The study looks closely at the applications and programs that librarians and others in law firms, university law schools and other organizations in the legal sector use to search and navigate court dockets. The report helps its readers to answer questions such as: what kind of programs and applications are law librarians using to search dockets? How much are they spending? How and to what extent do they teach docket searching skills to their organizations attorneys, law professors and other patrons? What do they consider best practices?
The report presents detailed data on the use of a broad range of docket searching applications such as PACER, CourtLink, WestLaw Dockets, Bloomberg Law Docket Searching and FastCase. The report lists details on annual spending on PACER. It relates the extent of specific information literacy measures in docket searching for PACER, state courts, the US Supreme Court and much more.
Data in the report is based on a survey of 71 law libraries predominantly from the USA and Canada, including more than 30 major law firms and 16 law schools, among a total of 71 participants.
Just a few this report’s many findings are that:
-
Nearly 32% of survey participants said that they use PACER either “a great deal” or “a lot.”
-
43% of law libraries of law firms in the sample offer their library patrons training on PACER, in the form of video tutorials, classes, or other means.
-
69% of university law school libraries in the sample used WestLaw Dockets.
-
Bloomberg Law Docket Searching was particularly likely to be used by librarians who had both an MLS (or MLIS) and a JD degree.