TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Sep 16, 2020

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee yesterday approved a bipartisan bill that would make PACER, the federal court electronic records system, free for the public, The National Law Journal reports. Under the bill, the federal judiciary would have two to three years to update and modernize its system and expand services, such as allowing users to search for records across the system, rather than within individual courts. During this time, “power users” — those who spend at least $25,000 annually on court filings — would continue to pay fees per page. After the modernization period, the judiciary would offer free access to PACER for all users and completely stop charging the per-page fees. The move comes shortly after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the federal judiciary misused PACER funds for other projects. The ABA Journal reports on that decision.