A 2011 article for this publicationFootnote 1 attempted to address some of the resources and quirks encountered in U.S. legal research. This new article is not necessarily a direct update to the previous article, but will instead provide a brief overview of the leading official, free resources to help monitor cases currently in litigation, as well as proposed legislation and regulations. The jurisdictional focus is primarily U.S. federal, but tips on monitoring state cases and legislation are also provided. Most of the sources mentioned in this article are not entirely “new” and are introduced in the specific context of how to use them to monitor developments. Keeping with the spirit of the 2011 article, the resources discussed herein will be no-cost or low-cost only; this article will not address the more powerful fee-based tracking services offered from a number of vendors. A short section on recent additions to the no-cost and low-cost legal database landscape is included at the end.
MONITORING CASES
Keeping track of a case moving through the court system and acquiring documents filed in support of these cases can be an important source of research for legal practitioners and scholars across all sectors. Many librarians are already aware that federal court system's Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or PACER, is the place to find documents filed in support of federal litigation.
PACERFootnote 2
• What is it? PACER is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information online from federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts. Be aware that the coverage dates for each court vary widely from court to court, so it is worth checking out the individual court's information page to determine whether the case sought will be included.Footnote 3
• Why use it? Originally designed as a way for attorneys and courts to easily file and manage court documents electronically, PACER also provides the general public with a way to monitor case filings and access related court documents.
• Who can use it? Although intended for those filing material in support of current litigation, anyone can register for a PACER account to search and retrieve material that has already been posted to PACER.
• How to use it? To locate documents related to a particular case, select the individual court's site, or, if unsure of the court, search the PACER Case Locator. Obviously it is best to have the docket number, but users can also search by case name or party name. Once the case is located, clicking on its “Docket Report” will display all the relevant information, including parties, attorneys, and a summary of actions, document and pleadings associated with the litigation.Footnote 4 Some courts now provide automatic notification of recently docketed materials
• How much does it cost to use? It is free to register for PACER, but to access any case document, docket sheet, or case-specific report it is $.10/page, with the max of $3/document. However, no fee is owed for electronic access to court data or audio files via PACER until an account holder accrues charges of more than $15.00 in a quarterly billing cycle.Footnote 5
Despite the availability of such a powerful tool, it is important to keep in mind a few tips when faced with a request to find a docket or document related to U.S. litigation:
• One of the major drawbacks of PACER is the lack of automatic tracking ability. Some courts have developed an RSS feed that allows the user to monitor documents filed in that court, but not individual dockets. One new entrant to the legal market is PacerPro, a no-cost/low-cost resource which offers more robust search tools, batch downloading capability, and the ability to “follow” a case and receive email alerts.Footnote 6 A free account with PacerPro allows users to “follow” up to 2 cases at any time.
• PACER only extends to the federal courts and does not contain any coverage for state cases; most electronic state court docketing systems will seem disappointing compared to PACER.
• Although many documents are available to access electronically through various court docketing systems, it is important to remember that many are not. There are many reasons for this, but most of the time it is because documents are specifically withheld or redacted for privacy purposes.
• Trial transcripts, a commonly requested type of document, are not generally part of the docket. Sometimes a transcript is automatically attached to the docket in district and bankruptcy court proceedings if requested by one of the parties, subject to a 90-day inspection period.Footnote 7 If a trial transcript is not attached to the docket, it is helpful to determine whether the case was appealed – many times one of the parties will file a copy of the lower court's trial transcript as part of the appellate case docket.
• Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of retrieving case filings is determining which filings are relevant. Each court has its own terminology for dockets, and it can be difficult for a user unfamiliar with that jurisdiction to understand the difference between an “opinion” and “order”, “notice” and “motion”, so on and so forth. Given that there is a nominal cost associated with accessing documents on many electronic docketing systems, it is not always feasible to download every document that looks useful. Each court may have some helpful FAQs posted on its website, but there does not appear to be an overall glossary to decoding docket listings. Whenever possible, try to determine the date of the filing in question to at least narrow down the choices of filings made on a certain day.
• Bloomberg Law, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw all offer some dockets and court documents, but Bloomberg's docket searching functionality is often favored because of how closely it mimics PACER. In addition to being able to search dockets, briefs and other court documents directly on these platforms, filings that are related to a specific case will generally be linked through that platform's annotation system.
• As regular users may have observed, PACER's interface is not always the most user friendly, nor does it have any advanced search functionality. To provide a solution, companies like Bloomberg Law and PacerPro have developed products which pull data directly from PACER and overlay a more user-friendly interface with additional field search capability, thus increasing functionality.
