I have been using RECAP for about 12 years now. This has saved me, just an average guy who is passionate about the law, a ton of money. It works great and I rely on it often. That reminds me; it's time to make a donation.

If you've ever used PACER, you've undoubtedly thought to yourself, "This is ridiculously clunky. And why am I paying for documents in the public domain? Surely they can do better!"

Here's what you've been looking for. Someone—the Free Law Project—did better. Thank the heavens.

This is an invaluable tool that solves a sticky and pernicious problem for anyone seeking access to public domain documents filed in the federal court system. I use it every day.

All the cool people use RECAP.

RECAP is a wonderful extension for use with PACER.

PACER is the system the United States uses to provide electronic access to its federal court records. The problem is that PACER is annoying to use and expensive. Thankfully RECAP and its partner site courtlistener.com are pleasant to use and free.

Every time a PACER user wants to view a court document, they must pay a fee. RECAP lets PACER users save their court documents on a public website. That way, once one RECAP user pays the price to view a court document, everyone else gets to view the document for free. In this way, RECAP is creating a free, piecemeal mirror of PACER's documents, and you can help by using RECAP.

I have taken a look at the RECAP code base. The developers have done a good job contending with the various curve-balls that PACER throws their way. If you want, you can also take a look at RECAP's code here: https://github.com/freelawproject/recap-chrome

Love the fact that I know longer have to pay to download documents again. Or just look at the docket sheet. Ridiculous they make us pay for things that our tax dollars should be covering. Thanks for a great app.