I began practicing law just after the District Court's e-filing systems, CM/ECF and PACER, were implemented—so I didn't get a lot of experience with how attorneys used to manage federal dockets or handle federal filings before you could just instantly file or pull things.
But occasionally, when I'm researching something, I'll find a reference to a document that looks helpful but that was filed before PACER existed, and as such is not available in Lexis or Westlaw. Typically, my response is to look longingly at the citation, and then to continue searching until I find something I can get electronically.
But not this time! Last week I actually went through the effort to retrieve one of these old pre-PACER documents. I thought I'd share steps for how to do it, in case others find themselves in the same position:
- Get the case and D.I. numbers of the document you need.
- Call the relevant district court's Clerk's office and let them know that you need a pre-PACER document. Be ready with the civil action and docket item numbers of the document you need. Write down the name of who you talk to in case you need to call back.
- The Clerk's office will search for the document in its archives. For me, this step took 8 days (they are busy), and we followed up by phone a few times.
- If they find the document, you'll just need to go pick it up, and pay for it. If you're in Delaware, Parcels can handle this.
- If the Clerk's office doesn't find the document, they may give you information to follow up with the National Archives (for me this was contact information, an FRC location and number, box number, and shipment number).
- If you contact the National Archives, they can look into whether they still have the document.
After step 6, it took about 2 days for them to find and send us the document after we reached out, and they charged $35 for it (it was 3 pages long). They sent it electronically, so there was no mail delay.
That's it! The total turnaround time was 10 days, and the cost was $35. That's not too bad in exchange for a helpful piece of pre-PACER precedent for a motion, if you have time to make it through the whole process before the motion is due.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to receive free e-mail updates about new posts.
