From the Chicago Tribune:
Six finalists from a field of 11 applicants have been selected to fill a pending vacancy on a federal appeals court which handles appeals from Wisconsin and other states. Two of the six finalists are UW-Madison law professors Anuj Desai and Victoria Nourse. Read the article for the full list.
Wow - big news last night from Google: Free case law is now available in Google Scholar!
There isn't much description yet from Google, but Internet For Lawyers has a nice run down of the features. Here are some highlights:
Coverage of the database:
Go to the Advanced Search page to limit results to:
Google Scholar includes the full text of the returned case and links to other cases cited in the returned case.
As cool as this is, remember that free is free and this isn't Westlaw or Lexis. There will be inadequacies of the search and coverage of the database. According to the 2009 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report "respondents are significantly more satisfied with the characteristics of fee-based online legal research resources than they are with those of free online legal research resources."
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Update: 9/23/09
The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin has a good review of the ups and downs of Google Scholar's legal offerings.
There is an interesting story in this week's New York Times about a robbery suspect cleared because of his Facebook alibi.
His defense lawyer, Robert Reuland, told a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, Lindsay Gerdes, about the Facebook entry, which was made at the time of the robbery. The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the words had been typed from a computer at an apartment at 71 West 118th Street in Manhattan, the home of Mr. Bradford's father. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.Source: Fastcase blog"This is the first case that I'm aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence," said John G. Browning, a lawyer in Dallas who studies social networking and the law. "We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become."
From Law.com's Legal Blog Watch:
In United States v. Shelnutt (M.D. Ga. Nov. 2), a federal court in Georgia ruled that Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure prohibits "tweeting" from the courtroom and that Rule 53 does not unconstitutionally restrict freedom of the press....Source: Ross Blakley Law Library BlogThe immediate result of the court's decision is to reject a request from a reporter for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that he be allowed to use his BlackBerry during the Shellnutt criminal case in order to send updates to his newspaper's Twitter feed.
From Wired Magazine:
Arizona's Supreme Court, in a surprising but welcome ruling, has declared that electronic metadata is part of the public record under state law, in a case involving an Arizona police officer who suspects his superiors of backdating a document related to his work performance....The city argued that metadata -- digital information that can reveal when a document was created and subsequently accessed or modified -- was not part of the public record..... But the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that "if a public entity maintains a public record in an electronic format, then the electronic version, including any embedded metadata, is subject to disclosure under our public records laws."
Hat tip to Steve Miller, Chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau
From Federal Evidence Review:
Internet chatroom conversations about having sex with minors was admissible to show the defendant's knowledge of the age of his victim and absence of mistake under FRE 404(b); a sufficient showing was made that he made the other chats and not other family members who had access to the computer, in United States v. Zahursky, __ F.3d __ (7th Cir. Sept. 1, 2009) (No. 08-1151)
In an unpublished opinion by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the court imposed a $100 sanction on counsel for a seriously messed up citation. The case is Espitia v. Fouche 314 Wis.2d 507, 758 N.W.2d 224 (Table), 2008 WL 4058057 (Wis.App.), 2008 WI App 160.
FN5. Counsel for Espitia cites to an unpublished case assertedly upholding a stipulated damages clause due to the difficulty of ascertaining "the exact amount of income certain vending machines would produce." The cite provided is " Buellesbach v. Roob, 2005 AP 160 (Ct.App.Dist.I)."Buellesbach indeed is unpublished but it has nothing to do with liquidated damage clauses or vending machines; it is a misrepresentation case brought by newlyweds against a wedding photographer.
Also, "2005 AP 160" is the docket number, which we discovered only after reaching a dead end at 2005 WI App 160, 285 Wis.2d 472, 702 N.W.2d 433.
At last we located the unpublished case that addresses the subject matter for which counsel cited Buellesbach: Stansfield Vending, Inc. v. Osseo Truck Travel Plaza, LLC, 2003 WI App 201, 267 Wis.2d 280, 670 N.W.2d 558. Different name, different citation, different district (District IV) but, as promised, unpublished. [emphasis added]
It is a violation of Wis. Stat. Rule 809.19(1)(e) to provide citations which do not conform to the Uniform System of Citation and of Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(3) to cite to unpublished opinions. One reason may be that they can be time-consuming to locate.
A $100 penalty is imposed against Espitia's counsel. See Hagen v. Gulrud, 151 Wis.2d 1, 8, 442 N.W.2d 570 (Ct.App.1989).
Hat tip to Law Librarian Blog
JSOnline reports that two judges have announced they will leave the state's Court of Appeals in Madison next year: Burnie Bridge and Charles P. Dykman. See the article for more information.
Governor Doyle has announced that he is seeking applicants for appointment as
District IV Court of Appeals Judge.
Source: The Wheeler Report
Yesterday, the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice held a public hearing at the Capital about the proposed bill that would mean big changes for CCAP access. See my earlier post for more info about the Assembly Bill 340.
Today's JSOnline offers a brief run down of the hearing comments from both privacy advocates in favor of the bill and open government advocates who would like to see it defeated.
Video and audio of the full meeting is available on the WisconsinEye website. Although a few other bills were discussed, the vast majority of the meeting focused on the CCAP discussion.
Source: The Wheeler Report
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler was nominated by President Barack Obama Wednesday for a federal judgeship.He is being nominated to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Wisconsin. He would replace U.S. District Judge John Shabaz, who took senior status in January.
Butler is currently the justice-in-residence lecturer here at the UW Law School.
As I reported earlier on WisBlawg, there is a bill being considered in the Wisconsin legislature that could mean some pretty big changes for CCAP access.
Tony Chan, Chair of the Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin Government Relations Committee offers the following summary about the changes and an alert about an upcoming public hearing on the matter.
On July 8, 2009, Representatives Schneider, Kessler and A. Williams introduced AB 340, a bill to restrict access to and limiting information contained in the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) and providing a penalty. See History of AB 340.Under this bill, the director of state courts may only provide case information on CCAP after a court does one of the following:
1) makes a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal charge;
2) makes a finding that a person is liable in a civil matter;
3) orders a person to be evicted; or
4) issues a restraining order or an injunction against a person.
In addition, this bill:
1) allows free access to CCAP to Wisconsin judges or other court officials, law enforcement personnel, attorneys, and accredited journalists;
2) allows access to CCAP information to any other person who pays a $10 annual fee and registers his or her name and address with the director of state courts;
3) requires the director of state courts to keep a registry and log of each user who pays the annual fee that records the searches each user performs.
Under the bill:
1) if a user searches for a person's name on CCAP and subsequently denies the person employment, housing, or another public accommodation, the user must inform the person that he or she searched for the person's record on CCAP. A user who fails to do so may be fined $1,000.
2) upon the written request of a person whose case information is currently available on CCAP, the director of state courts must remove any information relating to a case that did not result in a finding of criminal guilt or civil liability, an order of eviction, or the issuance of a restraining order against the person.
A public hearing will be held on Thursday, October 1, 2009, 10:15 AM (or upon adjournment of the Executive Session) at 328 Northwest State Capitol.
See
MJS editorial regarding this bill
Big Money Blog comments
Legal professionals often need to access court documents and case information, but knowing where to find them most efficiently and cost effectively isn't always easy. There several services that provide access to recent court documents - some free and some fee based.
The following is a run-down of available services of which I am aware. If you know of of any others, please share them in the comments.
Federal Courts
PACER (http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov) -
Most recent federal court documents are available via the PACER system. Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts. However, users must pay a fee to access PACER - much to the consternation of those who believe that government information should be free.
Free public access to PACER is currently provided in Federal courthouses (see the clerk of courts). Note that the Western Dist of WI charges 50 cents per page for printing. If you wish to set up your own account, note that PACER waives the first $10 of annual costs for each registered user.
FreeCourtDockets (http://freecourtdockets.com) - FreeCourtDockets is a new, free service which allows anyone to retrieve federal civil, criminal, and bankruptcy court dockets. The site is the product of Courtport LLC, but is ad-sponsored. No PACER account is required to view the dockets, but if you wish to view the filings for a case, a PACER account is needed. To retrieve all court dockets except U.S. Supreme cases, you must first obtain an invitation code. To request a free code, you'll need to complete a form on the FreeCourtDockets website.
Justia Federal District Court Filings and Dockets (http://dockets.justia.com) - Justia contains case information from the Federal District Courts. Some cases also include opinions, orders, and other filings.
RECAP (https://www.recapthelaw.org/) - While RECAP isn't technically a tool for locating court documents, it is a useful PACER add-on for Firefox users. Essentially what RECAP does is archive the documents that you view in PACER and then make them available to other RECAP users at no charge. For a glimpse of RECAP in action, watch the short video available on their website. See the features page for more information.
Wisconsin Courts
CCAP (http://www.wicourts.gov/casesearch.htm) Wisconsin uses the CCAP system which contains civil and criminal case information and status reports compiled through the court's Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) case management system. While you'll find case information and dockets in CCAP, the actual documents filed in the case are generally not available, except for briefs filed on or after July 1, 2009.
Wisconsin Briefs (http://library.law.wisc.edu/eresources/wibriefs/) - For briefs filed before July 2009, try the Wisconsin Briefs database hosted by the UW Law Library. Currently, it contains briefs for Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals published and unpublished cases from 173 Wis.2d (November 1992) through approximately 12-18 months ago.
State and Federal Courts
Westlaw (http://lawschool.westlaw.com) - Westlaw makes accessing court documents very easy. Often at the end of an opinion you'll see links to the briefs and other documents filed in the case. There are also several databases in Westlaw in which you can search for documents directly.
LexisNexis (http://lawschool.lexis.com) - LexisNexis also has several databases containing federal and state court documents. However, it doesn't appear to display links to the documents directly with the opinion as Westlaw does. [LexisNexis users: if I'm wrong about this, let me know]
Westlaw CourtExpress (http://courtexpress.westlaw.com) - CourtExpress is a separate Westlaw product, although you should be able to access it with your regular Westlaw password. It contains state and federal dockets and some filed documents. CourtExpress offers some sophisticated search options, such as jurisdiction, keyword, nature of suit, party name, attorney or judge, date, and more. You can also set up alerts to monitor new cases or track filings in a specific case.
So what happens if you try all these services and still can't find what you need?
If the documents aren't available electronically (which frequently happens with older cases), you may need to contact the clerk of courts to obtain the documents. Note that courts generally charge a fee for document delivery.
From Tech Dirt:
Earlier this year, we wrote about a woman named Beverly Stayart, who had sued Yahoo over what she found when she did a search on her name. Her complaint was that some of the links advertised porn sites and possibly contained malware, and that this was a violation of her trademark and privacy rights.....Earlier this week, the court dismissed the lawsuit against Yahoo and denied Stayart's request to refile. The court had trouble with the idea that this was a trademark claim, noting that just because she does not like how her name is shown, it does not create a trademark violation
On September 22nd, the U.S. Postal Service will be dedicating four 44-cent stamps honoring Supreme Court justices Joseph Story, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and William Brennan Jr.
Source: Et Seq.
There is a very interesting article in the latest InsideTrack regarding a case pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court on "whether the public's right to know what its government is up to extends to reading the personal emails government employees sent from work."
The case involves a public records request sent by a citizen to the Wisconsin Rapids School District seeking emails "from the computer [the teachers] use during their school work day" from March 1, 2007 through April 13, 2007. The school district made the decision to release the emails; several teachers objected to the release of purely personal emails that did not relate to the school district or to any official acts of government.
According the the article, "the supreme court accepted the teachers' appeal after the Wisconsin Court of Appeals certified the case in April. The teachers seek reversal of the circuit court decision and an order to enjoin the school district from releasing their personal emails."
To assist attorneys who are now required to submit electronic copies of briefs and other documents when litigating matters at the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Wisconsin State Law Library is offering a class entitled, E-filing: Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
The class will be held Tuesday, Sept. 22, 9:30 - 10:30 a.m. at the Wisconsin State Law Library.
