Robert Ambrogi Blog
PacerPro, the company that provides various advanced tools for searching the federal courts’ PACER system and for managing PACER documents, today unveiled Case Feed, a feature that shows all activity on all of a law firm’s PACER cases in real-time chronological order, including PDFs of case filings.
The feature makes electronic filings from PACER instantly available through the PacerPro platform, where they can be easily accessed by anyone in the law firm.
It works by automatically retrieving electronically filed documents in cases in which the law firm is involved. When PACER sends a notice of electronic filing (NEF) indicating a new docket entry in a case, PacerPro immediately updates Case Feed with the PDFs of the filings.
As you can see in the screencap above, a new Case Activity page within the PacerPro platform shows all docket activity and filings in all a firm’s cases, with the most recent activity first. When a user clicks on any item in the activity list, the full PDF of the court filing is displayed to the right of the item.
The feature works in conjunction with PacerPro’s Pdfs-to-go service, which automatically distributes all NEFs, with PDF filings attached, to everyone in the firm who is designated to receive them. (I wrote about this feature last year.)
The service offers several advantages to lawyers and law firms with cases in federal court. For one, it ensures that everyone on a litigation team has easy access to all filings. Under the standard PACER system, the lawyers on a case are sent NEFs via email whenever a new docket entry is added to the case. These NEFs contain a hyperlink that provides the attorney with a free download of the newly filed document or documents. This is typically referred to as the “free look” document.
There are any number of problems with this system, including that the lawyer who downloads it may not forward it to other members of the team or may lose track of the original download. That can result in multiple downloads by multiple individuals of the same document, all incurring PACER fees. At some firms, this is handled through docket clerks, but even then, lawyers may need the documents at times when they’re not readily available.
With PacerPro’s system, the documents are all available instantly, from one central location, to everyone on the team. And the possibility of repetitive PACER charges is eliminated because everyone knows where to find the documents they need.
“PacerPro’s new Case Feed provides access and transparency across all the different constituents within a firm who need access to PACER documents,” Gavin McGrane, PacerPro’s founder and CEO, said in a press release announcing the new service. “With this tool, a firm can give everyone immediate access through a dedicated platform to everything that is filed.”
The Case Feed service is available today and will be offered as part of PacerPro’s Professional-level subscription plan. There is no charge for basic access to PacerPro or for using it to search PACER.
[Full disclosure: I am a paid member of PacerPro’s advisory board. See my prior post about this.]