The Judicial Conference of the United States‘ Tuesday released its March meeting notes which endorsed a proposal to provide free public access to court documents on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service. The US Judicial Conference has multiple committees whose role is to review issues and then provide the Conference with policy recommendations.

Pursuant to Public Law No. 102-140, PACER “is funded by electronic public access (EPA) user fees set by the judiciary.” PACER users are typically charged a ten cents per page fee for conducted searches. However the Committee on Court Administration and Case Management considered PACER feedback received regarding “the feasibility of the [c]ommittee’s proposal to make PACER searches free for non-commercial users.” After consideration, the committee recommended the Judicial Conference’s endorsement to make “all searches free of charge for all non-commercial users of any future new modernized case management, electronic filings, and public access systems implemented by the judiciary.”

However implementing free PACER searches “would require extensive development work to the current PACER system,” which will take time.