In this one-hour session, David Schanker, Clerk of Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, will explain the new rule and provide technical guidance on how to create and file electronic documents. This is an opportunity for attorneys and legal assistants to gain practical skills and an understanding of the new e-filing requirements.Source: WSLL @ Your ServiceCost: $35.00. 1 CLE credit applied for. Registration is limited to 20. Pre-Register Online | Print Registration Form
From the PACER Service Center:
The Federal Judiciary has undertaken a year-long, comprehensive program assessment. The goal of the assessment is to identify potential enhancements to existing services and new public access services that could be provided. We are gathering information through focus groups, interviews, and surveys. Please be aware you may be solicited about your views about PACER and our services with an eye towards what you, the customer, would like to see in the future.
If you have any questions about this assessment, please contact the PACER Service Center at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov.
I'm excited about a new Firefox add on called RECAP that "improves the experience of using PACER, the electronic public access system for the U.S. Federal District and Bankruptcy Courts."
According to the website, RECAP:
For a glimpse of RECAP in action, I highly recommend that you watch the short video available on their website. See the features page for more information.
RECAP is a project of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. The RECAP repository is hosted by the Internet Archive and they already working with Justia and public.resource.org to integrate the public records they already have into the RECAP archive.
Hat tip to Erika Wayne via the ALL-SIS listserv.
The Volokh Conspiracy examines the question of whether Lexis and Westlaw infringe copyright when they post briefs filed in court.
The argument for infringement is actually moderately strong. Like most other documents, briefs are protected by copyright the moment they are written. The fact that they're filed in court doesn't waive any copyright. Lexis and Westlaw's distribution of the briefs is thus presumptively copyright infringement.
Nicholas from Justia just let me know that case number searching is now available on Justia's Docket Search. He was responding to an earlier WisBlawg post which indicated that case number searching was not available.
His comment appears below:
I just wanted to make one slight comment on Justia having no case number searching. Actually we do. We haven't documented it yet, but if you put a case number in the #:####cv##### format (4 digit year, no hyphens) into the Party Search, it will search for a case by case number.For an example, here is a search of the Western Washington District Court for case number 2:2009cv0108 which is the recent Amazon case.
In response to rising demand and rising cost, FreeCourtDockets has set a limit on the number of free dockets that users can obtain daily.
From a recent email:
The word has been quickly spreading about FreeCourtDockets, many people have been granted invite codes, and our costs have quickly risen. To manage these costs we have been forced to implement a limit on how much docket data a person can obtain in a single day.Pacer charges us eight cents per page with a cap of $2.40 for dockets. We have made your daily limit $2.40. This means you can obtain $2.40 worth of dockets from us for free every day. This could be one 200 page docket, 30 one page dockets, etc. This does not apply to U.S. Supreme Court Dockets--there is no limit on the amount of dockets you can retrieve.
From The Third Branch, newsletter of the Federal Courts:
The Judicial Conference has issued a series of "suggested practices" to assist courts in the use of Internet materials in opinions. The recommendations follow a pilot project conducted by circuit librarians who captured and preserved webpages cited in opinions over a six-month period....In approving those recommendations in March 2009, the Judicial Conference agreed that all Internet materials cited in final opinions be considered for preservation, while each judge should retain the discretion to decide whether the specific cited resource should be captured and preserved....
The guidelines suggest that, if a webpage is cited, chambers staff preserve the citation by downloading a copy of the site's page and filing it as an attachment to the judicial opinion in the Judiciary's Case Management/Electronic Case Files System. The attachment, like the opinion, would be retrievable on a non-fee basis through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system....
The Judicial Conference also recommended that the Judiciary avoid including in final opinions working hyperlinks that lead directly to materials contained within commercial vendor databases to prevent a stated or implied endorsement or preferential treatment. To the extent that a court determines that such hyperlinks are to be used in opinions, it is recommended that an appropriate disclaimer be provided.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has created Chapter 14 of the Supreme Court Rules, establishing the Access to Justice Commission.
The Wisconsin Lawyer has a copy of the full order. From the Creation and Purpose section (SCR 14.02):
(1) In order to aid the courts in improving the administration of justice by supporting civil legal services to those who cannot afford them, the State bar shall create an Access to Justice Commission.
(2) The mission of the Commission is to develop and encourage means of expanding access to the civil justice system for unrepresented low income Wisconsin residents.
An earlier article from the State Bar has more information about the Commission.
Thanks to my colleague, Jenny Zook for sharing this with me.
"Attorneys and the public can also freely access appellate briefs online" reports the Wisconsin Law Journal in an article on status of the new electronic filing system for Wisconsin's appellate courts.
While [Wisconsin Supreme Court Clerk of Court David R.] Schanker conceded that the new rules are designed to be more "user-friendly" for judges, he noted that attorneys and the public can also freely access appellate briefs online."If the lawyer is registered in the system, he or she can go in and look at briefs and other documents," Schanker said.
Attorneys who aren't registered and the general public can access briefs through the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Access (WSCCA) Web site (http://www.wicourts.gov/) .
A commenter to the WLJ article, quotes from an article Schanker wrote in the State Bar Appellate Practice newsletter (republished in InsideTrack):
Text Search of E-Filed Briefs.E-filed briefs will now be available to the public through the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Case Access (WSCCA) case search. In the past, users were able to view the opinions in disposed-of cases on WSCCA, but users will now be able to view briefs as they are filed.
In addition, the new "Document Search" feature (on the right side of the banner at the top of the screen) allows users to enter a word or phrase and search the entire database of e-filed briefs. The search will retrieve a list of all briefs containing the word or phrase, and each brief can be viewed and searched.
Wow - somehow I'd missed this in the e-filing announcements. I see now that there is indeed a new "Document Search" link at the top of the WSCCA CCAP page. Here's a screen shot of the search page:
And here is one showing the search results:
Briefs filed on or after July 1, 2009 are available in CCAP in text-searchable format. And don't forget that older briefs (filed from November 1992 onward) are available on our University of Wisconsin Law Library web site in scanned form.
From the U.S. Courts Newsroom:
A recent publication discusses the importance of federal judges' papers as a documentary record of their careers and the work of the federal courts.A Guide to the Preservation of Federal Judges' Papers was first published in 1996 and has proved to be one of the most frequently requested publications from the Federal Judicial Center's History Office. Many judicial biographies and court histories rely on the collections of judicial papers that federal judges donate to research libraries and archives. From these scholarly works come the educational materials that contribute to public understanding of the federal judiciary. This guide is designed to help judges when they are considering the historical value of their chambers papers and selecting a repository for donation of their personal records.
Wisconsin Assembly Bill 340, introduced yesterday, could mean some big changes for CCAP. The bill would limit what information is made accessible and when, and it would require many users to register and pay an annual fee.
From the LRB analysis section of the bill:
The information on CCAP is available for free on an Internet Web site. The Web site has no limitations on who has access to the information, although information in certain types of cases is not available to the public. CCAP allows a user to search for all civil and criminal cases in which a person or entity, who is the subject of the search, has been a party...Under this bill, the director of state courts may only provide case information on CCAP after a court does one of the following: 1) makes a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal charge; 2) makes a finding that a person is liable in a civil matter; 3) orders a person to be evicted; or 4) issues a restraining order or an injunction against a person.
The bill allows free access to CCAP to Wisconsin judges or other court officials, law enforcement personnel, attorneys, and accredited journalists. The bill allows access to CCAP information to any other person who pays a $10 annual fee and registers his or her name and address with the director of state courts. The bill requires the director of state courts to keep a registry and log of each user who pays the annual fee that records the searches each user performs. Under the bill, if a user searches for a person's name on CCAP and subsequently denies the person employment, housing, or another public accommodation, the user must inform the person that he or she searched for the person's record on CCAP. A user who fails to do so may be fined $1,000.
Under the bill, upon the written request of a person whose case information is currently available on CCAP, the director of state courts must remove any information relating to a case that did not result in a finding of criminal guilt or civil liability, an order of eviction, or the issuance of a restraining order against the person.
In response to numerous questions, FreeCourtDockets answers the question "Who are we and why are we giving away Pacer dockets for free?"
From an email that I received yesterday:
FreeCourtDockets is maintained by Courtport, LLC. We feel federal court dockets, like other public records should be free and freely available via the Internet. While others fight with the government on this issue, we are trying a faster route using an ad-supported model.We can't do this without your help. As you are probably aware Google ads do not generate a lot of revenue, and the ads can be ugly and less than useful sometimes. We are seeking reputable, quality advertisers and sponsors to help pay our pacer bills. We also accept donations--no amount is too big or too small. If you are interested in advertising, sponsoring or donating, or know someone who might be, please contact us.
As I suspected, this explains the extreme amount of ads. But, I can live with the ads when the content is free.
Beginning today, July 1, 2009, Wisconsin attorneys must electronically file a copy of all appellate briefs, no-merit reports, petitions for review, and responses. For more on these requirements, see Mandatory appellate e-filing begins July 1, 2009 in InsideTrack from the State Bar of Wisconsin.
One thing that the article doesn't mention is that attorneys may include links to cases or statutes cited in their briefs, as long as the source is free. For the full rule, see page five of the Supreme Court Rules regarding electronic filing of documents per the Wisconsin's Court Systems eFiling page. It reads:
Electronic briefs may be enhanced with internal links (such as a table of contents with links to locations in the brief) or external links (links to websites containing the text of cases or statutes cited in the brief). External links in an electronic brief shall not require a password for access to the case or statute. No enhancement to an electronic brief shall alter the text of the brief.
A few months ago I blogged about Jureeka!, noting that it is a Firefox add-on that looks for legal citations in ordinary web pages and turns them into hyperlinks that lead to a free version of the cited source. Pretty handy for web-based research.
But Jureeka! also installs a toolbar in Firefox which allows you to search for source material by legal citation. See the screen shot below.
After you enter in your citation and click "Find by citation" you'll be directed to a page that offers you a link to your desired document, if it is available.
Once you reach the desired website with your source, simply copy the URL at the top and paste into your brief.
Jureeka! is great for quickly locating links to statutes, case law, regulations, federal court rules, international law sources, and more. It has a success rate of around 92%.
For more about this neat tool, including a list of citation types included, see the Jureeka! blog.
Thanks to my colleague, Lynne Gehrke, for helping me recognize this new use for Jureeka!
The Wisconsin Law Journal reports that furloughs for more than 570 non-judicial staff of the Wisconsin court system are on the horizon, but how they will be implemented is yet to be determined.
From the article:
On June 23, Gov. Jim Doyle signed an executive order which calls for employees of state agencies and the University of Wisconsin system to take eight days (64 hours) of unpaid leave during each fiscal year of the next biennium...State court employees are not subject to Doyle's order, noted Radloff, but the budget does cut approximately $1.9 million annually in salaries for non-judicial court staff.
"Basically, the money taken from the budget is the equivalent of the eight days per year," said Radloff, who still expected additional furloughs to be discussed.
Keith Sellen, who oversees the 29 state employees at the Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR), said it is hard to estimate to what extent closing the office for the equivalent of almost two weeks throughout the next biennium would have on efficiency.
"Assuming it's eight [days] for the next two years, it will have some impact," Sellen said.
"It may result in some minor delays, but I'm not sure what percentage of time will be lost."
FreeCourtDockets is a new, free service which allows anyone to retrieve federal civil, criminal, and bankruptcy court dockets, as well as dockets from the US Supreme Court, Court of Claims, and Court of International Trade. The site is the product of Courtport LLC.
No PACER account is required to view the dockets, but if you wish to view the filings for a case, a PACER account is needed. FreeCourtDockets provides direct links to the filings in PACER.
To retrieve all court dockets except U.S. Supreme cases, you must first obtain an invitation code. To request a free code, you'll need to complete a form on the FreeCourtDockets website. Requests are usually answered within twenty four hours.
I received my invitation code this morning and decided to take the service for a spin. The process was cumbersome, but the results were as advertised.
When you first go to http://www.freecourtdockets.com/, you're led through two introduction screens before you even start searching. While this is fine for the first time, I'd rather not have to do this every time. Therefore, in the future, I think I'll probably create my bookmark a few pages in.
