“Attorneys and the public can also freely access appellate briefs online” reports the Wisconsin Law Journal in an article on status of the new electronic filing system for Wisconsin’s appellate courts.
While [Wisconsin Supreme Court Clerk of Court David R.] Schanker conceded that the new rules are designed to be more “user-friendly” for judges, he noted that attorneys and the public can also freely access appellate briefs online.
“If the lawyer is registered in the system, he or she can go in and look at briefs and other documents,” Schanker said.
Attorneys who aren’t registered and the general public can access briefs through the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Access (WSCCA) Web site (http://www.wicourts.gov/) .
A commenter to the WLJ article, quotes from an article Schanker wrote in the State Bar Appellate Practice newsletter (republished in InsideTrack):
Text Search of E-Filed Briefs.
E-filed briefs will now be available to the public through the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Case Access (WSCCA) case search. In the past, users were able to view the opinions in disposed-of cases on WSCCA, but users will now be able to view briefs as they are filed.
In addition, the new “Document Search” feature (on the right side of the banner at the top of the screen) allows users to enter a word or phrase and search the entire database of e-filed briefs. The search will retrieve a list of all briefs containing the word or phrase, and each brief can be viewed and searched.
Wow – somehow I’d missed this in the e-filing announcements. I see now that there is indeed a new “Document Search” link at the top of the WSCCA CCAP page. Here’s a screen shot of the search page:
And here is one showing the search results:
Briefs filed on or after July 1, 2009 are available in CCAP in text-searchable format. And don’t forget that older briefs (filed from November 1992 onward) are available on our University of Wisconsin Law Library web site in scanned form.