Here’s another very useful resource, and one that will save you money if you’re ever curious about digging into federal court records.

The federal courts, from local district courts up through the U.S. Supreme Court, use a document retrieval system called PACER, short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records.

It’s pretty easy to use. The only drawback is that if you want to download and read a document, the cost is ten cents per page.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it can quickly add up.

But there’s a free alternative that offers a surprising number of court records for free.

It is the “Advanced RECAP Search” by Court Listener.

It boasts of providing access to millions of documents originally downloaded from the PACER system.

Here’s how it works. RECAP is a free browser extension for Chrome or Firefox. It’s simple to download and install. From then on, anytime a RECAP user pays to download a document, that document is added to the Court Listener RECAP Archive. And that’s the archive you can search for free.

Background

The RECAP Archive is a searchable collection of millions of PACER documents and dockets that were gathered using our RECAP Extensions for Firefox and Chrome. PACER is the government-run system where nearly every legal document is filed from federal cases. The archive also includes every free PACER opinion. This unique archive was created to partially address what we see as the PACER Problem.

Using this archive, you can finally search and download millions of PACER documents, including those that were originally scanned PDFs, which we laboriously convert to text.

This work was made possible thanks to a partnership with The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton, the generous data contributions of thousands of RECAP users, and a ton of volunteer support.

Here’s a quick example.

Go to the Advanced RECAP Search. You’ll see a search field.

Enter a name. I typed in “Arthur Brun.” He is the Kauai County Council member who was charged early last year along with 11 others with operating a large methamphetamine distribution ring on Kauai. Click the button to search, and available cases and documents will be listed.

This symbol means that the document is not yet available in the free archive, although you can still download it from PACER if you don’t mind paying the per-page fee. If you don’t see that symbol, it means you will be able to download it from the RECAP Archive.

When I did this search, two sets of documents from the 2020 Brun case were displayed. None of the first batch was available for free downlod, but the second batch included the original indictment, and two more legal memos, available for free download.

Here’s another example. Search for “Nicholas Ochs.” He is the man associated with the group Proud Boys in Hawaii who was arrested after taking part in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol last week.

In this case, the list of results includes a couple of earlier cases that don’t appear to involve the same person, and then two cases, one in Hawaii and one in D.C., dated 2021. These appear to be related to the Capitol invasion, and at least some are availble for free download.

If you are a PACER user, you might want to install the RECAP extension and contribute to the archive every time you pay for a document.

And if you’re just a curious member of the public interested in learning for about a case you see in the news, the RECAP Archive is a tool to bookmark and keep at the ready.