The first search page asks you to select a court type: U.S. District Civil or Criminal, U.S. Bankruptcy, U.S. Courts of Appeals, U.S. Appellate (Supreme and Courts of Appeals), U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and U.S. Court of International Trade. You're then prompted to complete a captcha to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer.
I chose U.S. District Civil or Criminal and was taken to a new page in which I was asked to specify a specific jurisdiction. My choice there was the Wisconsin Eastern District Court which took me to another page asking for the docket number and my invitation code. Click count so far: 4.
Note that FreeCourtDockets does not offer name searching capabilities. You can only retrieve dockets when you already know the court and case/docket number. Now, this might be a pretty big stumbling block were it not for Justia's Federal District Court Filings and Dockets search. Justia allows you to search by a combination of case name, jurisdiction, law suit type and date. Its search results offer information about cases filed, including the docket number, but does not offer the full docket itself (very similar to Wisconsin's CCAP).
So, I sauntered over to Justia, did a search for civil rights cases in the Eastern District of Wisconsin and pulled up a docket number. Then I went back to FreeCourtDockets and entered in that docket number, albeit with a bit of format massaging. Then I also entered my invitation code.
Next, I'm directed to a page which asks me to verify the case I want. After doing so, I finally arrive at a case with the case information. Click count at this point: 7. But, still no docket - that requires yet another click.
And I've not yet mentioned that a huge amount of ads appear along with way. Could this be the reason for the cumbersome amount of clicks - so that I'm forced to view as many ads as possible? Perhaps. But, hey, it's free. I'm not complaining too loudly.
But after all those ads and clicks (8 page clicks in all), my patience is finally rewarded with the full docket, much as it looks in PACER. And the links to obtain the filings in PACER are there also.
Where FreeCourtDockets is getting the docket content is unclear. I couldn't find anything on the site that answers that question. But, judging from the obvious visual similarities to PACER, one might suspect that it's coming directly from PACER itself.
How they are able to offer this content for free is also uncertain, but I wonder if that is what all those ads are for. Note that the Help page states that "We will continue to expand our site to include U.S. courts of appeals, docket browsing, and free pdf access when adequate funding is received from sponsors, advertisers, and from your donations."
So is FreeCourtDockets the best thing since sliced bread? No - Justia's search capabilities and ease of use kicks it butt across the playground. But, is it still very useful? Yes - it's the only source I know of for free federal court dockets.
Now if PACER would just pony up and offer its content for free, that would really be something. And could you imagine if there were a product that combined Justia's search capabilities and PACER's content? Ooh, just the thought makes me giddy!
From the Wisconsin Law Journal:
July 1 will be a landmark day in Wisconsin legal history.Starting that day, attorneys will be allowed to cite some unpublished Court of Appeals' opinions. Unpublished but authored opinions issued on July 1 or after can be cited for persuasive, but not precedential, authority. Per curiam opinions and summary dispositions still won't be citable.
Erika Wayne of Stanford Law School has spearheaded a petition to improve PACER and make it more widely available. The PACER service provides on-line access to U.S. Appellate, District, and Bankruptcy court records and documents nationwide.
The petition reads:
We ask the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to improve PACER by enhancing the authenticity, usability and availability of the system.
We the undersigned, urge the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO) to make the following changes to the PACER system:
For verification and reliability, the AO should digitally sign every document put into PACER using readily available technology.
PACER needs to be much more readily accessible if it is to be usable for research, education, and the practice of law. Improved accessibility includes both lowering the costs for using PACER and enhancing the web interfaces.
Depository libraries should also have free access to PACER.
If you would like to sign the petition, you are invited to do so online.
The Third Branch newsletter from the Wisconsin court system has several interesting articles:
Social Media Law Student reviews a recent student note in the Stanford Law Review which claims that blogs can and eventually will influence the Supreme Court.
In Rachel C. Lee's article, she discusses the flaws in the current ethics law to handle this form of ex parte communication with the court. "Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era" is an interesting article. Lee's argument stems from the influence bloggers had on Kennedy v. Louisiana....Lee argues that the current ethical rules are insufficient to properly prevent attorneys from using blogs as an ex parte form of communication with the Court. The note's biggest suggestion is the implementation of a new rule of professional conduct.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinellast week:
The 4th District Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the secret use by police of a GPS tracking device to gather evidence against a Dane County man accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend.But the court also urged the state Legislature to consider regulating police and private use of the technology.
For more news stories on this topic, see Google News.
The Wisconsin Judicial Council has presented petition to the state Supreme Court proposing "amendments to the Wisconsin rules of discovery in direct response to the unavoidable increase in the discovery of electronically stored information."
From the petition:
A key goal of these proposed rule changes is to increase judicial efficiency in the circuit courts by improving consistency and predictability in the discovery of electronically stored information. The proposed rule changes are also intended to reduce the economic burden on litigants that can result from discovery involving an enormous volume of electronically stored information....Source: Milwaukee FederalistsThe proposed amendments contained herein are adapted from the Uniform Rules on the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that students' copyrights were not violated by plagiarism detection service TurnItIn, even though the works were archived.
From ars technica:
The federal decision (PDF) reads like a primer on "fair use," which was the legal doctrine that TurnItIn relied upon for its activities.Source: Library Link of the DayTurnItIn has known for years that this would be a sensitive issue, and in 2002 commissioned an opinion (PDF) from law firm Foley & Lardner. The group concluded that the use of the papers constituted fair use, but admitted that "the archival of a submitted work is perhaps the most legally sensitive aspect of the TURNITIN system." The lawyers argue that because the text is not displayed or distributed to anyone, it can hardly be called "infringement." Fair use should allow TurnItIn to do what it does.
A federal court agreed that this was legal, for two reasons. First, TurnItIn required students to enter into a "binding agreement" when they uploaded papers to the site. Second, TurnItIn's use was "fair" according to the four factors found in US copyright law, with most weight being given to the "transformative" nature of what TurnItIn was doing with the papers.
The Appeals Court agreed with this analysis. "Plaintiffs also argue that [Parent company] iParadigms' use of their works cannot be transformative because the archiving process does not add anything to the work--TurnItIn merely stores the work unaltered and in its entirety. This argument is clearly misguided," wrote the court.
From the North Jersey Crime Examiner:
A Bergen County [NJ] judge mistakenly let a collection company lawyer cover a gap in evidence against a credit-card holder by using a Wikipedia page, a state appeals court has ruled.Source: Legal Research Plus"[I]t is entirely possible for a party in litigation to alter a Wikipedia article, print the article and thereafter offer it in support of any given position," the appeals justices wrote, referring to the "anyone can edit" online encyclopedia.
"Such a malleable source of information is inherently unreliable and clearly not one whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned," they added.
In doing so, the appeals panel tossed out a collection judgment... of more than $30,500.
In his blog, BYU Law professor, Gordon Smith, formerly of the UW Law School, responds to criticism leveled by several Seventh Circuit judges who question the state-focus of legal education in Wisconsin as related to the diploma privilege.
The criticisms are in response to a case before the court which is "challenging the privilege as a violation of the dormant commerce clause, by treating the in-state law schools and their graduates more favorably than those from out-of-state."
"Defending the privilege in her brief to the court, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Sloan Lattis asserted that the privilege is justifiable because it is an 'undisputed fact that only Wisconsin law schools systematically instruct in Wisconsin law.' "
Judges Richard Posner, Diane Wood, and Kenneth F. Ripple all challenged this assertion. Posner specifically stated that he doubted there is any Wisconsin content taught in Wisconsin law schools and later, he called the contention that there is such content "a complete fiction," and bluntly said, "I don't believe you. I don't believe the courses are any different from those in Indiana or Illinois."
Professor Smith refutes this criticism: "As a former contracts law professor at Wisconsin, I can attest that every section of Contracts uses the so-called 'Wisconsin Materials,' which are heavy on Wisconsin law."
He also points to the "strong Wisconsin focus in the work of the Remington Center" and the school's "long tradition -- expressed in the University's Wisconsin Idea -- of connecting the study of law to the State of Wisconsin" through state-focused scholarly works.
In summary, Smith states that
This blog post is not offered as a complete justification of the State's defense of the diploma privilege, but rather as some mild pushback on the assumption that the University of Wisconsin Law School is no different from law schools in Indiana, Illinois, North Dakota, or Oklahoma. While Wisconsin prides itself on being a national law school, the connection to Wisconsin was still much in evidence while I was there.Read more about the case at the Wisconsin Law Journal
From The Third Branch (newsletter of the federal courts):
The Judicial Conference, in its continuing efforts to ensure appropriate public access to court files, has voted to make federal court sealed cases more readily apparent.The Conference, acting at its March 17 meeting, voted to have Internet lists of civil and criminal cases in district courts include a case number and generic name, such as "Sealed vs. Sealed," for each sealed case....
Currently, PACER lists of sequentially numbered district court cases skip the sealed cases, but a member of the public could query the missing case number directly and would see a message stating that the case "is under seal."
On Monday, the Federal Nominating Commission announced its recommendations for the pending vacancy for the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The opening results from the retirement of Judge John Shabaz.
The four individuals recommended for consideration for the pending vacancy are (in alphabetical order):
From the Federal Nominating Commission press release on WisBar
According to The Third Branch, the newsletter of the Wisconsin Court System, CCAP is undergoing some security upgrades. It seems that the majority of these recommendations will have an impact only on CCAP staff, but some will be noticeable to CCAP users. Some of the updates include:
The Third Branch also reports that the latest CCAP software includes a new case file presentation designed to help judges and court commissioners to find, read and sign documents electronically.
From The National Law Journal:
Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., has asked the policy body of the federal judiciary why it continues to charge the public and lawyers for access to electronically filed documents and whether enough is being done to protect the personal data collected by courts.The senator, who is head of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, expressed concern in a Feb. 27 letter that the federal judiciary had a $150 million surplus in its technology fund as of fiscal year 2006 yet continues to charge the public and lawyers $.08 per page for access to documents.
Lieberman also raised concerns "that not enough has been done to protect personal information contained in publicly available court rulings, potentially violating another provision of the E-Government Act." He referred to research from Carl Malamud's organization which found thousands of privacy violations in scanning documents.
Source: aall-advoc listserv
"A couple in Pittsburgh whose lawsuit claimed that Street View on Google Maps is a reckless invasion of their privacy lost their case." Read more from CNet News:
Aaron and Christine Boring sued the Internet search giant last April, alleging that Google "significantly disregarded (their) privacy interests" when Street View cameras captured images of their house beyond signs marked "private road." The couple claimed in their five-count lawsuit that finding their home clearly visible on Google's Street View caused them "mental suffering" and diluted their home value. They sought more than $25,000 in damages and asked that the images of their home be taken off the site and destroyed.Source: Search Engine WatchHowever, the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania wasn't impressed by the suit and dismissed it (PDF) Tuesday, saying the Borings "failed to state a claim under any count."
The New York Times has an interesting article about Carl Malamud's attempt to gather district court records from PACER and make they freely available on the Web.
Those courts, with the help of the Government Printing Office, had opened a free trial of Pacer at 17 libraries around the country. Mr. Malamud urged fellow activists to go to those libraries, download as many court documents as they could, and send them to him for republication on the Web, where Google could get to them.Aaron Swartz, a 22-year-old Stanford dropout and entrepreneur who read Mr. Malamud's appeal, managed to download an estimated 20 percent of the entire database: 19,856,160 pages of text.
Then on Sept. 29, all of the free servers stopped serving. The government, it turns out, was not pleased.
A notice went out from the Government Printing Office that the free Pacer pilot program was suspended, "pending an evaluation." A couple of weeks later, a Government Printing Office official, Richard G. Davis, told librarians that "the security of the Pacer service was compromised. The F.B.I. is conducting an investigation."
It's not mentioned in the full article, but I assume that the documents were gathered through Public.Resource.org's PACER recycling center.
Thanks to my colleague, Howard Nash, for passing this article on.
Wisconsin's Supreme Court has taken the first step toward creating a nonprofit organization to provide more legal help for the poor, reports JS Online. "This month, the court voted 6-0, with Justice David Prosser abstaining, to direct its staff to work with the State Bar of Wisconsin and other officials on a draft order authorizing the nonprofit group."
