Time to Use RECAP Instead of PACER?

As a quick follow-up to Mark Giangrande's earlier post about PACER's fee increase, it seems worth noting that under the new fee structure infrequent PACER users get a bit of a break as long as they do not download 150 or more pages from PACER per quarter (and to repeat that government agency users get a temporary reprieve from the increased PACER fees).

That means that PACER revenue from everyone else will be used to "support and improve the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, and to develop and implement the next generation of the Judiciary's Case Management/Electronic Case Filing system" because Congress mandated the electronic access program be funded entirely through PACER fees set by the Judicial Conference.

I guess the fee precedent was set by court collection of photocopy charges for court records and briefs that probably included some sort of cost roll-up for their photocopiers, toner and paper supplies. Of course, that assumes court officials paid sufficient attention to monitoring those costs.

 In her Legal Research Plus post about the PACER fee increase, Erica Wayne offers the following suggestion:

Might be a good time to teach your students and attorneys about using RECAP.

Yup. [JH]