Currently, Big Case Bot is following and posting documents from:

• Nat'l Inst. of Family and Life v. Becerra
• Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Stephanie Clifford aka Stormy Daniels v. Donald J. Trump aka David Dennison
• ACLU v. Madison County, Miss.

among other now-current trials.

In its documentation, the bot is described as follows:

The bot uses PACER RSS feeds to gather the latest filings from 74 U.S. District Courts and five federal courts of appeals and stores the docket entries in a database. It matches new filings against a preselected list of major cases, scrapes matching documents from PACER, uploads them to a DocumentCloud project and posts the results on Twitter.

Note that some federal district courts -- including those in the Eastern District of Virginia, the District of Maryland and the District of Hawaii -- have elected not to publish an RSS feed from their dockets. As a result, Big Cases can't follow cases in those districts. Most federal courts of appeal also do not pulbish [sic] RSS feeds of new docket entries.

Big Case Bot was created by USA Today investigative reporter Brad Heath. In his Twitter bio, Heath descibes himself as, "covering law and justice. Data, documents and 'convoluted KGB style back-door' stuff." The bot utilizes the Python programming language.

Anyone can download and customize the code (using their own PACER and other login credentials) to download documents based on parameters they set. Note that according to the bot's documentation, the Big Case Bot code, "has only been tested on a machine running CentOS Linux 7."

The post Twitter Bot Follows Federal Cases of Note; Posts Free Case Documents appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

Dear U.S. Supreme Court website: The ABA Preview of U.S. Supreme Court Cases provides merit and amicus briefs from 2003-present. You first must choose a Term (e.g., 2014-2015) and then select from an alphabetical list by party name. Or, to quickly find your case from the long list, we would recommend you use your Find function (Control f for PCs and Command f for Macs) and enter part of the case name into the find box to be taken directly to the listed case. You can then choose any of the briefs to view full-text.

Another site that archives merit and amicus briefs is Scotusblog, but it doesn't go back as far as the ABA site--its archives go back only to 2007. However, it offers some useful features that the ABA site does not offer. For instance, in addition to briefs, Scotusblog includes the Court's Proceedings and Orders (docket) so you can follow various steps of the case (such as, DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 8, 2016, as shown in the next illustration). It also offers you the ability to set up free e-alerts to receive updates about a particular case.

To use Scotusblog's archive, choose a Term to view the list of cases for that Term. They will be listed in sitting order, so click the link View this list sorted by case name to find your case alphabetically. Once you find the case, click on its title. Then you will see a docket sheet displaying the Proceedings and Orders, listed from oldest to newest, as shown in the above illustration. You can choose any of the briefs to view full-text.

As for posting amicus briefs quickly, neither site is quite as up-to-date as we would have hoped, but they're close. For example, on January 5, 2016, we were able to locate, on each site, an amicus brief filed just the day before (January 4, 2016), but we were unable to locate a particular one filed on the same day we were searching (January 5, 2016). By performing a Google search, we successfully located the amicus brief we were looking for - posted by a non-profit agency that was interested in the case, but not a party or one of the amicus curiae. So for very recent (same day) amicus briefs, your best bet is to Google it.

The post Update to “Dear U.S. Supreme Court Web Site: Where are Your Briefs?” appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

It never ceases to amaze me that our own U.S. Supreme Court does not post its briefs at their site, AND also fails to provide information on where to find Supreme Court briefs for free. Instead, the Court’s site tells you to obtain briefs from pay sites such as Lexis and Westlaw, and from Document Retrieval Services. The only free site it does note is one that hasn’t posted any new briefs since 2007, Findlaw.

Dear U.S. Supreme Court website: The ABA Preview of U.S. Supreme Court Cases (http://www.americanbar.org/publications/preview_home/2015_2016_briefs.html) provides the current U.S. Supreme Court term’s merit briefs for free. To find the prior year’s briefs use the same URL as above (http://www.americanbar.org/publications/preview_home/2015_2016_briefs.html) but replace the 2015_2016_ years with 2014_2015_. It appears that the ABA site only goes back one term. If you are reading this after the 2015/2016 term, then replace the 2015_2016_ years with 2016_2017_ (and so on).  As to amicus briefs, the ABA site is not as up-to-date as I would have hoped it would be.

Another site that archives current and older briefs (both merit and amicus) is Scotusblog. Scotusblog archives back to 2007, which is much further back than the ABA’s site. Choose a term to view the list of cases for that term. They will be listed in “sitting order,” so click the link “View this list sorted by case name” to find your case alphabetically. Or, I would recommend you use your Find function (control f for p.c.s and command f for macs) and enter part of the case name into the find box to be taken directly to the listed case. Once you find the case, click on its title. Then you will see a docket sheet displaying the Proceedings and Orders, listed from oldest to newest. On January 5, 2016, I was able to locate an amicus brief filed January 4, 2016, but I really wanted one from January 5, 2016. So for very recent amicus briefs, your best bet is to Google it. In this case, Google successfully located the amicus brief I was looking for - posted by a non-profit agency that was interested in the case, but not a party or one of the amica.

The post Dear U.S. Supreme Court Web Site: Where are Your Briefs? appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.