State Bar wrote in its petition:
About 80% of (Wisconsin) households with a legal need go without (it). .?.?. Legal service providers in Wisconsin report that for every eligible client they serve, they must turn away another client, simply for lack of funds.
There is no consensus on the court at this time over how that corporation might work, who would serve on its board and who would pay for it.
An Australian court has ordered that a default judgement could be served on defendants by notification on Facebook. The courts already allow service by email and text message.
Read more from the Sydney Morning Herald: "Australian courts are regarded as being amongst the most technologically advanced in the world, and this innovation goes to further that claim."
Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing doesn't think much of the idea: "It's like serving notice on me by sticking a post-it on a toilet wall on which someone has written "Cory wuz heer" and declaring it legal.
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Update: Here's more from the Telegraph (UK) - thanks to my colleague, Nancy Paul for the tip.
Free access to the English Reports from 1220-1873 is now available from the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII).
The English Reports database contains 124,882 cases and the full text of the Reports are searchable. Users are then provided with the original image of a case when it appears in the search results, sorted in likely order of relevance (date ranking may also be used). The cases are may also be browsed by year or alphabetically.
A federal judge has disallowed attorneys to recover electronic legal research fees as part of a $31.5 million settlement against Coca-Cola.
From Law.com:
Among the expenses [U.S. District Court Judge Willis B.] Hunt disallowed was $93,960.67 for LexisNexis, Westlaw and Online Library Research, writing, "This Court is of the opinion that charging separately for use of a research service is akin to charging for the use of a case law reporter. That is, the research service is a tool, much like a computer or a pen, and this Court considers the use of such a service part of a firm's overhead. ... Moreover, this Court is aware that many firms pay a flat rate to Lexis and Westlaw regardless of their usage, and class counsel cannot claim such flat rate payments as an out-of-pocket expense."
From the Wisconsin Law Journal:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Oct. 28 took another step in broadening an electronic filing system for attorneys, but the court also made it known it is not willing to go entirely paperless anytime soon.Starting on July 1, 2009, attorneys in the state will be expected to file briefs and no-merit reports with state appellate courts and petitions for review and subsequent responses with the Supreme Court, both in paper and electronic form....
While the court accepted the majority of the original revisions to Wis. Stat. Secs. 809.19, 809.32 , 809.62 and 809.80, the justices did make one significant modification to increase the benefits for attorneys.
At the behest of Justice David T. Prosser, the court decided to allow electronically filed appellate briefs to be accessed by members of the general public. But the court also ruled that brief appendices, which will not have to be electronically filed by attorneys, also will not be publicly available on-line....
Several justices suggested that other attorneys may be interested in reading briefs about cases which may be parallel to ones they are involved with, but the court also will allow parties involved in the cases to redact confidential information, if necessary.
On Oct. 14, the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted in principle Judicial Council petition 08-02 to amend Wis. Stat. § Rule 809.23(3) to allow citation of unpublished opinions for their persuasive value. An audio recording of the hearing is available from the WI Courts.
The Judicial Council petition states:
The supreme court adopted the concept of citing unpublished opinions for persuasive value with the following amendments to the Council's petition:
1. Citations will be limited to authored opinions signed by one or three judges, in civil and criminal cases, and does not include per curiam.
2. Only opinions issued as of July 1, 2009, will be citable.
3. Counsel must submit a copy of any unpublished opinion being cited to opposing counsel.
4. The court will appoint a committee to set up procedure to identify materials that would allow an evaluation and to determine what statistics shall be noted. The court will review the rule in 2011.
5. The rule will include Judicial Council note: Section (3) was revised to reflect that unpublished opinions are increasingly available in electronic form. This change also conforms to the practice in numerous other jurisdictions, and is compatible with, though more limited than, Fed. R. App. P. 32.1, which abolished any restriction on the citation of unpublished federal court opinions, judgment, orders and dispositions issued on or after Jan. 1, 2007. The revision to Section (3) does not alter the non-precedential nature of unpublished Wisconsin appellate opinions.
The folks behind Foreclosure Alarm have expanded their offerings and now offer real-time notification of filings for all case types in the Wisconsin circuit courts. The new product is called CircuitCourtPro. Like Foreclosure Alarm, the data is derived from CCAP.
Here's how it works:
CircuitCourtPro is pretty much the same as ForeclosureAlarm, but for all case types. The price is currently $40/month. A free trial is available.
So what's the difference between CircuitCourtPro and CCAP itself? Although the data is derived from CCAP, CircuitCourtPro's notification service is unique. While CCAP does offer RSS feeds now, they are only available for the basic search. There seems to be no way to get a CCAP feed based on a class code or case type search. Plus, CircuitCourtPro also offers downloadable spread sheets for mail merging.
According to developer, Philip Crawford there are plans to offer calendar integration in the future.
The Wisconsin Law Journal reports on the 2009 Milwaukee County budget proposal.
From the article:
In his 2009 proposal, [County Executive Scott] Walker plans to abolish 27 staff positions, not mandated by the state, to help offset a multi-million dollar hole in the court's budget....The most substantial cuts would be nine legal research interns who serve in a dual capacity as bailiffs and law clerks, according to Kremers. Walker plans to replace the interns with nine administrative assistants, at half the cost.
Milwaukee County Clerk of Court John Barrett said he would have a tough time attracting people to do twice the work for half the pay.
"We have lawyers in those positions now and you are not going to get a lot them to provide bailiff services with no benefits for about $10 an hour," said Barrett, who added that legal interns currently earn about $20 per hour.
Barrett also addressed eight deputy court clerk positions slated to be cut by Walker.
Barrett said that state statute requires clerks be present for court proceedings and if four in both the Misdemeanor/Traffic Division and Civil Division are eliminated, proceedings could be delayed.
Barco Law Library reports that the 2-year free PACER pilot program has been suspended pending evaluation. [What is PACER?]
A notice went out that "GPO and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts undertook a pilot to provide free public access to Federal court records at 17 Federal depository libraries through (PACER) ....The pilot has been suspended, pending an evaluation. Once the evaluation is complete, the judiciary and the GPO will determine what steps need to be taken in order to move forward.The pilot is part of GPO's efforts to increase public access to government information as well as the judiciary's continuing effort to expand public access to court records."Source: Legal Dockets Online Blog
AbsTracked reports that U.S. Courts website is offering RSS feeds:
From the U.S. Courts Newsroom:
A new Federal Rule of Evidence 502 was enacted on September 19, focusing on inadvertent disclosure of attorney-client privileged material. The new law limits the consequences of inadvertent disclosure, potentially lowering discovery costs and limiting the need for exhaustive "privilege review." Text.
The Wisconsin court system has created a new, interactive small claims website for the public. This user-friendly program is intended to provide an inexpensive alternative for people in need of small claims assistance but who do not have an attorney.
The website guides users through a series of questions, and the Summons and Complaint form is automatically filled in based on the answers provided. The Web site operates much like the software used to complete a tax return. Blank versions of the statewide-standardized forms are also offered for people to fill in by hand. Additionally, the site offers many county-specific instructional guides to assist users.
Source: The Third Branch
WisBar reports that The State Board of Bar Governors has voted to support Wisconsin Judicial Council Petition 08-02 to amend Wis.Stat. 809.23(3) to allow the citation of unpublished appellate opinions for persuasive value.
From WisBar.org:
Petition 08-02, asks the Supreme Court to expand the opportunities for citation by adopting the following:(a) An unpublished opinion may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent or authority, except to support a claim of claim preclusion, issue preclusion, or the law of the case.
(b) In addition to the purposes specified in sub. (a), an unpublished opinion may be cited for its persuasive value. Because an unpublished opinion cited for its persuasive value is not precedent, it is not binding on any court of this state, and a court need not distinguish or otherwise discuss it.
U.S. Courts has announced that starting this fall they will be launching a system which automatically sends crime victims and their families information from federal courts, helping ensure that crime victims are afforded the right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any relevant public court proceeding.
Victim notification data will be sent from a court's CM/ECF replication servers to the Department of Justice's Victim Notification System.
LegalDockets.com, a portal of court case information, is being restructured as Courtport.com. The new site will offer an improved user interface, added content, discussion forums, and more.
The main component of the site is still the portal - a collection of thousands of links focused on court case information, rules and forms, property, recordings, liens, criminal, business, and people records. The new site also features a blog and discussion forums.
Complementary access is available to academic users; others users can access the Courtport portal for a small annual subscription fee. Academics may follow these registration instructions:
1-Go to http://www.Courtport.com and click "Get Started" or "Join Now"..2-Enter your email address, three digit code displayed, and CHECK THE ACADEMIC SUBSCRIPTION BOX.
3-Check your inbox for an email from us. It will contain a verification link that you must click or copy and paste into your browser.
4-Agree to Terms and Conditions, enter your personal information, and click "Continue"
The Wisconsin Law Journal reports that "on Oct. 14, 2008, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will, for the fourth time, consider a proposed rule to allow citation to an unpublished decision for persuasive authority." Read more.
Last week, the WI Court of Appeals filed a petition with the Supreme Court for rules changes seeking mandatory electronic filing of all appellate briefs and no-merit reports.
The proposed rule changes would also also permit, but do not require, the filing of an electronic copy of the appendix.
Source: Milwaukee Federalists
Both PreCYdent and AltLaw have come out with citators. Remember that these are both public-domain search engines offering cases and statutes for free on the Internet.
AltLaw
When viewing a case in AltLaw, you'll notice that cases cited by your case appear on the left and cases which cite it are on the right. Both lists are in reverse chronological order. Very straight forward and easy to use. Nothing extra to click.
Note that there is no indication, however, of the treatment of the citing cases (i.e. the red and yellow indicators you'll find in Shepards or KeyCite).
PreCYdent
I knew that PreCYdent had introduced a citator because I'd seen the press release, but it took me quite a while to find it. I finally located it in the bar over on the right with a bunch other buttons - I've circled them in the screen shot above.
There are two citator buttons (both of which are quite cryptic looking). The first is labeled Citations and it "shows citing and cited opinions." This is pretty much the same as the citator in AltLaw, although I'm not sure in what order the cases are appearing.
The second button is labeled Citator and it "shows judicial actions done by and on the present case." In other words: treatment. There are two columns: In-Citator shows all the actions taken by other cases regarding the current case. For example, the In-Citator will show if the current case has been overruled, reversed, or otherwise acted up, by a higher court. The Out-Citator column shows any actions the current case has taken regarding another case, for example, it the current case overrules, reverses, or takes another recorded action regarding a lower court opinion.
My opinion:
When I say citator, most people think of Shepards or KeyCite. Be warned: the citators in AltLaw and PreCYdent aren't in the same league as the two giants. But, hey, they're free and free is good - in some cases anyway.
Although AltLaw is easy to use, it lacks the added features of the others. Lack of treatment analysis makes it much less useful in oft-cited opinions since one would have to follow through on all of the citations individually.
PreCYdent, on the other hand, offers the treatment analysis, but is confusing to use.
And neither of the free citators offer the added value features that are available with Shepards and KeyCite, such as other citing sources (articles, legislation, regs), depth of treatment indicators, visual history, etc.
But most importantly, I think, is that the free guys just aren't proven yet. What is the depth of coverage? Will it pick up all the important cases? One must feel a fair degree of trust in a citator. Are you ready to rely on a free one in preparing your brief?
My advice? If it's important, spend the money on the big boys - at least at this point. But keep your eye on the little guys because they are making amazing progress towards providing open access for the law.
Inside Higher Ed has a good analysis of the copyright infringement suit against Georgia State University. Three major academic presses, backed by the Association of American Publishers, allege "systematic, widespread, and unauthorized copying and distribution" at the university through the library electronic course reserve system, Blackboard, departmental Web sites and individual course syllabi posted online.
See also the NYT story and the press release from the AAP.
