Marilyn,
I use PACER too much :)
An excellent PACER question, so I thought I would CC the group.
Free opinions through PACER are not retro. Meaning the only free
opinions available are the opinions that were handed down after the rule
was enacted and each court's software was updated.
For example, you will only get access to free US District Court opinions
after the E-Government Act of 2002 was put in place, AND the particular
court you are searching began using CM/ECF version 2.4. So it makes a
difference what the date of the opinion is you are searching for.
Also, when you search this way using CM/ECF Reports, you only get to
search "Written Opinions". The definition of Written Opinions sometimes
comes into play.
'Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as "any
document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that
capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's
decision." The responsibility for determining which documents meet this
definition rests with the authoring judge.'
I suspect these two issues can cause an unexpected lack of results,
Paul
Paul M. Bush
Electronic Services Analyst
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
http://www.FriedFrank.com
Founder & Manager
Legal Dockets Online
http://www.LegalDockets.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On
Behalf Of Marilyn Bromley
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 2:45 PM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Cc: Karen Silber
Subject: pacer question
Dear law-libbers,
One of our legal editors sent me the following today, and he tells me
this has been happening alot lately:
"Written opinions are supposed to be free (Congress so
dictated) on PACER. But ...
You search the written opinions query, it says there are none (free) -
then you go to the docket (I already KNOW there is a decision - that is
why I am here!) and voila!
There is an entry, a highlighted link, which, when you click on it,
brings up the case which, if you pay for it is up to $2.40 each."
It seems to me that if there is a written opinion, he should be finding
it when he does a search for it, and not have to go into the docket, and
then pay for it there. Am I missing something here? (I don't use PACER
much).
thanks for any insight....
Marilyn Bromley
BNA Library
mbromley@bna.com
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