to: smtp=law-lib@ucdavis.edu
CROSS POSTED to STATECOURTCOUNTYLAWLIB-L, apologies for duplication.
Thanks to all the State/Court law librarians who responded to my question
about retention of trial transcripts. In brief, I got responses from 13
states and Australia. Only New Hampshire said that they collected the full
trial transcripts, which they image for storage. (We in Minnesota just box
them.) Many libraries receive portions of transcripts as part of the
records and briefs which they house, retain, and make accessible to users.
(Minnesota does this also.) Listed below are the full responses.
Barbara Golden___________________Phone: 612-297-2087
Minnesota State Law Library_________FAX : 612-296-6740
25 Constitution Avenue_____________TDD: 612-282-5352
St. Paul, MN 55155-6102________barb.golden@courts.state.mn.us
Arkansas--We do not collect any transcripts. They are all archived in
various places by the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Clerk's Office.
They are in the same building, therefore we have access if we need it.
Connecticut--If you mean the literal transcription of oral arguments before
the court (presumably the lower court?), we never see those.
Illinois--In Illinois the library does not, and never has as far I as I can
tell, collected transcripts of cases appealed to the Supreme Court. This
may be because we are in the same building, and only one floor above the
Clerk's office where this information is retained.
Louisiana--No
Maryland--The Md. State Law Library receives all briefs of "reported cases"
from our two appellate courts. In addition to these briefs, we also receive
Record Extracts for approx. 65% of these cases. If by transcript you are
referring to these record extracts, yes we receive and microfiche them.
They are not full transcripts, just partial records of the full transcript.
The original trial record is retained by the appellate court for a time and
then returned to the county court of origin. Eventually, these full trial
transcripts will be archived in the Md. State Archives.
Massachusetts--None of the Massachusetts Trial Court Law libraries keep
transcripts.
The place that they probably are kept, if at all, is in the Clerk's Offices
of the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court.
New Hampshire--The New Hampshire Law Library is in the Supreme Court
Building. Also, New Hampshire has no intermediate appellate court, only the
Supreme Court.
Since the early 1970s, the Law Library has been responsible for ALL of the
transcripts sent to us by the Supreme Court. My understanding as to the
whys of this arrangement: the Law Library had the space, and the Court did
not wish to organize them. The Court has undertaken an imaging project
whereby copies of the briefs and transcripts are being imaged. As they are
imaged, the folks are throwing out the paper copies, thereby saving space.
Of course, we have no public machine to read the imaged copies yet! As to
use of the transcipts, they are used. They are the only copy retained
anywheres! So, we have folks from the attorney general's office using
them, attorneys, researchers, etc. I would say we use them about 1 - 2 a
month, some months more, others less. I would prefer that the Court kept
them, but no such luck. Our goal is to image as we go along, so only the
most current materials will be available in paper.
New York--No to full transcripts; only the Record & Briefs.
North Dakota--We do not keep/collect transcripts. The clerk's office
receives the transcripts on appealed cases and her office keeps them; if we
need one (I don't recall that happening in the two years I've been here- but
then attorneys probably know the clerk's office has them) we can get them
from her office. Our situation is somewhat different in that we do not have
an active intermediate court- all cases come directly from the trial court
to the Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania--In Pennsylvania the Supreme Court is sending copies of briefs
and some transcripts(records) with the briefs to the State Library, Jenkins
Law Library, and Allegheny County. Some of the law schools also receive
briefs but I do not know if the records are always with them. In fact,
Jenkins and myself do not always get the same briefs and/or transcripts.
There probably is a 10% difference in what we both receive. Presently,
Jenkins sends its briefs to Court Reporting Service (CRS), competitor to CIS
for U.S. Supreme Court briefs, to microfiche and we get charged on a per
fiche basis.
Washington--The Washington State Law Library does not collect transcripts;
we do,
however, collect, bind and retain the briefs for the Supreme Court and for
published opinions of the Court of Appeals. Copies of filed transcripts are
available from the Clerk of Court initially or from the State Records
Center, according to the retention schedule for documents that the Court has
set up. We receive copies of the briefs under court rule (RAP 10.5).
Wisconsin--No, the Clerk of Courts sells audiotapes.
Wyoming--No
Australia--We don't collect transcripts. They are kept elsewhere in the
court.
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