From Channel 3000:
[Gov. Jim Doyle] vetoed a bill that would expand access to juvenile court records for police, judges and social workers.Current state law considers juvenile court records confidential. Law enforcement officers, judges and prosecutors must request permission from a judge to access them.
The bill would have deemed the records open to any law enforcement officer, judge or district attorney. It also would have opened the records to the state Department of Health and Family Services, county human services departments and licensed child welfare agencies.
Doyle said that the bill is too broad and makes the records available to too many people. He said that juvenile information is sensitive and should be closely guarded.
CM/ECF Pacer Access is now available for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals according to Legal Dockets Online. Along with the D.C. and Veteran Claims courts, it joins the 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th circuit courts which already use the CM/ECF system.
What does this mean? CM/ECF makes available online court case docket sheets and filings, allows attorneys to file electronically, court clerks to enter docket entries, and enables electronic noticing.
From the US Courts Press Release:
Nationwide implementation of the federal judiciary's Case Management and Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system is nearly completed in the district and bankruptcy courts and is advancing in the appellate courts. CM/ECF not only replaces the courts' old electronic docketing and case management systems, but also provides courts the option to have case file documents in electronic format, and to accept filings over the Internet.
According to Law.com:
Patent attorneys are hailing the Western District of Wisconsin as the nation's newest so-called rocket docket, characterized by speedy trials and a jury pool friendly to patent holders.Patent case filings are climbing in the district based in Madison, including cases involving companies headquartered outside the area. Lawyers say they're attracted by the district's educated jury pool, which reflects the work force and populace connected to the University of Wisconsin and the thriving local high-technology sector.
A recent study finds that children may offer more accurate court testimony than adults. The study was conducted by two Cornell University professors: Valerie Reyna, human development professor, and Chuck Brainerd, human development and law school professor.
Science Daily reports:
They say children depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, "what actually happened," while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, "the meaning of what happened." As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases.
Reyna and Brainerd's findings are summarized in a new book, The Science of False Memory, published by Oxford University Press.
Source: Boing Boing
From the Wisconsin Court System Headlines:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is historically among the most influential state supreme courts in the United States, according to preliminary findings of a study published in December by the UC Davis (University of California, Davis) Law Review.The study, which was highlighted in a March 11 column by New York Times legal affairs writer Adam Liptak, examined 66 years of decisions by state supreme courts nationwide.
Wisconsin ranked eighth in two categories of study - the number of high court decisions that have been "followed" at least once by an out-of-state court, and the number of state high court decisions that have been followed at least three times by out-of-state courts.
WisPolitics.com reports on two new pieces of legislation proposed by State Representative Marlin Schneider.
The first would open the deliberations of the State Supreme Court. From the article:
Schneider believes the public should also have the right to know about the private discussions of the Supreme Court. Just as the legislature must debate bills and issues in public, so too should the appellate courts. Hence, the lawmaker's.. bill opens up these deliberations to the public.
The second provides criminal penalties against those who CCAP to discriminate against employment and housing. This bill is in response to criticism of Schneider's earlier bill which would have limited CCAP access court and law enforcement personnel.
From the article:
The... bill disavows the restrictions made in his previous bill but directly addresses the problem of discrimination, particularly in employment and housing. Schneider's bill would make it a Class I felon for anyone to discriminate in employment or housing because of an arrest or conviction record on CCAP.
Thanks to Bev Butula for the tip.
I was using Justia yesterday and noticed something I hadn't seen before - US Federal Court Appeals Opinions. It includes all US Federal appellate cases since 1950 browse-able by F 2d and F 3d citation. Wow - how long has that been there?
An email from Justia's Tim Stanley confirmed that the 1950+ Fed is indeed brand new. According to Tim:
Carl Malamud (of Media.org) and Ed Walters (of Fastcase.com) worked out the deal, and Public.Resource.org and the Creative Commons are setting up the Legal Commons where copies of all the free case law will be online in archive form for anyone to download and use.There is a lot of fixing to do (multiple versions of the same case, getting in the internal page numbers) but this will get done :) And of course more free case law and codes are on the way.
This is outstanding! Kudos to all involved! What a valuable resource for the legal community and for the community as a whole. I'd seen Robert Ambrogi's announcement last week that this was coming and it appears that he was dead-on, as usual.
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Updates: For more info, see the press release from PublicResource.Org.
And see also the post from Justia which says to "look for the cases to also appear on AltLaw and PreCYdent soon (if not already) and... many many other places"
How true - here is a beta search engine for the Federal Reporter.
JS Online reports that:
Milwaukee County officials mistakenly released numerous confidential court records for a citizens group's Web site that detail payments for tests and other costs linked to mental competency, paternity and guardianship cases, officials acknowledged.The records obtained by Citizens for Responsible Government Network were part of a county database of 188,000 purchasing invoices for 2006 and 2007. The group put the information on its Web site Tuesday morning. Late Friday, the group agreed to remove the confidential court records at the county's request.
The database is available on the Citizens for Responsible Government Network web site.
The Beloit Daily News weighs in on the two pending Wisconsin bills which would limit access to court records via CCAP.
AB 418 would restrict public access and allow only judges, court officials, police, lawyers and "accredited" journalists to view the information.AB 754 would require that all records pertaining to a case be deleted if it is dismissed; if a defendant is found not guilty; or if a case is overturned on appeal.
Source: The Wheeler Report
Thanks to Legal Dockets Online for alerting me to the PACER recycling center, run by the folks at Public.Resource.org. Basically, this gathers "recycled" court filings donated by people who have paid to access them via PACER, then offers them free on the Internet.
According to the FAQ, here's how it works:
Just upload all your PACER Documents to our recycling bin. Click on the recycle bin and you'll be presented with a dialogue to choose files to upload. Then, just hit the "Start Upload" button and you'll hear the sounds of progress as your documents get reinjected into the public domain.We'll take the documents, look at them, and then put them onto bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/pacer for future distribution. This is a manual process and you won't see your documents show up right away. But, over time, we hope to accumulate a significant database of PACER Documents.
While the ideal of making law freely available on the Internet is admirable, I'm not really convinced of the value of this system. So far, the total number of documents offered looks very slim - only time will tell if that number increases enough to be useful. However, I'm also not seeing that any dockets are available, which puts the documents that are there somewhat out of context.
More troublesome, however, is that unlike the fanciful site instructing you to upload your PACER docs, viewing the already uploaded documents is not nearly as pretty. Basically, you're presented with a list of folders in which you must browse your way through state, court, docket number, and a few other folders whose labels I couldn't decipher. No search engine to be had, as far as I could see. Nothing in the way of instructions either. Perhaps more sophistication is to come and it's simply too early to tell.
Frankly, in the realm of free PACER alternatives, you're much better off with Justia. Not only is there a lot more content, the search interface is excellent. And it's got dockets, RSS feeds, and more.
I ran across this announcement today on the Wisconsin Sentencing Commission Web site:
The Wisconsin Sentencing Commission and its statutory provisions under §973.30 were eliminated in the State's 2007-09 Biennium Budget. Neither the Commission nor any other agency will continue to collect and analyze sentencing guidelines worksheets. Sentencing courts are still required to consider the guidelines under §973.017 (2)(a), yet will not need to complete or submit guidelines worksheets.The website and its contents will remain in their current location until February 29, 2008, at which point the site will be archived and its relevant content moved elsewhere on the web. A notification will be posted on this site to redirect visitors to the new location of these publications.
If you need to speak to someone regarding the Sentencing Commission, please contact Kristi Waits at the Office of Justice Assistance at (608) 261-7525 or kristi.waits@wisconsin.gov.
Legal Dockets Online Blog reports that the PACER U.S. Party Case Index now includes all Federal District and Bankruptcy Courts. It does not, however, include the following courts:
In what is believed to be a first, a defense attorney in Tennessee is arguing for a change of venue citing blog posts along with newspaper and television reporting.
According to Law.com:
Attorney Philip Lomonaco of Knoxville, Tenn., called the Internet "the largest unregulated source for information" in the community, and said it had been used to "outrage and taint any jury pool" that could be seated to hear the case....
Source: Lex Scripta
The Wisconsin State Court system has recently introduced new, more-user-friendly forms designed for people who are representing themselves in small claims actions. The forms are accompanied by plain-English instructions and are available both on the web and in hard copy.
See the Supreme Court press release for more information.
Source: Proof and Hearsay
Minnesota has recently introduced a statewide electronic case records service called MPA Remote, which is short for Minnesota Trial Court Public Access Remote view.
Similar to Wisconsin's CCAP system, MPA Remote displays trial court case information for public viewing, including register of actions, calendars, judgments, and orders and notices prepared by the court. Note that Internet Explorer is required to use this service - Firefox doesn't work.
See the National Center for State Courts for information about other states' public access to court records.
From the press release:
Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose.
This is a big deal and has generated quite a buzz around the blogosphere. Check out the reaction from Elmer Masters (see also his post on Teknoids); Real Lawyers Have Blogs; and Jason the Content Librarian.
More from the press release:
This transaction represents a one-time purchase of a copy of data. This corpus will be integrated into the ongoing public services from organizations such as AltLaw and the Legal Information Institute, thus providing continuity of coverage into the future.
I was wondering if this would duplicate efforts with AltLaw (which already has federal case law from the last 10 to 15 years), but it seems not. Looks like this new partnership will provide the retrospective materials while Altlaw will continue to collect the newer cases.
The La Crosse Tribune is running a series of articles on plea agreements - "how plea agreements are forged, why they have become a fixture in the courts and what they bring to our legal system."
According to The Tribune, only about one percent of felony cases in La Crosse County make it to trial compared to about three percent state-wide.
The paper also states, however, that despite a decreasing number of trials, La Crosse County has more than doubled its trial budgeting and spending in the past decade, mostly due to a dramatic increase in court-appointed attorney costs.
Articles in the series so far:
Source: The Wheeler Report
In a two year pilot project, free public access to federal court records via PACER has been made available at 16 libraries in 14 states under a joint pilot project of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and the Government Printing Office.
According to a press release from the US Courts, the project is part of the judiciary's continuing effort to expand public access to court records by discovering if a segment of the public desires access to information contained in the PACER system but is unlikely to go to a courthouse or become a PACER user.
The federal depository libraries participating in the pilot are:
From the Christian Science Monitor:
This week the US Sentencing Commission, with little fanfare, officially reduced its recommended sentences for crack-related offenses. The commission announced last spring that it intended to make the change, and Congress had until Nov. 1 to stop the move. It didn't, and the revised guidelines became effective Thursday.
Thanks to Bill Ebbott for the tip.
Update: 10/23/07
RSS feeds will be added to "Court Record Events" by the end of the day according to Jean Bousquet over at Wisconsin Courts. And based on this post, they are also working on adding search terms to the feed titles, as well as, beefing up the RSS info page.
A big thanks to Judge Richard Sankovitz for forwarding this post to Jean and to Jean and the CCAP team for so quickly addressing my concerns!
--------------------------
Tracking Wisconsin cases via CCAP just got a lot easier - RSS Feeds are now available on both the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) and the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Case Access (WSCCA) Web sites.
You'll notice that when you perform a search, a small orange RSS button appears at the top right on your search results page. This generates a RSS feed based on the keywords of your search. Subscribe to it with your RSS feed reader and you'll receive automatic notification of any new cases matching your keywords. See a sample search results page below:
This is a wonderful improvement to CCAP. The ability to track cases by party name (think clients/potential clients/competition), attorney, topic (class code), etc. is a powerful time saving device for legal practitioners, journalists, and other interested parties.
I do have one suggestion for improvement. In my RSS reader (I use Bloglines), my "Harley Davidson" feed above comes up with the generic title, Wisconsin Circuit Court Access. That's fine if I'm only monitoring one feed, but if I have multiple feeds, there is no way to tell them apart unless I change the feed title myself. It would be nice if the search terms came up in the feed title.
Proof and Hearsay also notes that they'd like to see a RSS feed on the "Court Record Events" page to track the docket for a specific case. I agree that this would also be a very nice addition.
There is a page on the Wisconsin Courts pages that explains what RSS is, but it's all quite generic. It would be nice if explained more specifically about the feeds generated by CCAP.
