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Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)
A few systems are not available on the Internet and must be dialed directly using communication software (such as ProComm Plus, pcAnywhere, or Hyperterminal) and a modem. Electronic access is available for most courts by registering with the PACER Service Center, the judiciary's centralized registration, billing, and technical support center.
The PACER System offers electronic access to case dockets to retrieve information such as:
 A listing of all parties and participants including judges, attorneys, and trustees
 A compilation of case related information such as cause of action, nature of suit, and dollar demand
 A chronology of dates of case events entered in the case record
 A claims registry
 A listing of new cases each day
 Appellate court opinions
 Judgments or case status
 Types of documents filed for certain cases
 Many courts offer imaged copies of documents
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 visit the PACER site for the particular jurisdiction where the case is located.
Access to web based PACER systems will generate a $.08 ($.07 before January 1, 2005) per page charge. The per page charge applies to the number of pages that results from any search, including a search that yields no matches (one page for no matches.) The charge applies whether or not pages are printed, viewed, or downloaded. Access to dial-up PACER systems will generate a $.60 per minute charge. Users will NOT incur both per minute and per page charges for a PACER session.
A measure was approved by the Judicial Conference of the United States in March 2001 stating that no fee is owed until a user accrues more than $10 worth of charges in a calendar year. Consequently, if an account does not accrue $10 worth of usage between January 1st and December 31st each year, all balances will be deleted from our records.
The previous schedule placed a cap on the eight cents per page charge for Internet access to data obtained electronically from the public records of individual cases in the courts, with a maximum $2.40
For example: previously, a 50 page document cost $4.00 at 8 cents a page. This same document now only costs $2.40. Users will receive the entire 50 page document but only be charged $2.40. Each attachment in CM/ECF sites is considered a separate document. Therefore, the cap will apply to each attachment over 30 pages separately.

From the pacer Website [URL=http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov]http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov[/URL]