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What is PACER? The United States Courts designed the CM/ECF
(Case Management/Electronic Case Files) system.
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is implemented via the
ECF portion of CM/ECF. Most courts offer electronic
public access via registration with the PACER Service Center, the
judiciary's centralized registration, billing, and technical
support center. Electronic access is available to court
records for the following services: U.S. District Courts, U.S. Bankruptcy
Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and U.S.
Party/Case Index. Each court maintains a separate database with
detailed case information for electronic access. Accessing
and querying information from each service is comparable;
however, a unique Internet address is required to access a specific jurisdiction.
Why use PACER? The PACER System offers an inexpensive, fast, and
comprehensive case information service to any individual
with a personal computer (PC), Web browser and Internet access. The PACER
system permits you to request information about a particular
individual or case. The data is displayed directly on your
PC screen within a few seconds. The system is simple
enough that little user training or documentation is required.
Available Information The PACER System offers electronic access to case dockets
to retrieve information such as:
U.S. Party/Case Index The U.S. Party/Case Index is a national index for U.S.
district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts. A small subset of
information from each case will be transferred to the U.S.
Party/Case Index each night. The system serves as a locator
index for PACER. You may conduct nationwide searches
to determine whether or not a party is involved in federal
litigation. For detailed information on cases found while
searching the U.S. Party/Case Index, you will need to access
the PACER system for the particular jurisdiction where
the case is located.
Availability The PACER System is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
You can verify all updates to active and recently
closed cases without having to make repeated trips to the
court to review paper records. If there have been no
updates, this can be confirmed in seconds.
What you need
Cost The cost for the service is $.08 per page. The fee is limited to 30 pages per document or docket (i.e., $2.40). You will be billed
on a quarterly basis for time online. You will be allowed to
enter a client code of your choosing each time you login to
PACER to help facilitate managing the costs. The client
code you enter will appear for each transaction on your
quarterly statement.
To Register If you would like to register, please contact the PACER
Service Center for a PACER Registration Form. There is no cost to register. In the San Antonio area call (210) 301-6440. Outside the
San Antonio area call (800) 676-6856. Or, write us at:
PACER SERVICE CENTER |