But all in all, this is an awesome service! A great addition to an already wonderful product.
Source: Proof and Hearsay
The Wisconsin Court system has developed RSS feeds for the following:
Davis & Kuelthau librarian, Bev Butula has written a very useful article in this month's Wisconsin Lawyer entitled, Online Access to Circuit Court Dockets. The article explores Wisconsin's online docket database (CCAP) and looks at the status of online access in some other states.
From the conclusion:
Searching circuit court dockets in Wisconsin is accomplished via CCAP. Information seekers often take this service for granted. Many states have yet to develop an online database. Some only make particular counties available. Online availability is progressing at different speeds throughout the United States and currently is available on a limited basis. To effectively conduct a non-Wisconsin docket search, the researcher should start with the National Center for State Courts, the Virtual Chase, or LLRX, or call the court's clerk to inquire if an online database is available.
I would also recommend subscribing to Legal Dockets Online Blog for keeping tabs on court docket info.
Proof and Hearsay reports on where to find Wisconsin's tech-savvy juries.
According to the statistics for twenty-nine counties' jurors, just over 17 percent of prospective jurors surveyed in 2006 filed their jury questionnaire responses online at the court's web site.
A county break down shows that the highest percentages came from:
Lowest percentage of online responses:
Assembly Bill 418 which would stop ordinary citizens from viewing Wisconsin court records online via CCAP has aroused much debate.
JSOnline's Proof and Hearsay summarizes:
It's a footnote here that the bill to restrict access to Wisconsin's online court records database is not likely to be seriously considered this Legislative term, but the fact the long-debated matter has risen to the level of Legislative debate has drawn a sizable amount of media attention. It's an interesting debate: the records are going to be open, but should they be convenient? State AG J.B. Van Hollen says keep 'em online, and newspapers and judges are pushing for openness while a handful of Milwaukee's legislators say making prosecutions so immutably public adds to the burdens faced by the people already having a hard time finding work.
Proof and Hearsay reports that the option to "Pay Fees Online" has quietly been added to CCAP. At this point, however, it is only enabled for Kenosha County.
Here's the message that you see when you click on the "Pay Fees Online" button:
Welcome to the Wisconsin Court System's Circuit Court Online Payment system. This Web site allows payment of circuit court fees and/or fines online. A 2.35% convenience fee for MasterCard and a $1.50 flat fee for electronic check will be charged by US Bank to process payments.The online payment feature is implemented only in Kenosha County with US Bank. After a two month evaluation period and approval by US Bank, this service will be expanded to additional counties.
A 19-year-old restaurant worker is suing the California Supreme Court to reverse its practice of largely ignoring unpublished court opinions, according to the McClatchy Washington Bureau.
Source: Library Stuff
US Courts has an interesting article on how PACER has altered the business of the courts. Here's a sampling from the article:
"Back in the paper world, we constantly had law firm runners who came to the clerk's office to make copies of case files. They'd have to drive to the courthouse, find a parking place, feed the meter, and pay 50 cents per copy. Helping them consumed a lot of staff time," she said. "Those days are gone."
"The level of camaraderie and shared professionalism incident to the delivery of paper files has been affected. Those sort of contacts are gone. The only person in our clerk's staff that many lawyers who practice before me know is our courtroom deputy, whom they see in court," Leonard said. "Things are more formalized now."
Source: Legal Dockets Online
Yesterday, the Judicial Conference of the United States voted to make transcripts of federal district and bankruptcy court proceedings available online through PACER.
According to the press release:
Under the new policy, transcripts created by court reporters or transcribers will be available for inspection and copying in a clerk of court's office and for download from PACER 90 days after they are delivered to the clerk. Individuals will be able to view, download, or print a copy of a transcript from PACER for eight cents per page.During the initial 90-day period, transcripts will be available at the clerk's office for inspection only, or may be purchased from the court reporter or transcriber.
Source: Legal Dockets Online
From a US Courts news release:
The federal Judiciary is seeking comment on the privacy and security implications related to public Internet access to certain documents in criminal case files...The committee is interested in comments on a proposal to restrict public Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations.
See the full news release for information on how to submit comments.
Deliberations has an interesting post on jurors who blog. The part that caught my librarian's eye was the collection of tips on setting up searches to find juror blog posts.
Summarized, they are:
More goodies from Justia - they expanded their Federal District Court Filings database. They've gone back a few more years and now cover from 2004 to the present. And now, in addition to just seeing information about the case, for some cases you can actually view the opinions, orders, and complete filings. This is awesome!
Cases for which opinions and orders and available have a gavel icon. Cases for with complete filings are noted with a star icon. I suspect that the latter must be very new since I've not seen it mentioned anywhere yet.
To see a case with opinions and orders, run a search and select the Only Case Filings with Downloadable Opinions or Orders button. There doesn't seem to be a button yet for complete filings, but I did happen to find some - run a search for Tivo - the two most recent cases have stars.
Justia is pulling the content from PACER. Although the opinions and orders are available on PACER at no charge, you need an account to access them. With Justia, no account is needed. And for the cases with complete filings, you're getting a real bargain since normally you'd have to pay for those on PACER. Plus Justia offers more search options than PACER. And, of course, every search is RSS subscribe-able in Justia.
Mary Minow of LawLibrary Blog posted an interview with Nick Moline, programmer at Justia a few weeks ago. Although the database currently goes back to 2004, he said that Justia has plans to add more.
WisconsinEye announced yesterday that it will begin gavel-to-gavel broadcast coverage of oral arguments in the State Supreme Court beginning with today's with three scheduled cases.
WisconsinEye President & CEO Chris Long said the network plans to cover all oral arguments on the Court's 2007-2008 calendar either live or tape-delayed on Charter Channel 200 and Time Warner Channel 163. All hearing coverage will also be broadcast and permanently archived at WisconsinEye.
Source: WisPolitics.com
The New York Times reports on the project of "Internet gadfly" Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org, to make more than 10 million pages of case law available free online.
According to the ReadMe file on Public.Resource.Org,
The short-term goal of the project is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of the Federal Reporter, the Federal Supplement, and the Federal Appendix. The medium-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of all state and federal cases and codes.
The entire Federal Reporter, Supplement and Appendix is a short-term goal? All federal and state cases and codes are medium-term? My goodness, what would be considered long-term?
In the ReadMe file dated Friday, August 17th, Malamud reports that he hopes to have the Federal Reporter, first series (300 volumes) scanned within the next few months. So far, he's got 1000 pages of court decisions from the 1880s (scanned from a West ultrafiche).
Malamud has written a letter to Thomson West stating his intent to create "an unencumbered public repository of all federal and state case law and codes. This goal is not meant to compete with commercial vendors such as yourself, who perform a worthy service for the large law firms and other well-funded institutions who practice the business of law." In the letter, Malamud asks Thomson to clarify their copyright claims on the reports; Thomson has yet to reply.
Thanks to my colleague, Bill Ebbott, for the tip.
JS Online reports that the ABA is considering a resolution urging local, state and federal governments to seal the records of criminal cases in which convictions were not obtained. "It also calls for sealing the records of misdemeanor and felony convictions after a specified period of 'law-abiding conduct.' Only police and prosecutors would have access to the sealed files." Currently, such are records are available in Wisconsin via CCAP.
Wisconsin ABA delegate, Attorney Richard Podell, "said the measure 'has a good chance' of passing and that if it does, ABA members would appeal to legislators in every state to pass matching laws."
JS Online also reports that "Wisconsin legislators, citing the same concerns, introduced Assembly Bill 418 in late June. It would restrict access to online court records to court officials, law enforcement personnel, attorneys and accredited journalists."
Proof and Hearsay, the blog from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff on legal issues, offers another handy CCAP search tip: how to look at individual case records without having to click on the disclaimer screen for every new case that comes up.
Installing a Firefox script using Greasemonkey is required. That may sound scary, but step by step instructions are provided.
From Reuters:
Britain's lawyers and judges are to break with centuries-old tradition and cease wearing white horse-hair wigs in non-criminal cases, the head of the country's judiciary announced on Thursday.The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, said new dress rules would mean the wigs, which British legal professionals have worn since the 17th century, would not be needed in civil or family court cases.
"Continuing its efforts to enhance the transparency of courtroom proceedings, the federal Judiciary is about to launch a pilot project to make digital audio recordings publicly available online," reports The Third Branch.
Five pilot project courts will begin loading the audio files into their CM/ECF systems later this summer where they will be available via PACER. During the six-to-12-month pilot project, access to the audio files will cost 16 cents--eight cents for accessing the docket sheet and another eight cents for selecting the audio file.
The five pilot project courts are:
Source: Legal Dockets Online Blog
To encourage new users, AudioCaseFiles, a web site of downloadable MP3 files of court opinions, is available at no charge this summer.
This service, which is aimed at law students, provides recordings of most of the opinions that appear in many law school first year course casebooks. Looks like there are a couple hundred so far, but the company has plans to add lots more, including cases from 2L and 3L casebooks.
Downloading the cases to your iPod is very easy and the voice recording the case is pleasant - not a computer generated voice. I did a blog search for AudioCaseFiles to see what students thought about it. There wasn't too much talk about it, but all reactions were positive. Most liked to be able to exercise or do other things while listening.
A few weeks ago, our Evening and Weekend Reference Librarian, Eric Taylor, noticed a large gap in the public domain citation numbers for the 2007 Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions. Upon contacting the court, we received the following memorandum from Christopher Paulsen, Chief Deputy Clerk:
Please be advised that the Public Domain Citation (PDC) numbers 2007 WI App 51 though 109 were erroneously assigned to unpublished cases. Upon discovery of the error, numbers 51 though 109 were removed from the court's database system and PDC numbers for published cases were resumed sequentially beginning with 2007 WI App 110.
Law.com reports that the 7th Circuit has recently created a wiki. According to Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, who spearheaded the project, "the goal is to concentrate on procedure (in both the court of appeals and the district courts) but not to cover substance."
To contribute to the wiki, see the Registration page.
Source: Slaw
AALL has conducted a State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources. The report presents the results of a survey of primary online legal resources and whether these resources are official and capable of being authenticated. In short, "How trustworthy are state-level primary legal resources on the Web?"
The answer (from the executive summary):
A significant number of the state online legal resources are official but none are authenticated or afford ready authentication by standard methods. State online primary legal resources are therefore not sufficiently trustworthy. Citizens and law researchers may reasonably doubt their authority and should approach such resources critically.
According to AALL President, Sally Holterhoff, the report is the focus of a National Summit on Authentication of Digital Information, which AALL will hold April 20-21 in Chicago. The 50 delegates to the summit are judges, state government officials, attorneys, and leaders of AALL and of other organizations, such as the American Bar Association. All of them were invited to participate because of their interest in exploring legal and technological solutions to the issues raised in the report.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has created a handy guide to Filing a Petition for Review : A Guide to Seeking Review in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The nine page document is dated October 2006.
Abstract:
This is a simplified guide to the Wisconsin Rules of Appellate Procedure with respect to filing petitions for review and is intended primarily for people who are not lawyers and lawyers with limited appellate experience. This handbook is not intended to replace the Rules of Appellate Procedure and should not be cited as legal authority. You must rely on the rules and case law as legal authority. The Rules of Appellate Procedure are contained in Chapter 809 of the Wisconsin Statutes, which is available at www.legis.state.wi.us/statutes/Stat0809.pdf. You may also want to consult the court's Internal Operating Procedures (IOPs), which are published periodically and are available at www.wicourts.gov/sc/IOPSC.pdf. This handbook reflects
the rules and case law as they exist on January 1, 2006. The rules and case law are always subject to change, and should be consulted for changes. This handbook is available in an alternative format upon request.
Thanks to my colleagues, Bill Ebbott and Margaret Booth for the tip.
Check out Yahoo News for more on Justice Breyer's entertaining interview on National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me."
Being the funniest Supreme Court justice, he said, "is like being one of the shortest tall people."
Better yet, listen to the Show.
