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Monday, October 17, 2011
Courts - "Telegram for the Federal Circuit: Electronic Case Filing Is Now Available"
That is the heading to this entry by Andrew Dhuey at Patently-O Blog. The entry points out that:
[T]here is usually no easy way for them to obtain Federal Circuit briefs. The reason for that is the Court – charged by Congress to resolve the most important technology disputes in the world – still does not have electronic case filing (ECF).In the federal judiciary, ECF is now operational in all appellate and district courts, save two: the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. Some Supreme Court justices are comically unfamiliar with such cutting-edge technologies as texting and email, though the Chief Justice probably does know more about pagers than the typical 20-something today. Fortunately, the technological backwardness of the Supreme Court's case filing system is of no consequence – you can get just about any petition or merits stage brief you might want from SCOTUSblog, the American Bar Association and other online sources.
At the Federal Circuit, however, odds are you have only three options when seeking a brief or motion: i) pay several hundred dollars for a messenger to go to the Court and copy it, ii) pay Westlaw or Lexis a similar amount to download it (if available) or iii) ask an attorney in the case for the favor of a PDF (tip: ask really nicely). [ILB: Note that the same problem exists with trying to obtain Indiana state court appellate briefs.]
The Court's long delay in implementing ECF is puzzling. In case after case, Federal Circuit judges and their law clerks demonstrate their ability to learn and analyze extremely complex technologies in widely disparate fields. Why then is the Court lagging behind every regional circuit court and all district courts in the nation when it comes to adopting technology in its own operations?
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 17, 2011 09:44 AM
Posted to Courts in general