Supreme Court, in Big Leap, Plans to Put Filings Online

The Supreme Court will soon join other federal courts in making briefs and other filings available electronically as soon as 2016, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. announced.

He explained the court’s approach to technological change in the balance of a report, saying that judges had a special obligation to move more slowly than the rest of society. Though he did not say so directly, some of his reasoning seemed to apply to other areas in which the court has been resistant to change. Chief Justice Roberts did not explain why the Supreme Court chose to create its own system rather than adopt the existing one. When the new Supreme Court archive is up and running, he said, “all filings at the court -- petitions and responses to petitions, merits briefs, and all other types of motions and applications -- will be available to the legal community and the public without cost on the court’s website.”

[Dec 31]