The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has recently announced some changes being made to its PACER database.
On August 11, a change was made to the PACER architecture in preparation for the implementation of the next generation of the judiciary’s Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. NextGen CM/ECF replaces the older CM/ECF system and provides improvements for users, including a single sign-on for PACER and NextGen CM/ECF. As a result of these architectural changes, the locally developed legacy case management systems in the five courts listed below are now incompatible with PACER; therefore, the judiciary is no longer able to provide electronic access to the closed cases on those systems. The dockets and documents in these cases can be obtained directly from the relevant court. All open cases, as well as any new filings, will continue to be available on PACER.
Courts affected by this change have updated their websites providing information on how users can now request docket information that has been removed from PACER. Here is the list:
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit – cases commenced prior to January 1, 2010 were removed from PACER and can now be requested directly from the clerk’s office.
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit – cases filed prior to January 1, 2008 were removed from PACER. For information about those cases, contact the clerk’s office.
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit – cases filed prior to January 1, 2010 were removed from PACER. Contact the clerk’s office for cases docketed prior to Jan. 1, 2010.
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit – cases filed prior to March 1, 2012 were removed from PACER. Information on how to obtain those dockets is here.
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California – cases filed prior to May 1, 2001 were removed from PACER. Information on how to obtain those dockets is here.