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Pilot Project Enhances Public Access to Federal Court Opinions
October 31, 2011
The pilot went live in October. More than 12,000 opinions from three courts – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida – have been posted on the GPO’s Fdsys system and made available to the public.
By the end of 2011, all 12 of the original pilot courts are expected to have opinions posted on Fdsys. Work is also underway to bring the opinions from an additional 22 courts to Fdsys in early 2012.
In addition to Fdsys, opinions can be accessed free of charge from the judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service. In addition, some federal courts post judicial opinions on their websites, also free of charge.
The pilot project was approved by the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States in March 2010, and the GPO received approval from the Joint Committee on Printing – often referred to as the oldest joint committee of the Congress – in February 2011.
Although the project initially envisioned 12 pilot courts, the Conference in March 2011 voted to expand it after 35 courts volunteered to participate.
When the pilot project concludes, a determination will be made on whether to continue to provide access to opinions through Fdsys.