Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the publicly-searchable online database of federal court records, today announced that access has been restored to search case information in four appellate courts: the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 7th, 11th and Federal Circuits. Access to those court records had controversially been removed with little public notice on August 10th as part of PACER's transition to its Next Generation (NextGen) Case Management/ Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system.
PACER's original announcement of the removal of court search access.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which manages PACER, committed to restoring access to the missing records in September, following media inquiries into their abrupt removal. Public records professionals owe a big thanks to Washington Post reporter Andrea Peterson for staying on the story.
While access has been restored to the four appellate courts, PACER is still in the process of restoring access for the Central District of California Bankruptcy Court, which is expected to be complete by year's end.