Monitoring U.S. Supreme Court Cases
An important caveat to the federal coverage on PACER, information on cases before the Supreme Court of the United States is not available on PACER; it is instead maintained directly by the Supreme Court itself. Dockets can be retrieved from the Supreme Court's website by case name or docket number,Footnote 8 and merit briefs can be retrieved going back to the October 2003 term via the American Bar Association's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases website.Footnote 9
A leading site for actively monitoring developments in Supreme Court cases is SCOTUSblog.Footnote 10 SCOTUSblog's strengths come from the extensive commentary it provides on possible, pending and decided Supreme Court cases, and is often the go-to site to monitor when decisions are being handed down. One advantage of monitoring dockets on SCOTUSblog is that it links to briefs, including amici briefs,Footnote 11 directly from the docket list whenever possible. Of special interest is its petition tracking feature which highlights particular petitions for cert which the expert editors feel may have a good chance of succeeding.Footnote 12
Monitoring State Cases
The current landscape of electronic court docketing systems varies greatly on a state-by-state basis. It is difficult to make any general statements that would be useful in searching for dockets or court documents in any given state, as the access, availability of material, and date range for these systems will differ substantially from state to state. Some general takeaways about monitoring state cases versus federal cases is that a researcher is more likely to find documents available for civil cases in higher level courts (if at all); sometimes docket lists can be found for various levels but no linked documents. A good first step in monitoring state cases would be to consult Indiana University – Bloomington Law Library's research guide to locating information on state court dockets, records, and opinions.Footnote 13
LEGISLATIVE MONITORING
Monitoring Federal Legislation
The U.S. legislative process can be a tricky one to decipher.Footnote 14 However, members of the legal community may wish to track the development of new legislation for a variety of reasons, and in the U.S. legal practitioners will sometimes seek out legislative history to prove the legislative intent of a statute. There are a number of resources, both low-cost and no-cost, which aim to help the researcher monitor proposed legislation (“bills”) and locate related legislative history, but for U.S. federal legislation the most user-friendly official website is Congress.gov.
Congress.govFootnote 15
• What is it? Congress.gov is an official website for free US federal legislative information. It is the successor to THOMAS, which has been almost completely phased out.Footnote 16
• Why use it? It provides the most user-friendly interface for locating official documents related to current and past bills considered by the US Congress. Congress.gov is considered the go-to source for locating information about bills introduced, and passed by Congress, Coverage for bill records begins in 1973, but the full text of bills are available from 1993, and the Congressional Record from 1995.Footnote 17
• How to use it? Simply input the title or numberFootnote 18 of the bill in the main search box.Footnote 19 The standard information attached to a bill on Congress.gov includes the name(s) of the bill's sponsor, the Committee(s) to which further review of the bill is delegated, a link to any reports issued by the Committee(s), the most recent action on the bill, and any major recorded votes. Further, there are often summaries, copies of the various versions of the bill's text, a more detailed listing of all actions and votes taken on the bill, additional committee documentation, and information on related bills (if relevant).
Monitoring State Legislation
Similar to monitoring state cases, monitoring state legislation varies tremendously across the country. The legislative terminology and process also varies from state-to-state, and it is worth spending some time gaining an understanding of a particular state's legislative process before attempting to monitor its bills. A good place to look for information on a state's legislative process is in research guides authored by librarians in that state; a simple search of “[x state] legislative research guide” will almost always yield some promising results.Footnote 20 To quickly locate the relevant resource(s) for any particular state, the National Conference of State Legislatures - State Legislative Websites DirectoryFootnote 21 allows users to select the desired state and type of information sought.
MONITORING REGULATIONS
Monitoring Federal Regulations
Some of the most prolific creators of law in the United States are the executive agencies. These agencies are required to provide notice of their rulemaking activities via the Federal Register.Footnote 22 Keeping apprised of agency actions is a key responsibility for attorneys representing interests related to that agency's competencies, and the job of monitoring new and proposed regulations is easily done for free through FederalRegister.gov.
FederalRegister.gov
• What is it? FederalRegister.gov is the electronic version of the Federal Register, the official daily publication of federal executive agencies which publishes proposed rules, final rules, notices and presidential documents every business day.
• Why use it? FederalRegister.gov is an excellent way to keep apprised of federal agency actions and is useful for legal practitioners and researchers working in heavily regulated areas. The system has a number of useful features such as the ability to browse by topic, agency, or general area of interest, and offers a very good advanced search function.
