Does the 8-cent-a-page fee for PACER deter academics from using it?

March 14th, 2012

Probably.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Pacer (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is a service of the federal court system that makes all docket filings in all federal cases electronically accessible.  It’s not free—it’s 8 cents a page—and maybe even that small cost deters academics from using it more.  (In my old office, we never even saw the bills, so I was on it constantly.)  Since I’ve been in academia, I’ve found it incredibly useful, and I’ve been surprised that law professors don’t use it more for research and teaching.