Why Has the D.C. Circuit Made It More Difficult to Find Opinions?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently “upgraded” the opinion archive on its website. It is aesthetically appealing, but it is actually a significant step backwards for public access to the court’s opinions.

In “upgrading” the site, the D.C. Circuit apparently re-indexed its opinions, revising the URLs. What this means is that all previously posted hyperlinks to D.C. Circuit opinions are now dead. Clicking on them does not pull up the opinion. Instead the user is dropped off on the opinion archive landing page. This, by itself, would be but a small annoyance if one could then simply search for the opinion question. Therein lies the rub, for there is no longer an opinion search function. Whereas on the old site one could search opinions by party name or docket number, there is no search capability at all on the new page. (There is, however, a way to browse by month and year, if one knows when a case was decided, but that’s it.)

With these changes, the D.C. Circuit’s website has gone from one of the better circuit court websites, in terms of the accessibility of its opinions to the public, to one of the worst. I hope this change is only temporary, and a search function is restored, as not everyone has access to PACER or on-line databases, and slip opinion PDFs remain superior for many purposes to available no-cost versions accessible on other sites.

While I am on the subject on circuit court opinions, let me also suggest that other circuits take a page from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and include at the front of slip opinions a) how participating judges voted, and b) page numbers for any separate opinions. This is extremely useful information to include at the front of an opinion and there is no reason for courts not to provide it.

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