According a press release on the U.S. Courts website, PACER fees will be going 25% effective November 1st:
“The Conference also authorized an increase in the Judiciary’s electronic public access fee in response to increasing costs for maintaining and enhancing the electronic public access system. The increase in the electronic public access (EPA) fee, from $.08 to $.10 per page, is needed to continue to support and improve the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, and to develop and implement the next generation of the Judiciary’s Case Management/Electronic Case Filing system.”
The release continues to describe a few exemptions:
“The Conference was mindful of the impact such an increase could have on other public entities and on public users accessing the system to obtain information on a particular case. For this reason, local, state, and federal government agencies will be exempted from the increase for three years. Moreover, PACER users who do not accrue charges of more than $15 in a quarterly billing cycle would not be charged a fee. (The current exemption is $10 per quarter.) The expanded exemption means that 75 to 80 percent of all users will still pay no fees.”
The expanded fee exemption (from $10 to $15 a quarter) offers additional help, but an exemption for academic institutions and law libraries, or at least GPO depository libraries, would serve the public good.
Might be a good time to teach your students and attorneys about using RECAP.
