The site allows you to search its collection of Tentative Rulings simultaneously through multiple counties. It allows you to further refine your search with filters, by county, judge, or tag. The cost to access the collection is $39.00 per month. Since most Tentative Rulings are not available anywhere else, Bench Reporter has the potential to be a very useful site. **Readers of this site can save $10 off their first month's subscription using the discount code ifl.

Coverage: Dates and Geographic

The site is vague about its date coverage range, saying, “We began collecting tentative rulings many years ago. Having invested countless resources over that span, we amassed more than 10,000 tentative rulings.*” The asterisk leads to a disclaimer that reads, “not all 10,000 rulings are available at this time, but more are added nearly every day.” Most of the Tentative Rulings we found are from recent years. We did retrieve a few from as far back as 2008.

Bottom of Form

Currently, the site includes Tentative Rulings from the following California counties:

·      Contra Costa County Superior Court

·      Los Angeles County Superior Court

·      Orange County Superior Court

·      Sacramento County Superior Court

·      San Diego County Superior Court

·      San Francisco County Superior Court

·      Santa Clara County Superior Court

·      Sonoma County Superior Court

Why Tentative Rulings Could Be Useful

As most California attorneys know, it is NOT acceptable to cite to a Tentative Ruling, absent exceptionally rare circumstances. So if Tentative Rulings cannot be cited as authority (and might not even become the final ruling), why research them you might ask, as I did in an e-mail interview with the co-founder of the site, Benjamin Berger (from the law firm of Berger Harrison, APC in Irvine, California)? He explained that:

·      The purpose of studying tentative rulings is to gain insight as to how judges evaluate certain issues.  Whether a tentative becomes final or not, it will provide insight you cannot get anywhere else. [Note from author: Bench Reporter does not indicate whether a Tentative Ruling became the final ruling.]

·      While a tentative ruling will set forth the court’s analysis, a final ruling (even where the tentative is adopted) is often boiled down to a short and simple order.  For example, a judge may issue a tentative ruling that spends several pages examining the facts and law, then issue a final ruling as short as this:  “Motion granted as to the 3^rd and 4^th cause of action.  20 days leave to amend.”  Critically, in most counties, the tentative ruling vanishes soon after the hearing and is not available anywhere thereafter (except for Bench Reporter).  For this reason, far more can be learned from the tentative ruling than from the final ruling. 

·      Most tentative rulings do become the final ruling.  For the small minority of instances where the tentative was not adopted, it is unlikely that the change would upset the analysis set forth in the tentative.  All this being said, our site provides a supplemental method of research. 

In addition, the site explains the usefulness of Tentative Rulings this way:

•  illustrate how a particular judge has handled specific issues in the past

•  reveal which cases your judge finds most persuasive on a given topic

• address issues for which there is little or no appellate authority

•  provide a quick overview of issues you’re not familiar with

•  help you prepare an opposition to a motion you’ve never faced

•  lead you to copies of moving papers that will be vital to your research

•  provide insight regarding a judge’s interpretation of ambiguous precedent

How To Search

The site is best-formatted for use from a desktop/laptop computer or some larger tablets. It’s not made for small screens. The search panel is divided vertically, with the search column on the left and the list of search results in the right-hand column. The search panel allows you to set a variety of search criteria which can be mixed and matched. For example, you can search using free-text, and/or you can filter by judge/county, and/or tags (e.g., demurrer), and/or date. 

Full-Text “Search Term” Search

The search function searches the body of the rulings, as well as the case names. It works similarly to the Google Web Search. You can search with one or more words, or exact phrases, or you can search by mixing an exact phrase and one or more additional words. The default will be to connect multiple words with an “AND” Boolean connector, so the site will return rulings which contain all of the words.  

Judge/County Filters

If your goal is to read every available ruling by a particular judge, regardless of topic, you could search without any search terms by filtering first by county and then by selecting a judge from the list. To search rulings on a particular topic by a particular judge, enter words/phrases into the “Search term” Search box and filter by judge. Sometimes a ruling may be attributed to a judge who did not actually write the ruling; this would happen when another judge fills in for a vacationing judge.  

Tag Filters

You can also filter by Tags, which are pre-defined labels assigned by the site owners to help you locate a ruling when the judge hasn’t used the same word or phrase that you are using in your search.  As explained by the site owners, “Ideally, tags categorize rulings which may be hard to find otherwise.  A ruling may deal with a topic but never use the term or phrase you might search for. For example, a ruling may say ‘slip and fall’ or ‘landlord liability’ but never use the term ‘premises liability.’  By tagging the ruling with ‘premises liability,’ the user is more likely to find it.”  The tags that apply to each ruling can be viewed in the footer of each ruling.

The Bench Reporter site owners note that, “Tagging rulings takes a great deal of attorney time.  We’d like to crowdsource this task.  If you think one or more tags are appropriate for a given ruling, please enter your suggestions in the comments section of that ruling (found at the bottom of the page for every ruling).” The site owners also welcome submissions of Tentative Rulings from other lawyers, which they will add to the database.

Date Filters

You can enter a specific range of dates by entering dates into both the Start box and the End box. If you enter a date into only the first box, it will return rulings dated that date and later and if you enter a date into only the second box, it will return rulings dated that date and earlier. Once you retrieve your list of results, you can sort alphabetically or by date.

Will Tentative Rulings Be Useful To You?