• How to use it? To be alerted to any new documents published by an agency or in a specific topical area via RSS feed or via email, simply click the “Browse” button, then identifying the relevant agency and once on the agency's page, click the “Subscribe” button on the upper right-hand menu bar.
Regulations.gov
• What is it? Agencies are generally required to provide a “notice and comment” period for each proposed rule, whereby notice is given in the Federal Register and comments on the proposal are solicited. Regulations.gov provides information on rulemaking activities and also allows for the collection and publication of comments.
• Why use it? Although FederalRegister.gov allows users to submit a comment and view submitted comments on Regulations.gov through direct links, in practice sometimes this does not work as seamlessly as it is supposed to. By going directly to Regulations.gov, users can not only submit comments in response to a proposed rule but also view other comments and documents submitted on the proposed rule's docket.
• How to use it? If not directly linking to Regulations.gov from FederalRegister.gov, the best way to retrieve a relevant rule is by searching that rule's RIN number or its docket number (both found in the Federal Register notice); key word searching is not always the most effective way to utilize this resource. Once the correct rule is located in the search results, the most useful way to access the documents is by clicking the “Open Docket Folder” link. The user will then have access to the text of the proposed rule and any notices related to it, additional documentation uploaded by the agency, and copies of all comments submitted in response to the proposed rule. Users can also sign up for alerts regarding new and modified documents by clicking on the “Sign Up for Email Alerts” link within the docket listing.
A key point to remember about Regulations.gov is that not all agencies use Regulations.gov to collect their commentsFootnote 23 – one of the major exceptions is the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)Footnote 24. The SEC and other non-participating agencies will set out their preferred submission information in their Federal Register posting under the “Addresses” heading, but comments can still be submitted via Regulations.gov, as well as the “Submit a Comment” button on FederalRegister.gov. However, the major difference between “participating” and “non-participating” agencies on Regulations.gov is that comments are not visible on that platform; many non-participating agencies will make these comments publicly accessible via their own websites
UPDATES TO NO-COST AND LOW-COST DATABASES SINCE 2011
Although this article is primarily focused on helping researchers monitor legal information in the U.S., there have been a few notable additions to the no-cost and low-cost databases listed in the 2011 article which are worth mentioning. There are a number of ways to keep up-to-date with new developments in legal technology; one site in particular to consider is Robert Ambrogi's Law Sites blog, which posts reviews and news on websites and databases of interest to the legal community.Footnote 25
Case Law
• CasemakerFootnote 26
A low-cost resource offered primarily through state bar associations,Footnote 27 Casemaker provides access to a wide collection of state and federal legal research resources including current and archived caselaw, statutes, court rules, regulations, and, for some jurisdictions, additional content such as attorney general's opinions, ethics opinions and jury instructions.
• Ravel LawFootnote 28
A new legal search, analytics, and visualization platform created by Stanford Law grads, Ravel “enables lawyers to find, contextualize, and interpret information that turns legal data into legal insights”. The major difference between free access to case law via Ravel and access to case law via another no-cost or low-cost resource is the way Ravel displays its results – cases are linked through a visual map that allows the user to see how particular cases are connected to each other.Footnote 29 Although federal and state law can be accessed for free simply by registering, Ravel is looking to make its mark in the field of analytics, and users can choose to pay for additional access to Case Analytics and Judge Analytics.
• CasetextFootnote 30
Another start-up by a Stanford Law grad, this site is designed to generate crowd-sourced analytical information on case law, this no-cost platform that includes all U.S. Supreme Court cases, federal circuit and district court cases, and some state cases. This database seeks to build its value by soliciting user-generated annotations and a citator, WeCite, to increase the utility of the free cases available through the site.
• Loislaw, a low-cost primary source platform mentioned in the 2011 articleFootnote 31 has been acquired by Fastcase and is no longer offering subscriptions.
Secondary sources
• Institutional RepositoriesFootnote 32
When looking for a copy of a law journal article, it is becoming increasingly more common to find a PDF copy available for free via one or more academic institutional repositories (IRs). Many law schools are developing and maintaining IRs to capture the output of their faculty, students and staff and make it freely available. They are of specific interest to those looking to locate materials published by a school's journals or by its professors; material included in an IR varies by school but can include journal articles, papers, talks, reports, and archival material, and these materials are discoverable through Google. For example, Fordham University School of Law's IR is called FLASH and features faculty scholarship from a variety of journals, articles published in Fordham's own student-edited journals, reports authored by its centers and institutes, S.J.D. dissertations, and archival material detailing the school's history.Footnote 33
