In September 1998, the Judicial Conference authorized "an experimental program of electronic access for the public to court information..." From a dozen participating courts, PACER has grown to include all bankruptcy, district and appellate courts—growing from 9,000 to 900,000 registered accounts by 2008.

The book Judge Abdul Saboor Hashimi of Afghanistan is writing may help shape his country's legal system. From May to August 2008, Hashimi spent four months at the Federal Judicial Center writing the first benchbook for Afghan judges on how to prepare for and conduct criminal trials.

Feeling anxious about the current state of our economy? Not the twenty-five federal courts currently participating in the Court Registry Investment System. CRIS pools money from individual court accounts and deposits in the U.S. Treasury in the form of Treasury bills.

Since March 2007 federal judges have granted 71% of applications for sentence reductions in response to retroactive sentencing guidelines.

H. Thomas Wells Jr., president of the American Bar Association and partner and founding member at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., in Birmingham, Ala., shares his thoughts on rule of law, bipartisan judicial commissions and judicial vacancies.