Source: Findlaw's Practice Paper
An article in Monday's New York Times opens with the provocative quote:
"I haven't opened up a law review in years," said Chief Judge Dennis G. Jacobs of the federal appeals court in New York. "No one speaks of them. No one relies on them."
Judge Jacobs was explaining to a gathering of law professors that their scholarship no longer had any impact on the courts. Why? According to the article:
Articles in law reviews have certainly become more obscure in recent decades. Many law professors seem to think they are under no obligation to say anything useful or to say anything well.
"But the big question is do the judges read lawprof blogs?" wonders UW Law Prof Ann Althouse. She her post for more.
The Associated Press reports Courts To Test Offering Trial Tapes Online.
The federal judiciary panel has approved a pilot program to make audio recordings of court proceedings available online for free. Although a court's participation in the program is voluntary, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the executive committee chairman of the policy-making Judicial Conference, said he expects the system ultimately will be widely used.....At present, recording devices and cameras are prohibited in all federal courtrooms... The pilot program, set to launch in the next few months, will put those recordings on the court's electronic records database for download.
See the Federal Judiciary News Release.
Thanks to Bill Ebbott for the tip.
JS Online reports that, according to a provision in the budget bill,
...The director of state courts would be given authority to "establish and charge fees for use of the circuit court automated information systems created under this section." Left unstated are who would be charged, how much they would be charged and how often...[Deb Brescoll, the state courts' budget and policy analyst,] said lawyers in only a couple of counties can file court documents with the courts electronically. Her office hopes to charge a fee for cyber court filings to make this option available statewide someday.
Justia has launched a database of recently filed Federal District Court civil cases. You can browse by browse by state and/or type of lawsuit or view all recent cases. Search by party name, jurisdiction, type of lawsuit, and within a given date range.
BeSpacific reports that according to Justia's Tim Stanley, there are currently "over 300,000 case titles since January 1, 2006, and they are updating [the database] daily."
Search results contain the party names, jurisdiction, date, and docket number. There is a link to the docket via paid PACER subscription. Links to blog, news and web searches for each party name are also available.
RSS feeds are also available for search results. This is very cool. If I want to monitor all cases with party name "Harley Davidson", I can subscribe to that feed. If I want to monitor all Wisconsin cases on IP law, I can subscribe to that feed. That's just the tip of the iceberg for the searches you can set up.
Although the content doesn't appear to have anything over PACER, the advanced search capability and powerful alerting capability make Justia a very valuable resource.
Paul Bush of Legal Dockets Online has compiled a list of the courts not using CM/ECF. CM/ECF allows courts to accept filings and provide access to filed documents over the Internet via PACER.
He writes:
Since CM/ECF systems have been successfully implemented throughout the U.S., some researchers incorrectly assume that all case dockets and filings can be located and downloaded using CM/ECF. It's important to recognize that certain court case information is not presently contained within a CM/ECF database.
Note that the Wisconsin Western District Court is one of the courts listed. I have, however, heard that Western District will connect to the CM/ECF later this year. It will be the last federal district court in the US to do so.
Tune in to PBS tonight for the beginning of a four-part documentary on the Supreme Court. "It is a must-see series that takes the viewer back to the pitifully weak early days of the Court, then all the way forward to its current incarnation as a center-of-the-universe powerhouse," writes Law.com. See the full article for more about the program.
On Their Honor is the title of a Milwaukee Magazine article about judicial conflicts of interest in Milwaukee County.
From the article:
Source: beSpacific
The [Wisconsin Supreme Court] rule requires that judges disqualify themselves from any case when "a judge has a significant financial or personal interest in the outcome of the matter." If, however, the financial conflict is de minimis - meaning so insignificant it doesn't raise "reasonable question as to the judge's impartiality" - no disqualification is required. But it's up to the judges themselves to decide that question...Judges rarely remove themselves from cases in which they have an interest - in Milwaukee County, it happened only 12 times in all of 2005 and 25 times in 2003. Meanwhile, the problem of financial conflicts is growing. The number of cases in Milwaukee in which judges had a financial conflict grew from 42 cases in 2004 to 71 in 2005 and 89 for the first eight months of 2006. At that pace, there would be 133 cases with a conflict in 2006.
Monday's New York Times has a very interesting article on courts use of Wikipedia.
More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)...[According to] Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School... : "The most critical fact is public acceptance, including the litigants," he said. "A judge should not use Wikipedia when the public is not prepared to accept it as authority."
For now, Professor Gillers said, Wikipedia is best used for "soft facts" that are not central to the reasoning of a decision. All of which leads to the question, if a fact isn't central to a judge's ruling, why include it?
"Because you want your opinion to be readable," said Professor Gillers. "You want to apply context. Judges will try to set the stage. There are background facts. You don't have to include them. They are not determinitive. But they help the reader appreciate the context."
Source: TVC Alert
When looking for his own parking citation in CCAP, a UW-Whitewater faculty member was surprised to find a piece of his son's confidential adoption record, reports JS Online. [CCAP, officially known as the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) database, contains the records of Wisconsin county courts.]
"I was stunned," said [David] Munro, who teaches issues related to computer security and ethics... "I knew some sealed records, including ours, had been partially revealed. I had no idea what the scope was."After a little research on the database, Munro realized that the information was just enough for people to discover they had been adopted or to possibly lead to the identification of birth parents.
State officials confirmed that they were unaware of the problem until Munro contacted them late last year. Pieces of adoption records involving about 200 families were publicly exposed on the state system for about four months, authorities said...
Robert Knoll, Register in Probate for Milwaukee County, said the records were a microfilm index of old adoption records uploaded into the CCAP system for storage and should have been coded differently. None of the families whose adoption records were partially exposed was contacted because CCAP fixed the problem and because only the index information was revealed, he said.
Counties are responsible for coding cases properly so the CCAP system can decipher whether the cases should be displayed on public access or not, Bousquet said. There is no way of knowing how many "hits" were made on the adoption index records during the time they were exposed, she added.
From the Web site:
Criminal Law Decisions Online (CLDO) covers all criminal law decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court and Wisconsin Supreme Court, and published cases of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, from July 1, 1977, through December 15, 2006.This system replicates, in an online format, the Master Compilation of Criminal Law Decisions documents previously published by the Department of Justice, and it retains the table of contents and numerical digesting system used in print versions of the Master Compilation.
Decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals which were published after the July 1, 2001 term are also linked to the court's public website.
Apparently, when CLDO first started out it wasn't available to the public, but it is now. Thanks to Bill Ebbott for the tip.
According to a government documents listserv email from Judith C. Russell, Superintendent of Documents and Managing Director at the U.S. Government Printing Office, the Judiciary is considering a one year pilot project to assess the effect of offering free public access to PACER through the Federal Depository Library Program. (What's PACER?)
Currently, PACER is available at no cost in Federal courthouses by visiting the office of the clerk of courts. But note that printing costs may be high. For example, the cost for printing in the Western District of WI Clerk of Courts office is 50 cents/page. However, anyone can request their own PACER account and the service is "free" in that no billing is done until $10.00 in charges are generated.
According to Marc Weinberger of the U.S. Courts Library, Western District of WI, individual PACER account applications can be obtained a couple of ways: 1) from the PACER Service Center [800-676-6856]; 2) via the website http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ There is an instant registration option (with a valid email address and credit card number) or a regular account with billing can be set up and it takes about a week to get a confirmation.
Law.com's Legal Technology section has a useful article by Robert Ambrogi entitled, Superior Legal Web Sites to Watch. There are a number of good sites listed, but one that struck me was Judicial Reports.
Ambrogi writes:
What Consumer Reports does for appliances and Zagat does for restaurants, a new Web site aims to do for judges. Called Judicial Reports, the site offers in-depth profiles of New York state's 328 Supreme Court judges. Eventually, it will add New York's federal judges and, if there is demand, judges in other states.Each profile draws on information available in public records together with independent research and analysis. Thus, a profile includes a judge's biography and vital statistics, but also the judge's reversal record, judicial conduct report and financial and campaign-finance disclosures. Included in a judge's biographical profile are comments from lawyers who have direct experience appearing before the judge.
TVC Alert reports:
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals last week ruled that in accordance with the state's open access law, PDF copies of information in a database do not substitute for access to the database. Therefore, the municipalities violated public records law when they denied plaintiff access to the information in the format it which it was available to the municipalities.
More from Electronic Discovery Law, a blog from K&L Gates:
In this open records case, WIREdata, Inc. had filed open records requests with three municipalities seeking property assessment records in the format created and maintained by the municipalities' independent contractor assessors in a computer database.The court held that the open records law allowed WIREdata the opportunity to access that database in order to examine and copy the property assessment records, and that the municipalities committed open records law violations when they denied WIREdata such access and instead provided it with a "PDF," or portable document file.
Case: WIREdata, Inc. v. Village of Sussex (Wis. Ct. App. Jan. 3, 2007)
As of January 1st, the following important change to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure is scheduled to go into effect.
Rule 32.1. Citing Judicial Dispositions (a) Citation Permitted. A court may not prohibit or restrict the citation of federal judicial opinions, orders, judgments, or other written dispositions that have been: (i) designated as "unpublished," "not for publication," "non-precedential," "not precedent," or the like; and (ii) issued on or after January 1, 2007.
See Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure from the US Courts web site.
Source: Moritz Legal Information Blog
According to a recent press release form the ABA:
Lawyers who receive electronic documents are free to look for and use information hidden in metadata - information embedded in electronically produced documents - even if the documents were provided by an opposing lawyer, according to a new ethics opinion from the American Bar Association.
It goes on to explain what such metadata might reveal:
The ABA committee noted metadata is ubiquitous in electronic documents, and includes such information as the last date and time that a document was saved and by whom, data on when it was accessed, the name of the owner of the computer that created the document and the date and time it was created, and a record of any changes made to the document or comments written into it."Other types of metadata may or may not be as well known and easily understandable ... Moreover, more thorough or extraordinary investigative measures sometimes might permit the retrieval of embedded information that the provider ... either did not know existed, or thought was deleted," said the opinion. And while the opinion said most metadata "probably is of no import," it added that the metadata can sometimes reveal such critical information as "who knew what when," or negotiating strategy and positions. (emphasis added)
For tips on purging metadata before sharing documents, see Metadata: What You Can't See Can Hurt You by Sharon Nelson and John Simek. Law Practice 32(2):28-29 (March 2006)
Source: beSpacific
My colleague, Jenny Zook, has created a guide on Locating Attorneys, Law Firms, Corporate Counsel & Judges for our UW Law School newsletter. She's included some useful tips, although, please note that some of the resources mentioned may only be available by subscription or in a library.
From a PACER press release:
(What is PACER?)
The latest versions of CM/ECF include a number of notable changes that were requested by PACER customers. PACER customers can now choose whether the client code field should be mandatory when logging into CM/ECF. In addition, formatting requirements of the client code can be set. The new preference settings allow customers to turn off viewing of transaction receipts if desired. To implement these new features, login to the Account Information section of this website, then select "Set PACER Preferences."A new "Court Information" utility is available in CM/ECF. The option provides general court information such as hours of operation, court location and phone number, as well as filing information such as the maximum size of PDF files, the court's version of CM/ECF, case flag definitions and more. "Court Information" can be accessed in most courts at the bottom left hand corner before logging into the system. While logged into PACER, click on the "Utilities" menu option to get to "Court Information."
Only district version 3.0 and bankruptcy version 3.1 and later include the enhancements listed above. Customers may set their preferences now, but they will not appear in a court until the court installs the new versions of CM/ECF. For a complete listing of changes, review the CM/ECF Release Notes.
A press release from the Wisconsin Courts outlines some of the recent changes to the CCAP case management system. The changes are in response to criticism that the information contained on CCAP could be misinterpreted.
The changes include:
See also the article in today's Badger Herald
There is an interesting article in the National Law Journal about judges citing to blogs. The article notes that since 2004, judges have cited blogs 32 times in 27 different cases, including Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent in U.S. v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005).
