If you look back at my original statement, I was really only concerned
with the Courtlink option to search federal cases, by a specific Judge
that were still listed as "Active" when they, in fact, were not. I'm
glad to report that Courtlink has been very responsive to my posting and
I'm meeting with some of their representatives about the issue soon. It
was refreshing to get such a quick reply. I'll keep the list posted
about where we get with this.
Greg
Greg Weyant
Library Director
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP
One Penn Center
1617 JFK Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Ph (215) 665-3181
Fax (215) 665-3165
e-mail: gregory.weyant@obermayer.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On
Behalf Of Dooley, Cate
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 3:14 PM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: RE: Notice: Courtlink Glitch with Active/Closed cases
I can understand being upset with CourtLink over this if you haven't had
a trainer in for a while. I've never been to a CourtLink training
session where they didn't point out that the dockets are not updated
until you request an update. Why update all the cases that are out
there every night when I'm betting very few are actually looked at. It
doesn't seem practical and they would end up passing those costs back to
the end user and eventually jacking the costs up for all of us. Plus,
the way the system is now, it indicates when a docket was last updated
and gives you the option to pay the extra cost to update it. If it's a
hot case then the docket will probably be current already. I spoke with
my Rep and found out they are re-visiting the idea of updating dockets
more often and seriously looking at what costs would be involved. I
personally find that is only an issue for the attorneys themselves who
haven't had FULL CourtLink training where they would have been told
about the cost effectiveness of only updating the dockets when needed.
Attorneys look at the bottom line and if we save them money, they are
happy. 90% of the time they just want to know if a case has been filed
against a client or by a competitor. Besides that, CourtLink always
gives you an updated docket when you "Track" a docket.
I had my doubts about CourtLink along the way, using every other service
available but every time I went to our rep, she listened, as I'm sure
they'll listen if you talk to them about how you feel about the updates.
I think CourtLink has evolved to be a full service Court Document
Service, especially with their document retrieval system. They are
competitive with their pricing and they've always looked for a less
expensive way to retrieve the documents I need via their professional
connections.
Cate Dooley
Online Research Specialist
Library & Research Services
Duane Morris LLP
United Plaza \ 30 South 17th Street \ Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-979-1723 \ Fax: 215-979-1020 \ dooley@duanemorris.com
"Connecting People & Information"
________________________________
Greg,
I use Courtlink on a daily basis, and indeed, this is a big problem with
this service. The fact that the dockets in their database aren't all
current ( or even close) can skew a number of types of Courtlink
searches. For example, if you are searching for patent cases with the
words "Summary Judgment" in the docket, if a docket wasn't updated in
the last 6 months it is not going to be picked up if summary judgment
was granted a month ago. I know Courtlink is aware of this, but I don't
know if they have the ability --or if it is cost-effective for them --
to update every federal docket in their database on a daily basis.
Jim
Jim DiNatale
Senior Research Analyst
Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky LLP Washington, D.C. 20037
202.955.6643
________________________________
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu
<mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu> ] On Behalf Of Weyant, Gregory
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 11:26 AM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Notice: Courtlink Glitch with Active/Closed cases
Sorry for this rant but I had a recent experience with Courtlink that I
thought warranted a posting. The need was to be able to get a list of
active cases being heard by a certain federal judge. As PACER won't let
you do this, we went to Courtlink. I was walked through the process by
the rep over the phone who indicated that this was possible to do with
an option that let me choose Active/Closed cases (at least with federal
cases).
So we got our extremely long result list of supposed "active" cases from
Courtlink. As this list looked way too big to be accurate, we started
checking the cases one by one through PACER. Through the first 30 on the
list of supposed active cases, 28 were in fact closed. The method of how
Courtlink pulls dockets when you search like this is that you're only
seeing the status of the case the last time it was updated through
Courtlink (a snapshot at the time if you will). By Courtlink having this
option to search by active or closed, I think it's very misleading to
the user as they think they're getting updated information when it is
not and can't be by the way they collect it.
Bottom line, had I relied on the info and given it to the atty to take
to court I would (at very least ) have gotten an earful from the
partner. I've spoken with my Courtlink rep about as he's been helpful
and we'll see where we get but Courtlink shouldn't claim that their
database can perform this function (are there others?) when they know
that the results will obviously be way off given they way they collect
their data. They should take active/closed option off of their site.
Might seem kind of nitpicky but when we rely on these databases for
accuracy, you get a little miffed when a situation like this comes
along.
Greg Weyant
Library Director
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP
One Penn Center
1617 JFK Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Ph (215) 665-3181
Fax (215) 665-3165
e-mail: gregory.weyant@obermayer.com
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