MARY C. BRYANT, P.C.
                           Attorney at Law

                                   March 1, 1997

Appellate Court and Circuit
  Administration Division
ATTN: ABA Citation Resolution
Suite 4-512
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Washington, D.C. 20544

Re: Official Citation Form for Court Decisions

Dear Sir or Madam:

     I urge the Judicial Conference of the United States to adopt the 
ABA resolution calling for state and federal courts to develop a 
standard citation system. A recent survey shows that more than half 
of U.S. attorneys have access to the Internet, at work or at home.  
This number will grow as more computer-literate attorneys are 
graduated from U.S. law schools. At present, electronic access to 
cite-able judicial decisions is expensive, sometimes prohibitively 
so, because of West Publishing Company's copyright in, not the 
decisions, but the page numbers. If the courts of this country can 
make their decisions available at a reasonable price, they should do 
so, and should do so in a form that permits word searches for 
research purposes.

     I am a solo practitioner concentrating in environmental law.  I 
have neither the shelf space nor the funds for hard cover case 
reporters. My monthly cost to subscribe to the Lexis MVP program for 
environmental law and Michie's Illinois Law on Disc exceeds $300.00. 
Research outside the environmental and Illinois databases costs $2.75 
per minute. These necessary costs, some of which are passed on to 
clients, comprise more than 35% of my monthly overhead, excluding 
health care coverage. Anything the courts can do to release the solo 
and small firm practitioner from the iron grip of West will benefit 
the profession and the public at large. 

     Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this proposal.

                                   Very truly yours,

                                   Mary C. Bryant

marybryant@worldnet.att.ne
(electronic signature)