Subject: Hearing on West Publishing Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:46:00 -0700 From: Cheryl Post To: "U.S. Courts" As a private citizen and a paralegal, I whole-heartedly support the proposal to implement court citations and on-line access of court opinions, and end the monopoly by West Publishing on access to these documents. They are indeed a monopoly, and their rates have risen dramatically in the last several years, including yet another rise in the last few months. One on-line transaction now costs $20-70, depending on the database used, and general searches are billed as high as several dollars per minute. Special software is required that can be obtained only from West. Printing an opinion is an additional charge per page. Not only is the public essentially excluded from access, but if they hire an attorney, they are forced to pay these prices and pass them on to their clients. Charges can run in the hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars, and all for public records to which the public should have unlimited access. While I realize that many U.S. Courts are publishing their opinions on the Net, the system is sporadic at best, and lacks citations and other needed information. Not all U.S.S.C. opinions are on-line, and each Circuit Court differs on if and how they put their opinions on-line, as well as how far back they go and how long the opinions remain on-line. The state courts are even more dissimilar in their sites. The Courts have addressed just about every other monopoly but their own and that of West Publishing. With the public accessibility of so much information on the internet, the opinions of the court should join the parade. We live in an age of information, and access is critical. The public pays for the judicial system through their taxes, and these are public documents. They should be available to the public without having to pay the exorbitant rates charged by West. I urge you to end this monopoly and pursue the ABA recommendations to put these opinions in the public domain.