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CMLawLibraryBlog

The CM Law Library Blog seeks to inform the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law community about key legal education, research, practice, and law library news, with a particular focus on Cuyahoga County and Ohio as well as faculty research interests.

Federal Courts Limit Career Law Clerks

Sue Altmeyer, Electronic Services Librarian, sue.altmeyer@law.csuohio.edu | September 19, 2007 - 18:26

The Judicial Conference of the United States voted to restrict federal judges to one career law clerk. The recent trend has been for judges to have more than one career clerk. Now, one clerk must be a "term clerk" who stays on for four years or less. Existing career clerks will not necessarily lose their status. If a judge has more than one career clerk, the career clerks will be able retain their career clerk status with the judge's consent. Additionally, if a judge leaves the bench, another federal judge can hire the departing judge's career clerk, and they will not lose their career clerk status. The Judicial Conference hopes to save money by hiring clerks out of law school at a lower salary. See U.S. Courts Press Release. Source: Pamela A. MacLean, Judicial Conference Votes to Curb Career Clerks, National Law Journal, Sept. 24, 2007 (from the email preview).


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Pacer: Find Federal Court Dockets, Pleadings and Now Transcripts Too!

Sue Altmeyer, Electronic Services Librarian, sue.altmeyer@law.csuohio.edu | September 19, 2007 - 17:22

The Judicial Conference of the United States recently voted to make transcripts of federal district and bankruptcy court cases available on PACER (the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system). Ninety days after they are delivered to the clerk, transcripts can be viewed, downloaded, or printed from PACER for eight cents per page. See U.S. Courts Press Release. Source: WisBlawg.

pacer logoThe Library subscribes to Pacer. Cleveland-Marshall faculty, staff and students who need Pacer documents should contact a reference librarian. Otherwise, to access PACER, you must register and provide credit card information. PACER charges 8 cents a page for search results and documents retrieved, but opinions are free. There is a per document cap of $2.40 (30 pages). No fee is owed until an account holder accrues charges of more than $10 in a calendar year. PACER charges money because Congress provided no funds for electronic public access.

PACER was created about a decade ago to provide electronic access to court dockets. Around 2001, courts started to make pdf copies of the documents filed in a case accessible too. Today, most federal appellate courts, district courts and bankruptcy courts have dockets and filings accessible through PACER. The U.S. Supreme Court docket is not on PACER.

For more information on finding court dockets, see the library's guide: Resources for Finding Court Dockets.


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