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.
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