.  Tap a title to see a list of chapters within that title, tap a chapter to see a list of sections within the chapter, and tap the title of the section to see the text of the section.”

“The app also has a very helpful search feature.  There is a search box at the top of every screen that has an information button (every screen except for a screen containing the text of a statute).  If you type multiple search terms, the app will look for every section containing all of the terms.  If you put a phrase in quotes, the app will find every statute containing the exact phrase.  You can use "OR" to find statutes containing either one term or another term.  You can choose to search either the full text of the statutes or just the headers.  The app shows you a list of the matches underneath the title and chapter (so that you have the full context of where the match was found), and when you tap one you will see the text of the statute with your search terms highlighted in yellow.  If there is only one match, the list appears only for a fraction of a second and then the app brings you directly to the match.”

In addtion to these Tekk Innovation mobile apps, you can find many more legally oriented apps at HypoJustice.com .  They claim to have compiled a very comprehensive list of law iPhone apps for lawyers and law students.  They say that it is by no means all inclusive, but it gives law students and lawyers a roadmap to where and what to look for. Follow this link .

( Hat Tip to Director Allen Moye )

Long-awaited GPO-PACER Pilot Project Approved

A May 4th press release from the US Courts, announced the approval by the Joint Committee on Printing of a pilot project, approved by The Judicial Conference of the US a year ago. It is intended to make a portion of PACER online court opinions available for free via the Government Printing Office’s new  online digital system, FDsys.

The project initially was to include only opinions from 12 courts but the recent release indicates that there will be opinions from 30 additional courts to be made available.

A previous posting on this blog back in September  2010, “New PACER/GPO Pilot Project Continues to Raise Questions”, questioned whether the original number could provide a valid reading of the demand for court opinions via the GPO’s digital system. The addition of additional courts certainly helps lessen this shortcoming. This pilot also is accessible to any internet user unlike the very first pilot which was limited to users at 17 physical libraries.

The US courts through their PACER online system have made efforts to make appellate and district court opinions more freely accessible. All court opinions are available through PACER free of charge, and that will not change. However to use PACER, users must create an account that includes billing information. This may still constitute a barrier for many users.

The free access to opinions does not also apply to much of the content on the PACER service which is the detailed docket information for the court cases filed. [“PACER includes case and docket information for all district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts. PACER currently hosts 500 million case file documents. These are available immediately after they have been electronically filed.”]

However, in an attempt to reduce costs for low volume users, PACER provides a $10 fee waiver. The courts say that “In fiscal year 2009, about 153,000 PACER account holders—nearly half of all active accounts— did not receive a bill.” Also, if users can go to a federal courthouse, they can access the docket information for free but must pay tens-a-page for printouts .

 These measures do help to lower the so-called “paywall” that the US courts administer under the legislation that created the PACER service. However, final court opinions should be considered public information that should be freely available to the public that is expected to be aware of the law that they will be held accountable to.

Hopefully, after the one year run of the current pilot, the courts will decide to broaden  the availability of these opinions via GPO, to all the federal courts. The administrative burden for both the courts and public users alike could be substantially reduced by such an arrangement.  Users would not have to establish accounts nor provide billing information to get no-fee access to what PACER is already not charging for. This could  be a partnership with multiple winners.

Controversial Consumer Products Safety Database Implemented Last Month

SaferProducts.gov, a new governemnt database administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) launched last month. It provides for receiving consumer complaints of harm related to the use of consumer products and posting vetted information on the agency's web site. The web site also provides a separate form for businesses to enter reports of product hazards.

The impetus for it's creation came after a series of product recalls in 2007, especially of dangersous toys imported from China. Before the SaferProducts .com consumers had to file FOIA (freedom of Information) request to get early information re. reports of hazardous products unless the commision had issued a report on the product. Frequently, too much time passed and further injuries occured under this arrangement.

The law (P.L 110-314) requires that the database be publically available, searchable and accessible through the CPSC's website. It also includes several procedural safeguards to foster accuracy and balance in the published information between consumers and the businesses providing the products.

This is a  summary of how the incoming complaints are handled :

"...The CPSC has up to 5 days to review a report to ensure that it does not offer materially inaccurate or insubstantial information. If the report is adequate, the CPSC will refer the report to the product’s manufacturer. The manufacturer then has 10 days to address the complaint and, if it chooses, can post its response in the database."

"After this review process, the original consumer complaint and any manufacturer response is made public online. Information about mandatory or voluntary recalls of the product will also appear in the database. CPSC has said that submitted reports will not become public if they are incomplete, “materially inaccurate,” or expose confidential information. Reports submitted anonymously will also not be made public."

Legislative challenges to the database have been mounted by legislators like Representative Barton of Texas who claimed that:   ( Page: H1321 )

"...According to the staff proposal, if the Commission cannot complete its review within 10 days, it would publish the information and remove it at a later date if warranted at the conclusion of its investigation. This process would provide little or no protection for confidential information and will encourage the publication of inaccurate and misleading information. Once the information is public, competitors can learn trade secrets and media can disseminate materially inaccurate information with little hope that the error could be rectified in the future. Congress did not intend such a result, ..."                    (in a letter dated November 23, 2010, sent to the chairman of the  CPSC )

However, the law itself that was the result of a House/ Senate conference committee, allows for the possibility of posted information being corrected after the fact.

A section of the law states : ‘‘(B) INACCURATE INFORMATION IN DATABASE.—If the Commission determines, after investigation, that information previously made available in the database is materially inaccurate or duplicative of information in the database,the Commission shall, not later than 7 business days aftersuch determination — ‘‘(i) remove such information from the database; ‘‘(ii) correct such information; or ‘‘(iii) add information to correct inaccurate information in the database."

The law also makes it clear that complete accuracy cannot be guanteed, another part of the law states :
‘‘(5) NOTICE REQUIREMENTS.—The Commission shall provide clear and conspicuous notice to users of the database that the Commission does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness,or adequacy of the contents of the database."

So it appears that Congress as a whole, through it's conference committee, did not see these potential correctable errors, as a reason not to go forward with the database as designed, to favor timely warning to consumers, even at a temporary cost to the affected businesses.

The law also requires an annual report to the relevant congressional committees and an assesment by the Government Accontability Office (GAO) after two years of the launch of the SaferProducts.gov database. We will have to see whether that assessment either blunts or increases the attempts to unfund the database.

Consumer complaint link

Business report of hazards link