If you're having trouble viewing this email, you can see it online.

FLP Insider October 27, 2026

Dear friend of Free Law Project,

Democratic oversight doesn’t work without transparency into the court system.

That’s why we work to bring to light the cases, decisions, arguments, and evidence used to uphold (or undermine) justice. We build and operate scrapers that pull in swaths of data from courts across the country, host massive archives of legal records and audio recordings of oral arguments, and create helpful tools for researchers seeking answers about the courts.

In this newsletter, you’ll read about what we uncovered on our recent tour of U.S. courthouses and why the upcoming 20% PACER fee hike is the wrong answer to a broken system. Plus, a chance to join our team as our next Director of Philanthropy.

PACER Fees Are Increasing by 20%. They Should Be Going Away.

On January 1, 2027, PACER fees will jump 20%, from 10 cents to 12 cents per page. That means the federal courts’ clunky, insecure, and painfully expensive electronic records access system will cost even more for the millions who use it to read public court documents.

In our recent blog post, we explain why PACER fees are inappropriately inflated, how the technology isn’t keeping pace with modern security practices and user needs, and who suffers because of these paywalls. Today, systems like PACER act as barriers to the public when they can and should be improving public engagement with the courts.

Read more to learn about the problems with PACER—and what can be done.

Free Law Project Visits Courts Across the Country

When Jessica Frank, Free Law Project’s Director of Justice Initiatives, sat in the eviction court in Columbus, Ohio, she saw firsthand the confusion and overwhelm facing tenants there. Many arrived without attorneys and struggled to make sense of a process they had little insight into. As Jessica wrote in a recent blog post on Free.law: “Many did not know what options they had once they were there, what would happen next procedurally, or whether and when they could raise problems with the property, like a landlord not fixing a mold issue.”

Our new Justice Initiatives team is building technical tools to help people who can’t afford lawyers navigate the courts in situations like fighting an eviction or petitioning for a name change. Jessica visited courts across the country to meet with clerks and observe everyday people trying to make sense of the legal system. Using these insights, we’re adapting our workflows and technical tools to match what’s most likely to happen in the courtroom.

Read more about our findings.

FLP Briefly Noted

Supreme Court Can’t Hear a Copyright Case Due to Financial Conflicts

Professor James Grimmelmann wrote on Bluesky: “Because four of the Justices have book contracts with a party's corporate parent, the Supreme Court LACKS A QUORUM to hear BMG v. Vetter, and one of the worst copyright decisions in recent memory is affirmed by default. It's just one bad look after another.” Read more on Bluesky.

Have You Installed RECAP?

The RECAP Suite is a collection of tools for working with PACER, the federal courts’ records access system. Install RECAP today so that your PACER purchases are automatically added to the RECAP Archive. Anything somebody else has added to the archive will be available to you for free — right in PACER itself.

Free Law Project makes RECAP available to everyone for free as part of our efforts to democratize access to the legal system. Install RECAP.

Support Our Work

Did you know that more than 400 new users sign up for CourtListener every day?

But only a tiny percentage donate to Free Law Project to help us build and maintain one of the largest legal archives in the world. We rely on the steadfast support of people like you who understand that the law belongs to everyone. Support Free Law Project with a donation today.

Law School Tutorial: How to Use Free Law Project Tools

Learn how to use CourtListener, the RECAP extension and archive, and our searchable oral argument transcripts and recordings. In this video, Jessica Frank walks law students through using these free tools to answer specific research questions, with practical tips along the way. Watch the video on YouTube.

Upcoming Events

Hackathon in Memory of Aaron Swartz
Sunday, November 8, 2026 in San Francisco, CA
Free Law Project is proud to co-sponsor the Aaron Swartz Memorial Hackathon on November 8, 2026, in San Francisco. Join like-minded friends building technical projects that facilitate open access to knowledge. Register here.

Court Records: From the Salem Witch Trials Papers to PACER
Friday November 13, 2026 in Salem, MA
Free Law Project board member Rebecca Fordon will discuss the history and present state of court records in the United States at “Court Records: From the Salem Witch Trials Papers to PACER.” Register today.

Opportunities

Join Free Law Project as Our New Director of Philanthropy
Join the team at Free Law Project and help make the courts more accessible and equitable. Learn more and apply today.

Colophon:

Image credits: Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, New Haven, CT. Photo by Nick Allen, 2014, CC BY-SA 3.0. and The Arizona Supreme Court's Administrative Office of the Courts in Phoenix, Photo by Jessica Frank, CC BY 4.0

Newsletter editor: Rainey Reitman rainey@free.law

Membership & donation queries: membership@free.law

Follow us on Bluesky.
Find us on GitHub.
Donate.

This email was sent to plevy@paullevylaw.org. Click here to unsubscribe.