Subject: Access to federal judicial opinions 
        Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 16:53:00 -0800 
        From: Alan Freed <alanfreed@stlnet.com> 
Organization: Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal 
          To: citation@teo.uscourts.gov 

     West Publishing has done an admirable job of compiling, 
annotating, and disseminating the opinions of federal courts for many 
years. West has also done an admirable job of making money for its 
owners while providing this service. Technological advances have now 
made it possible for the general public to have access to the same 
information West has so zealously guarded these many years. 

     It is both unseemly and patently unfair that West should be able 
to continue its monopoly on this public information, and do so under 
the protection of federal copyright law. It would appear that the 
most effective way to eliminate West's monopoly is to eliminate the 
West pagination system and adopt the proposal of the ABA to replace 
it with a free, public domain system. 

     In my law firm, we have been severely hamstrung by having to 
rely upon West to provide us with statutes and cases on CD ROM, and 
the software with which to retrieve and search them. The software is 
constantly malfunctioning, and the level of service we receive from 
West is substantially less than what one would expect from the holder 
of a monopoly. At least when AT&T ran all of the phone companies, you 
could count on prompt service and telephones that worked. Our next 
best alternative is to use the outrageously expensive Westlaw system, 
run by you-know-who. 

     I urge you to adopt the ABA plan or any other plan that will 
permit the public free access to judicial opinions that should, as a 
matter of course, be free.