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Molly White

from the excellent @SeamusHughes and his Court Watch newsletter, to which you should definitely subscribe

seamushughes.substack.com/

However before the Joy to the Judicial World, we must start off a bit melancholy. The U.S. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided a bill to make PACER free (and thus saving 14 million dollars) had no place in a $1.7 trillion dollar budget. Long time readers (e.g., a month and a half), will recall Court Watch has a strong disdain for court fees. As we’ve said in the past, our PACER fees could fund a coup in a small country. We support a free PACER system. Alas that’s not the only thing preventing transparency of the judiciary branch. Listen, we’re all for a federal court records system that allows the public to access its records without fees. But the long and the short of it is that even with a completely free record system, PACER would still be a labyrinth. The 94 districts all have their own local quirks and rules. In some districts, everything is automatically unsealed in 90 days. In others, 180 days. In most others, unsealing is but by the whim and mood of an underpaid and occas
Even with free access, it doesn’t change that every court is run like a chief judge fiefdom with each having different black robe royal decree rules. Also, there is no uniformity on how they file things in each district. If I’m on the east coast, new cases are tagged as ‘mj’. In the midwest, it’s likely to be ‘mc’. If none of those acronyms make sense, then you’re both much cooler than us and also proving our point that a free PACER system solves the immediate problem of access but the lack of uniformity on filing standards ultimately stymies true public understanding of the courts.
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Matt Boyd

@molly0xfff I have a weird perspective on this, because I work for a company that spends enormous sums on public court document downloads and then makes a profit off of them. We're totally fine with this arrangement and would be happy to have it be free to the public but still cost us money, somehow.

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Matt Boyd

@molly0xfff (The "somehow" would be pretty straightforward, actually. Please charge us to use some API where we could get documents in bulk instead of having to go through the janky website.)

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