From the article:
"I'm not sure I have any cosmic theories about why it's happening," [9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diarmuid] O'Scannlain said in an interview from his Portland, Ore., chambers."I am sure most judges, when they see carefully articulated logic in whatever form, in a law review or published lecture or electronic form, are inclined to evaluate it and if relevant cite it," he said. He predicted that the practice would continue to grow.
The August edition of the DCLRC Docket is now available from the Dane County Legal Resource Center. It features a directory of free legal assistance programs located in the Dane Co. courthouse (215 South Hamilton Street).
In his Law.com article entitled Viewing Law Blogs as a Vast Amicus Brief, Howard Bashman consideres "what should judges do if, while visiting the legal blogosphere, they encounter discussions about how pending cases ought to be decided?
He writes, "We expect appellate courts to conduct their own legal research, beyond that presented by the parties, with the goal of reaching the most lawful and just outcomes possible. When the legal blogosphere offers assistance in the form of insightful commentary about pending cases from law professors and lawyers with particular expertise in the subject matter under consideration, a judge's consultation of those blog posts is, in my view, just another form of permissible legal research."
Source: Inside Opinions: Legal Blogs
The June issue of Law Practice has an interesting article about the difference between Gen X and Gen Y jurors. In The Newer Generations in the Jury Box: Who Will Favor Your Cause? the author contends that:
Generation X jurors tend to:
As a Gen Xer, I can say that these observations are pretty much right on - except for being impressed with parties who take ethical risks in business. Maybe it would depend on the particulars, but in general, I don't think that messing around with ethics is a good thing.
I can absolutely identify with the "personal responsibility" and "self-reliance" values. Probably comes from being a latch-key kid. I would also want to see hard data along with the source behind it, particularly if it is presented in a concise, technological way. And as a Gen Xer, I can definitely appreciate getting the "bottom line."
From the July DCRLC Newsletter:
Through a cooperative effort with the Family Court Counseling Service (FCCS) and other family court offices, a new edition of the Dane County Family Court Resource Booklet is now available. You may purchase hard copies of the booklet for $3.00 by contacting DCLRC or FCCS (266-4607) or view the booklet online.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Friday that "prosecutors shouldn't use the state's online criminal record system to prove whether a defendant is a repeat offender."
According to an AP article (appearing in StarTribune.com), "the decision reversed a ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeals, which had rejected Jamale Bonds' argument the state's Consolidated Court Automation Programs, or CCAP, were too unreliable to prove he was a habitual criminal."
Source: Legal Dockets Online
Court Webcasting is a new project weblog from WV Supreme Court Clerk, Rory Perry. For a list of courts who webcast their proceedings, see the list on the right hand side of the page. (Note that the link to the WI Supreme Ct is broken. Here's the right one.)
Why should legal researchers watch these webcasts? From the Moritz Legal Information Blog:
- Determine whether the court is "hot" (asks many questions) or "cold" (asks few questions) to prepare for oral argument
- Find similar cases (from your state or another state) to determine what issues concerned the judges
- Learn about the etiquette and procedures for a court before appearing there
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has written a piece for the International Judicial Monitor describing her experience at the first Sir Richard May Seminar on International Law and International Courts at The Hague, Netherlands last September.
"It was simply the best judicial education opportunity that I have ever experienced," she writes. Read the article to learn why.
Thanks to my colleague, Bill Ebbott, for the tip.
From The Third Branch: Dodge County Judge Andy Bissonnette reports on the remarkable effect of a plate of treats in small claims court.
Check out the P.S. - too funny.
From the Wisconsin Court System's The Third Branch:
The Director of State Courts Office in April published the first Hmong-English legal glossary in the United States. It defines more than 800 common court terms and suggests equivalent Hmong phrases for many of them. . .The glossary defines general court terms and specific terms for criminal, juvenile, family, eviction, small claims, probate, and deportation cases. The equivalent Hmong phrases will help court interpreters develop common usages and attain the speed necessary for simultaneous interpretation. It also will be used by court interpreter programs in Wisconsin and Minnesota for training Hmong interpreters and helping them prepare for the oral certification exam. . .
The 75-page glossary can be downloaded from the court's Web site.
"The Director of State Courts Office recently introduced sixteen Spanish language circuit court forms on the court system's website. The forms were selected by a subcommittee composed of members of the court system's Interpreter Committee and Records Management Committee, to help meet the growing need for Spanish language court forms."
Read more at WSLL @ Your Service.
UPDATE: Da Vinci judge's secret code revealed
The judge's secret message was: "Jackie Fisher, who are you? Dreadnought" ...Judge Smith is known as a navy buff, and Fisher was a Royal Navy admiral who developed the idea for a giant battleship called the HMS Dreadnought in the early 20th century.
From Reuters:
Three weeks after a British court passed judgment in the copyright case involving Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code," a lawyer has uncovered what may be a secret message buried in the text of the ruling.Lawyer Dan Tench noticed some letters in the judgment had been italicized, and it suddenly dawned on him that they spelled a phrase that included the name of the judge: "Smith code."
The italicized letters scattered throughout the judgment spell out: "smithcodeJaeiextostpsacgreamqwfkadpmqz." Those in the first paragraphs spell out "smith code." But what does the rest mean?
The opinion in question appears to be Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh v. The Random House Group Limited, High Court of Justice Chancery Division, Case No: HC04C03092, [2006] EWHC 719 (Ch), [2006] All ER (D) 113 (Apr). It's available on Westlaw and LexisNexis, although I didn't see that any random letters were italicized.
From the Korea Times:
Weblogs, or Internet diaries, are about to gain more than just curious readers. Korean courts are now experimenting whether they could operate court trials and hearings just through Internet postings, saving everybody the trouble of actually entering the courtroom.The Seoul Administration Court recently designated one of its court units, which rules on labor-management relations and industrial accidents, to develop a prototype model for Internet-based trial models by the end of this month.
Although the court has not yet decided on a detailed framework, it plans to allow the parties in lawsuits to submit their list of evidence, legal documents and other data on Weblogs or Internet message boards to be operated by the court. The court decisions will also be announced online.
Source: Between Lawyers
In his blog, 3L Epiphany, Ian Best, a student at Moritz College of Law (Ohio State University), has some fascinating posts exploring judges' opinions on blogging. Best surveyed two judges, Judith Lanzinger (Ohio Sup. Ct.) and Richard Kopf (U.S. District Judge, Nebraska), about their thoughts on citing blogs, blogs as legitimate forms of scholarship, blogs v. law reviews, and more.
Judge Lanzinger on predictions about the effect of legal blogs on the profession:
Assuming that legal blogs are now in their infancy, and that they will grow to have a long and fruitful life, I think that lawyers who ignore them altogether will do so at their peril.
Judge Kopf on whether blogs are substantial and legitimate forms of scholarship:
Sure, at least some of them are "substantial and legitimate forms of scholarship." Blogs written by lawyers, judges, law professors and law students that provide solid information and critical analysis on subjects the authors know something about are just as authoritative as other secondary sources.
Judge Kopf on advantages and disadvantages of legal blogs compared to law reviews and other traditional forms of scholarship:
The advantages are obvious: speed, availability, and topicality. I don't see real disadvantages.
Source: Slaw
Westlaw recently released a new service called Westlaw eForms. These fill-in-the-blank forms are available for federal courts, state and local courts, bankruptcy courts, and government agencies. Forms are both saveable and emailable.
For more information, see the guide to Completing Westlaw eForms.
Law.com reports that Supreme Court Votes to Allow Citation to Unpublished Opinions in Federal Courts
The Supreme Court on Wednesday adopted a historic rule change that will allow lawyers to cite so-called unpublished opinions in federal courts starting next year. The new rule takes effect unless Congress countermands it before Dec. 1. . .Under the new rule, circuits will still be able to give varying precedential weight to unpublished opinions, but they can no longer keep lawyers from citing them -- in the same way lawyers cite rulings from other circuits or other authorities, such as law review articles.
Source: beSpacific
Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Barry and Jo from Court Data Technologies. They introduced me to their new CourtTracker service and I must say that I was impressed.
Basically, CourtTracker takes CCAP case data (Wisconsin circuit courts) and allows you to search it in powerful ways not available via CCAP. It's like CCAP on steroids.
You can search cases by specific statute(s), prosecutor(s), and/or judge(s). If I were a criminal defense attorney, I think that it would be very helpful to quickly see see the history of how certain judges and prosecutors have treated similar cases in plea arrangements and sentencing.
A screen shot of a sample search appears below. Note that I had to cut out some of the sentencing information to make the screen shot legible here.
It seems that there are also two additional enhancements to CourtTracker which are still in development. The first is an individualized calendar of your court dates. The second is a disposition report feature which gives you a quick statistical analysis of end results of cases with similar facts.
Overall, I think that this is a very powerful tool. I did have a couple of suggestions that I mentioned to Barry and Jo, however. The search screen doesn't seem terribly intuitive to me. It requires that the user know to change tabs at the top to view search results. Apparently, it was designed this way to promote versatility results navigation. I don't know - I still like the comfort of a search button.
Barry and Jo also shared with me that there are a couple of quirks with the CCAP data that could affect results. Although this was noted on a separate help screen, I suggested that it might be helpful to display it somewhere on the search results page. But these are very small hiccups in what is an otherwise great product.
CourtTracker is available by annual subscription to firms. Prices vary by number of attorney per firm. Court Data Tech staff also do customized research for those who do not subscribe to CourtTracker.
Here's a funny one from the Smoking Gun: Judging By His Handwriting
MARCH 14--It seems that there is a serious penmanship problem with lawyers filing documents in Mississippi's Eighth Circuit Court. So much so that the presiding judge there issued the below order warning attorneys that the court clerk would now reject pleadings and motions containing illegible signatures. The judicial order, filed February 3, will be enforced by clerks in four Mississippi counties: Leake, Neshoba, Newton, and Scott.Now here's the funny part: We defy you to make out the signature of the judge who issued the handwriting order.
A copy of the opinion appears at the Smoking Gun.
Source: Law Librarian Blog
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On the UW Law Library New Book Shelf:
Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated
Chapter one features an "oral history" by Chris Ochoa, entitled "My Life Is a Broken Puzzle." Currently a law student at the UW Law School, he spent 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and was exonerated thanks to the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Thanks to Bill Ebbott for the tip. |
PACER is now offering free access to opinions in federal district courts using CM/ECF version 2.4 or higher. CM/ECF is the Federal Judiciary's Case Management/Electronic Case Files System.
This applies to the Eastern District of Wisconsin which uses CM/ECF Version 2.5. The Western District of Wisconsin, however, apparently does not use the CM/ECF system.
The opinions are available under the "Reports" menu in PACER. You may also access opinions via existing reports and queries, such as the docket report. You will not be billed for accessing the written opinion document itself, but will be billed for the report or query used to identify the document.
Note that PACER only provides free access to opinions filed after the court is actively using version 2.4. Earlier opinions may be subject to fees.
An interesting article on courtroom technology appears in Law.com's Small Firm Business. The author describes various technologies being used in the courtroom today and the benefits of a paperless presentation.
Source: Legal Technology Blog
The Smoking Gun reports that "in what is surely a first for the federal judiciary, a Texas bankruptcy judge has quoted from the Adam Sandler film canon in a recent opinion. Dismissing a motion due to 'incomprehensibility,' Judge Leif Clark cited a scene from 'Billy Madison,' Sandler's 1995 comedy, in a footnote to a February 21 court order."
 | "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." Ouch. See a complete copy of the Order Denying Motion for Incomprehensibility at The Smoking Gun. |
From TVC Alert:
LexisNexis this week introduced a new litigation tool called LexisNexis Service of Process. The service facilitates fast, reliable service of summonses, complaints, subpoenas and other documents via an established network of process servers. It is available through LexisNexis File & Serve, an Internet-based service provided to courts and law firms to enable the electronic exchange -- filing and service -- of legal documents such as complaints, pleadings, exhibits and proposed orders.
The Winter 2006 edition of The Third Branch is now available. The Third Branch is a quarterly publication providing news of interest to the Wisconsin Court System.
Highlights include:
- Evaluation of caseload statistics
- Update on judicial compensation
- Opening of new Dane County Courthouse
