The successor to the United States Government Printing Office GPO Access, the Federal Digital System, has announced a pilot project to bring Federal district court opinions to the free Web. The district courts are the trial courts in the U.S. Federal system and are frequently only available in print or in fee-based databases. The initial pilot will include one district court, two bankruptcy courts (same level), and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals (self-indulgent note: I used to play my bagpipes just outside the 39th story window of Judge Morris Arnold of the 8th in the Little Rock TCBY tower).
While some district courts publish a selection of opinions on their Web sites, there is no easy way to search across multiple courts and all opinions. If this project is successful, it will be a great resource for legal researchers to be able to access this information in aggregate, through a site as powerful as FDSys. They already make available the primary legislative and executive regulatory documents for the U.S. Federal government.
You can already search and browse the 4 courts on the FDSys Web site and feedback is encouraged. The site says opinions go back to 2004, but the 8th Circuit lists back to 2001, and the Florida bankruptcy court starts in 2006.
