Free Federal District Court Opinions Database with RSS Feeds & Full Text Search
Hi Friends,
We recently added the a FREE database of Federal District Court Opinions since 2004 that are available using the opinion report in the Federal Courts' ECF. The database is updated daily.
Here is the URL for the Federal District Court Opinions:
http://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/
Categorization & Rss Feeds - We have categorized the opinions by state, court, type of lawsuit and judge and combinations of judge and type of lawsuit. You can also subscribe to each of categories through RSS feeds to track a judge or court's decisions on different issues. And we also give the cause of action for each case.
Full Text Search - We are using Google's hosted Business Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/enterprise/csbe/) for the full text search.
Google is now OCRing PDF image files, so even PDF files that have images of scanned documents will be, in most cases, full text indexable and searchable (just like the OCR of Google's Book Search). You will need to look at the cached copy to see the highlighted searched text though, and then find in the original PDF to be 100% that what you are reading is correct. Google should be doing a pretty good job of indexing and ocring these court decisions, although it may take a few days for a new document to show up in the index.
We allow one to search across all of the documents, or to limit the search to Federal District Courts in a particular state or an individual Federal District Court. You can also search by party name, court and filed date.
Data Limitations - This data set does NOT include all of the Federal District Court opinions.
a. Not all of the courts have upgraded to ECF 2.4. So we do not have opinions for those courts that have not upgraded.
b. Not all opinions and orders are included by the Judges. As is stated on the PACER site
"Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as 'any document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision.' The responsibility for determining which documents meet this definition rests with the authoring judge."
Some judges have chosen not to include any of their opinions in the opinion report.
c. Some scans of are such poor quality that the OCR failed.
Federal District Court Case Filings Database Updated
We the US Federal District Court Case Filings database has been updated with Nice Opinion Icons. When we have a judge's opinion (you will see a little gavel :). The case filings are at:
And we have added browse pages and RSS feeds by judge. That should make it easier to find other cases a particular judge has ruled on that are covering similar issues (at least at the broad case type level). If we have the opinions or orders online, you can see what the judge wrote, or you may need to log into the court's ECF system and obtain the briefs and other filings (and pay a small per page fee).
The case filings and opinion databases are related, as they both have Federal Court data, it is just that the opinions database is limited to those cases where we have opinions.
More to come: We have one more features we are going to be providing for the the Federal District Court Case Filings, and another one we are going to providing for the Federal District Court Opinions that will be very kewl. But we are all going to have to wait for Vasu, Nick and Dan to finish these up this week (the pressure is on now that I have practically pre-announced more new stuff this week :)
Peace,
Tim
:: The Promised Land, Darkness On the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen
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Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org and Free Case Law
Hi Friends,
Our friend & hero Carl Malamud stopped by the "Justia offices" to talk about his new public interest public information project.... making the case law and codes of the United States of America (state and federal) freely accessible in a public domain archive. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post on Carl's project (and read the comments from other big names in the free law space, including Cornell's Tom Bruce and HyperLaw's Alan Sugarman :) This archived data can then be used and worked on by the folks at Cornell, Google, Stanford.... and everyone!
Carl's high energy, amazing track record of success of making government information freely accessible (EDGAR, Patents, Smithsonian, CSPAN, Congressional Hearings...), connections with the technology, educational, political and online information communities will help make free case law happen. We are excited to be helping and we are giving our full support!
Rio, Carl, Sheba and Tim posterized poster and posterized :) Ready to work!!!
Here is Carl giving a Google Tech talk a year or so ago about getting Congressional video onto Google Video and other places like the Internet Archive. He gives a nice overview of some of previous free information projects (I am sure there will be a new Google Tech talk on the free case law project soon :)
Dogs in the Office? Carl is for them! So are we!
Check out Public.Resource.Org... Just the beginning... but this is going to be Great!!!!!
Peace,
Tim
And in our own blast from the past (term taken from the O'Reilly blog comments of Alan Sugarman and Tom Bruce :)... Hal Varian, Cal SIMS econ-info-library professor, and now Google's Chief Economist, is part of Public.Resource.Org. When Stacy, Martin and I were starting FindLaw, Hal was there at the very beginning, the Northern California Law Libraries meeting where the site started. Later on, Hal connected us up with Northwestern's & Oyez's Jerry Goldman, who we are still working with to this day (although with Justia, not FindLaw) on the Oyez and the Supreme Court Center.
:: Give It Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers
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New LexBlog - Real Lawyers Have Blogs - Blog
Hi Friends,
Kevin O'Keefe and the LexBlog team have updated the design and features of the LexBlog's "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" Blog.
LexBlog has changed the blog into a resource center for legal bloggers, with a Chicago Cubs look and feel :) Very nice... check it out (like we do every day :)
Peace,
Tim
:: It Don't Come Easy, Photograph: The Digital Greatest Hits by Ringo Starr
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Bellingham Law Office and Riley the dog.
Hi Friends,
Cicely traveled up to Bellingham, Washington to meet with a new client Anderson, Connell & Carey to check out what the Bellingham work environment of ocean views and clean air is really like.
Debra Sheldon stands outside the office :)
Riley hangs out on the deck (more photos below).
