e-Law — Meeting No. 8

I. Public access to court records and court filings

• Who sets the policy?
• Individual court clerks (Hamilton County, Ohio; Escambia County, FL; Ft. Bend County, TX)
• Legislature
• High court
  
  
• What are the principal competing concerns?
• Identity theft - e.g., SSN and account numbers
• Stalking and other forms of physical or financial harm - e.g., birthdate, phone number, address [Arizona / San Francisco]
• Release of proprietary business information (Google's search algorithm)
• Public exposure of intimate or personal information (litigation involving children, family issues, medical conditions, employment history, drug and alcohol treatment)
• Competing public priorities (cost of providing access and filtering access)
• Disincentive to use of courts and related public services
• Risk to victims and other witnesses
• National security information
• Other?
  

II. Policy on public access to court records and court filings - variables beyond what info

• Any distinction between public at the courthouse and public online? (Public online at the courthouse?)
  
  
• Any distinction between public records and court filings (and discovery material, transcript)
  
  
• Who is aggrieved? Plaintiff, defendant, witness, convicted person, other individual
  
  
• What is the purpose of the information access? Who is retrieving it?
  
  
• Bulk take-off versus individual search?
  
  
• Commercial versus non-profit?
  
  
• Original versus compiled data?
  
  
• High profile cases handled separately?
  
  
• Other?
  

III. Implementation issues

• Who should have the responsibility for identifying and shielding information that should not be accessible?
  
  
• What procedure is there for resolving complaints about access or lack of it?
  
  
• How to deal with expunged data or records kept beyond mandatory retention period?
  
  
• Categorical rules versus discretion (no access to matrimonial or Social Security cases)
  
  
• What controls are there or should there be over redistributors? Enforcement?
  
  
• Should the existence of restricted documents or data be indicated? How?
  
  
• What to do with inappropriately filed material?
  
  
• Public liability (judicial immunity)?
  
  
• Fee access or free?
  
  
• Transition issues (documents filed before online access, before new policy)
  
  
• Fair notice to parties and attorneys, training for judges
  
  
• Other?
  

IV. The current state of implementation and policy development

• PACER - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  
  
• A sampler of state and local systems
  
  
• CA, MN, NY, TX, WA
  

V. Next week: Communication of law within law-applying bodies

• Readings
• Assigned: One or more benchbook, One or more DOL elaws Advisors, 20 CFR 405.410
• Submission: Think piece: a) the interactive benchbook or b) selection for review by software
  
  
• November 21 (midnight):
• Your paper in draft