Justia Federal District Court Filings & Dockets

Although MCW is intended to be narrowly focused on court opinions and court news, there are times to make exceptions. Because it ties to MCW's expressed goal of greater transparency in the judicial process, we are pleased to announce the beta test of Justia Federal District Court Filings & Dockets.

This site, for free, allows users to search Federal District Court dockets. Searches can be performed using the name of the parties involved, the types of lawsuits, and the district court involved. Additionally, the site provides RSS syndication of new filings. The RSS syndication can be applied to the complete site, that is all new filings in all Federal district courts, or it can be limited to filings in particular district courts.

Links to the main site and to the Maryland site have now been posted in the "Links" box on the right side of the page.

First Official Month Report

January was our first "official" month of operation. In that time, we had 5,365 page loads and 3,019 first time visitors.

Recently, we received an inquiry from Trevor Rosen of Maryland Law blog. He asked whether we had seen the opinion of the Court of Special Appeals mentioned in this article in the Baltimore Business Journal. The short answer is that we hadn't. The reason is that the case, Zietz v. Strategic Management, is an unreported opinion.

We cover all opinions of the various courts in Maryland that are publicly available on the web. However, there are huge gaps in the opinions that are available. The Court of Special Appeals issues dozens of unreported opinions. In the United States District Court, only a few judges (Chasanow, Motz, Bennett, Legg, Blake, Davis, Quarles) regularly direct that their opinions be posted. The other judges post opinions sporadically, if at all.

Presumably, the original rationale behind unpublished opinions was related to the cost of publication. That rationale no longer holds since the cost of publishing opinions on the web is trivial. Moreover, due to advances in search technology, researchers no longer face the threat of being overwhelmed by the significant increase in the number of available opinions that a change in publication practices would trigger.

In our mission statement, published on the right, we say:

We believe that it is in the best interest of both the public and the legal system for the courts to operate with the maximum possible transparency.

That goal would be advanced if both the Court of Special Appeals and the United States District Court for the District of Maryland made all of their opinions publicly available, for free, on the web.

Update

In March of last year, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced a change of policy with respect to access to district court opinions via PACER:

In the spirit of the E-Government Act of 2002, modifications have been made to the District Court CM/ECF system to provide PACER customers with access to written opinions free of charge. The modifications also allow PACER customers to search for written opinions using a new report that is free of charge. Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as "any document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision." The responsibility for determining which documents meet this definition rests with the authoring judge.

This functionality will only be available in courts that have installed District Court CM/ECF version 2.4 or higher, and will only provide free access to opinions filed after the court is actively using version 2.4. There may still be a charge to access opinions that pre-date the court's use of version 2.4. The new report is available under the Reports menu. PACER customers can also access opinions via existing reports and queries, such as the docket report, and will not be billed for accessing the written opinion document itself, but will be billed for the report or query used to identify the document. For example, if a PACER customer runs a docket report, the customer will be charged for the docket report. If the customer then clicks on the document number hyperlink for a written opinion document, the customer will not be charged for viewing the document. Future versions of Bankruptcy CM/ECF will have similar functionality.

Our suggestion, that all of the members of the bench of the U.S.D.C. for the District of Maryland follow the practice of posting most of their opinions on the Court's website, is consonant with this policy. The MCW blog, unlike PACER, is picked up by the major search engines, is internally searchable, is available via RSS and Atom syndication, and has certain editorial enhancements such as a labeling system, which allow users to focus on opinions that deal with issues important to them. Thus, if "any document issued by a judge or judges of the [U.S.D.C. for the District of Maryland], that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision" is posted on the Court's website, the reasoning of the judges will truly be widely accessible, not lost in the haystack of PACER.

MCW in the news: MSBA Bar Bulletin

The Maryland Courts Watcher blog got a very favorable mention in the January 2007 edition of Pat Yevic's monthly "Solo/Small Firm Practitioner" column in the MSBA's Bar Bulletin. In an article entitled "TMI: Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing?", Pat discusses legal blogs, including this commentary about MCW:

One of MSBA's Own

Stuart Levine of Fisher & Winner has created a blog, 'Maryland Courts Watcher' (www.marylandcourts.blogspot.com), for Maryland Court Opinions, and it is very good. Levine and other MSBA members provide synopses of all opinions publicly available on the Internet of the Court of Appeals and Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, the U.S. District Court and Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland, the Maryland Tax Court, and any Circuit Court in Maryland.

According to the blog, "The synopses contain no editorial opinion except where absolutely necessary to accurately reflect any opinion. However, we encourage both attorneys and lay readers to post their analyses and comments. In addition, we will also link to commentary on the Internet with respect to any case that is posted here."

Not only do they provide a synopsis of an opinion, there is link to post comments, as well as a link to all other opinions by the particular judge or judges. This is a site worth reviewing and bookmarking.

By the way, the answer to the question posed in Pat's title is obviously "NO!", at least when it comes to Maryland law! But you knew that, right? ;-)

MCW Survey

On the right side of the page, you will find a short survey. We would very much appreciate it if you would take a moment to give us your input.

Thanks.

No Further WordPerfect Opinions?

The Courts of Appeals are no longer posting opinions in both WordPerfect and PDF formats. Hereinafter, opinions will only be posted in PDF.

Interestingly, while the Courts of Appeals website no longer shows links to opinions in WordPerfect format, the links to WP in the synopses on MCW still seem to work.

Courts of Appeals Website Down

As of 4:17 P.M., December 21, 2006, the part of the Courts of Appeals that has the opinions delivered by the two courts is down.

Premature adjudication: The Court of Appeals website was not down. What occurred was that when one goes to the opinions page here, by default the radio button for the most recent year is clicked on. Apparently, that page was revised today to show 2007 as the most recent year and, of course, there are not yet any opinions for that year. Thus, when clicking on the "Submit" button, one received an error message.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Commentary

The Court of Appeals' opinion in Evans v. State has generated a good deal of weblog commentary. We have collected links to much of that commentary at the end of our posted synopsis of the case. We will be adding links as we discover them and hope to add links to any posting if the case elicits comments on the blogosphere.

Of course, readers are encouraged to offer their own comments on any decision that we report on (which, of course, includes all decisions publicly available on the web) by posting comments at the end of any posting.