Clean air, just like the Silicon Valley :)
A few more photos below in the extended entry... to get to Bellingham... just visit LexBlog and drive north 80 miles or and drive south 40 miles :).
Peace,
Tim
:: Instant Karma!, Lennon Legend by John Lennon
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BlawgSearch Top Law Professor Blogs by edu visitors and Top Blawgs for August 2007
Hi Friends,
First, here are the top ten law professor blogs as determined by vistors on .edu networks on BlawgSearch.com. I set this filter up for Professor J. Robert Brown, Jr. and a paper he was writing on blogs and reputation. You can read his post about it here. While most .edu visitors are not all law professors, they do seek out more academic blogs. Anyway here is the list.
- By Professors Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Rob Howse, Paul Horwitz, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Steve Vladeck and Orly Lobel.
- Covers business, law, economics and society. By Professors Gordon Smith, Christine Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, and Lisa Fairfax.
- Covers constitutional theory, feminist legal theory, law and economics, normative legal theory and more. By University of Illinois Professor Lawrence B. Solum.
- Covers emerging empirical legal scholarship, conference updates and empirical claims. Edited by Professors Jason Czarnezki, Michael Heise, Theodore Eisenberg, William Ford, Sara Benesh, William Henderson, and Frank Cross.
- Covers civil liberties, the Internet, Guantanamo, Iraq attrocities, politics and more. By University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin.
- By Moritz College of Law Professor Douglas A. Berman.
- By Eugene Volokh, Dale Carpenter, David Kopel, David Bernstein, David Post, Erik Jaffe, Ilya Somin, Jim Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Kevan Choset, Orin Kerr, Randy Barnett, Russell Korobkin, Sasha Volokh, Stuart Benjamin, Todd Zywicki & Tyler Cowen.
- By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
- Covers Internet, technology and online marketing legal issues. Published by Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman.
- By Yale Law School Professor Jack M. Balkin.
And Here are the overall most popular blogs on BlawgSearch.com for August 2007. David Badertscher's New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog lead the way.
- News and information gateway to web based services provided by the New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term Library in New York County.
- A legal tabloid that provides news and gossip about the profession's colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments.
- Covers Indiana law, as well as interesting developments in law and government. By Marcia Oddi.
- Covers CAFA, class certification, employment law, FCRA, FDCPA and multidistrict litigation. Published by Michael Hassen of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP.
- Covers law and business and the business of law. By the Wall Street Journal.
- Covers mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, IPOs, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital and law. A Financial News Service of The New York Times.
- Covers due diligence, lawsuits, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and recovery of losses. By Michael Webster.
- Covers appellate litigation. By Howard J. Bashman.
- By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
- Established with the goal of aggregating key compliance and electronic discovery news for further review, study, and consideration by legal and corporate professionals. Published by Rob Robinson.
You can view the Top 200 Legal Blogs for May 2007 or view the most popular blogs in August for each of hundreds of categories. And you can view the main page of the rankings for August 2007 here.
Peace,
Tim
:: Patience, G N' R Lies by Guns N' Roses
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ABA Journal Website - News, Articles, Blawgs!!!
Hi Friends,
Let me start our new month of blogging with a post on the great new ABA Journal Website. The site went live a few weeks ago, and includes articles from the magazine, updated daily news and a legal blog directory. The site is from ABA Journal Editor and Publisher Ed Adams, Fred Faulkner IV and the ABA Journal Web development and editorial team.
If you have not checked the new ABA Journal Website out already, you definitely should!
The new ABA Journal site brings a new focus on current legal news, which you can subscribe to by way of a RSS feed. The over look and feel is very clean and good looking, with a lot of focus on the user experience.
ABA Journal Magazine articles from the current and past issues are available to all... for free :)
And there is the ABA blawg directory that categorizes over a thousand blogs. Very nicely done.
You can read more about the new ABA Journal Website from Bob Amrbogi and Blawg.com's Bill Gratsch who wrote about it when the ABA Journal Website first came out :)
Again, check out the site if you have not already. There is a great amount of information on the site of interest to lawyers and anyone interested in law.
Peace,
Tim
:: #9 Dream, Walls and Bridges by John Lennon
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Back to Blogging.. and Congrats to Appalachian State
Hi Friends,
Ken, Stacy and I are going to get back to blogging... finally :) We have been working on a few legal information projects this summer... which we talk about in the next few weeks.
But first, congrats to Appalachian State for beating Michigan on Saturday. It was a great game that they deserved to win. Not everyday a division IAA schools visits the number #5 team in the nation and beats them in front of every 109,000 fans. In fact never before, not even something close. Well maybe Michigan can win the rest of their games, win the BCS championship and be the second best team in the country.... And for my other school.. I went to the Stanford - UCLA game, and UCLA won (on the positive side, my seats are in the shade and UCLA is my third favorite team :).
UPDATE: LexBlog - Montana student Colin O'Keefe interviewed Appalachian State athletic director Charlie Cobb on the Grizzoulian blog. Now I am sure he is off to interview GT AD Dan Radakovich:)
Peace,
Tim
:: Hail, Hail,No Code by Pearl Jam
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