Bench Reporter’s founders explain that, “No matter what county you are in, there is much to be learned from trial court judges applying California law.  Much like sitting through several hearings waiting for your own case to be called, a California litigator simply cannot explore these rulings without gaining valuable insight.”

**Internet For Lawyers does receive a commission for each subscription started using this doscount code. However, this article was written prior to this arrangement being reached and in no way influenced the content of this article.

The post Bench Reporter Archives California Tentative Rulings Into a Searchable Database appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

Although you can search civil (http://linkon.in/lasupernumber) and criminal (http://linkon.in/lasupercrimdefname) case summaries (dockets) free by case number using the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s official website, searching by party name requires a fee, as shown in the fee schedule below (civil:http://linkon.in/lasupparty and criminal:http://linkon.in/lasupercrimdefname).

Even if you receive no results, you are still charged for the search.

• Per search fee for search number 1 to 10    $ 1.00
• Per search fee for search number 11 to 99    $ 4.75
• Per search fee for search number 100 to 999    $ 4.50
• Per search fee for search number 1000 to 10000    $ 4.25
• Per search fee for search number 10001 and above    $ 4.00

What You Can Do Now: Use Plainsite for Free Name Searching

Fortunately, we now have a free party name search (and also attorney and judge name) thanks to Plainsite.org (http://www.plainsite.org/courts/superior-court-of-california-county-of-los-angeles/). The results only include the docket sheet, not the case documents. The following is an announcement by Aaron Greenspan at Plainsite:

Just wanted to let you know that we have completed indexing our initial batch of Los Angeles County [civil] dockets, beginning with BC and EC. There are about 630,000 dockets available: Note that this means that you no longer need to pay Los Angeles County Superior Court to search the index by name for any BC- or EC- case before 2015. As with all dockets on PlainSite, we also recognize entity names where possible and link them together to create comprehensive profiles. Google should start picking up the pages shortly, as well.”

We tested out the site and found it fairly easy to use. We were surprised by two things: The first surprise was some of our results included dockets outside of the L.A. County Superior Court, such as dockets (and even pleadings) from the USPTO TTAB [decisions issued by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board] and some from PAIR [Patent Application Information Retrieval]. According to Greenspan, “For certain PACER filings we do have pleadings, which come largely from the RECAP browser plugin, and we have them for a lot of USPTO data as well.” The second surprise was when our party name search results also returned attorney and judge name results, until we realized that’s what Greenspan meant by “entity searches.”  However, we did have some strange results when we tested the search for a Los Angeles attorney we know. His results included USPTO dockets, but when we viewed the details his name was nowhere to be found. And, he has never practiced before the USPTO.

As to retrieving civil case documents from PlainSite for free, that’s not an option because Greenspan said, “Los Angeles County are *extremely* expensive.” He continued, “If you already have any documents you would like to share on PlainSite, you can either sign up and use the upload function that appears when you sign in, or you can e-mail documents to help@plainsite.org.” (This seems somewhat similar to the RECAP model, where you add a plug-in to your browser to automatically add every docket or document that you retrieve from PACER.)

Purchasing Civil Case Documents from the Los Angeles Superior Court Site

Because PlainSite does not include the actual case documents, you will still need to pay for civil case documents at the official Los Angeles Superior Court site (http://linkon.in/lasupdocs), searching by either a case number or a party name.   (Other pay databases might also have these case documents.) The Los Angeles Superior Court allows you to download scanned images of General Jurisdiction Civil (lawsuits greater than $25,000) Case Documents, but only from the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.  The Fee schedule is shown below.

• Civil Documents 1-5 pages per document (fee per page)    $1.00
• 6+ additional pages per document (fee per page)    $0.40
• Maximum per document    $40.00

The site states that, “Most, but not all documents filed with or generated by the Court since January, 2008 are included; additional documents, both newly-filed and previously captured, will be added on a daily basis.” On another part of the site, there is more up-to-date date range chart showing that you can search cases back much further than 2008 and not just General Jurisdiction Civil cases greater than $25,000 (http://linkon.in/lasupercivpartydatechart).

• Unlimited Civil (lawsuits greater than $25,000)
• Probate
• Family Law    1983 - Present
• Limited Civil (lawsuits $25,000 or less)    1991 - Present
• Small Claims (lawsuits $5,000 or less)    1992 - Present

Searching Criminal Cases by Name from the Los Angeles Superior Court Site

Plainsite does not offer access to Los Angeles Superior Court Site criminal cases (but does offer some federal cases). The court imposes a fee to search criminal cases by defendant name, using the Court’s online Index of Defendants in Criminal Cases (http://linkon.in/lasupercrimdefname). The search fees are the same as the civil search fees noted earlier. The Index displays a list of case numbers, filing dates, and filing locations of cases that match the defendant name you submitted.  The Index includes felony cases records from 1980 to the present and misdemeanor case records from 1988 to present, but some could go back to 1983 if any of the former Municipal Courts had automated their criminal records back to then. The Criminal Case Summary site, which can be searched for free if you know the case number (or have retrieved it from your Index search results), provides more extensive information about the case than the index, such as: case information (the count, charge section, charge statute, plea, disposition, and disposition date), events, bail, and sentencing. However, case documents are not available.

Aaron Greenspan’s Plainsite.org free name search should prove useful to researchers who need to conduct a litigation search by party, attorney, or judge name, saving them both time and some money.

The post Los Angeles Superior Court Civil Cases: Finally, Free Party Name Searching Option appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.