PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
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PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#2I'll say it again: Bonkers!
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#3PACER is definitely interesting, a bit antiquated, and to date, the data has mostly resided in the hands of the big information companies (Lexis, Westlaw, etc.).
I've been building a system/website to access, search and develop intelligent analytics from PACER court information. We're tracking cases, attorneys, parties, judges, as well as the actual case dockets. The data is a treasure trove of information, and if anyone's interested, I'd be very happy to chat more about it.
The site (a signup for now as I'm working out the kinks in the system) is www.docketleads.com. Email me there or ping me here for more info.
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#4I wonder if Recap [1] would help in addressing the censorship/deletion issue. Ultimately, the way we fund these programs is the root the problem (and the privatization of what is supposed to be public data).
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#5It would cost Google negligible money to host this data and the only people who would be upset would be the rent-seeking jerks responsible for the current PACER debacle.
And EDGAR after that.
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#6I wonder if Recap [1] would help in addressing the censorship/deletion issue. Ultimately, the way we fund these programs is the root the problem (and the privatization of what is supposed to be public data). [1] https://www.recapthelaw.org
Recap only helps here if everyone accesses/pays for all of the files that are about to be deleted, and doing so would surely cost millions or billions.
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#7I wonder if Recap [1] would help in addressing the censorship/deletion issue. Ultimately, the way we fund these programs is the root the problem (and the privatization of what is supposed to be public data). [1] https://www.recapthelaw.org
RECAP hasn't been nearly as active as its initiators had hoped. The data there is pretty good however, and for a handful of key cases, I would say it's very good. The biggest issue with the data is that it's spotty. Since it relies on individuals to pull info on each case, some cases may only have partial information (not all the parties, attorneys, etc. represented), or not have the full docket available (and rarely, if ever, all of the documents associated with a case).
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#8Un-fucking-believable. PACER has always been awful (I've used it since about 2005), but this is a new low---this is ACTIVE awfulness.
I assume, based on the weird specificity of what they're removing, that the PACER office is doing this at the request of the individual courts. Which just sort of underscores how awful this is---that courts get to decide how public their own opinions are.
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#9Un-fucking-believable. PACER has always been awful (I've used it since about 2005), but this is a new low---this is ACTIVE awfulness. I assume, based on the weird specificity of what they're removing, that the PACER office is doing this at the request of the individual courts. Which just sort of underscores how awful this is---that courts get to decide how public their own opinions are.
Not so. The AO forced the courts to do it according to two people at the Second Circuit.
The most likely explanation is that as part of the "upgrade" of CM/ECF (the write component of PACER) they needed to jettison old databases that used a different schema. This is of course nonsense. They've likely spent over $100 million on this upgrade since 2007, though actual numbers are surprisingly hard to come by. For that price they could have probably afforded a few coders to convert the older databases over.
Re: PACER Deleting Old Cases; Time to Fix PACER
#10It would cost Google negligible money to host this data and the only people who would be upset would be the rent-seeking jerks responsible for the current PACER debacle. And EDGAR after that.
What do you dislike about EDGAR? I find EDGAR to be pretty good. It's easy to search and completely free.