RECAP in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review

RECAP’s place at the heart or the periphery of the movement remains to be seen. Like any crowdsourcing application, RECAP’s usefulness increases as more people use it. Yet PACER’s prime users are large, bill-paying law firms, which tend to be wary about adopting new technology and have little incentive to contribute documents they paid for to a free database.

“Success” for RECAP may not be mainstream adoption, however. Merely by creating the working plugin and calling attention to the problem of restricted access to court documents, CITP has advanced the cause of reforming and opening up access to PACER. That alone is “Turning PACER around.”

One point this misses is that using RECAP can directly reduce firms' PACER fees. It's true, of course, that most firms pass these costs along to their clients. However, in today's economic climate, clients are increasingly pressing their law firms for cost savings. Adopting RECAP is a painless way for firms to demonstrate cost-consciousness. And the cost savings from RECAP adoption will only get bigger as RECAP's user base continues to grow. So while we think judicial transparency is reason enough to use RECAP, installing RECAP is good for every firm's bottom line.

In any event, Batra has written a great piece, and we encourage you to check it out.