 Hello, I'm Chris Thomas with the United States Courts. There are more than 500 million documents on file in the Federal Judiciary's electronic record system, and the number of cases is growing every day. So how can you find the case you're looking for? Searching the court's electronic database is about to get a whole lot easier. Javier Hernandez has more. The U.S. court's public access to court electronic record system, better known as PACER, provides users with virtually real-time remote access. There are currently more than one million registered PACER users, and they can access federal court records 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Individuals, litigants, attorneys, the media can view the actual genuine court record. And you can get any document filed in any federal case anywhere in the country. In early March, Judge James Haynes and Judge J. Rich Leonard were on a panel discussing several new PACER initiatives. There are new technologies, there are new efficiencies, and we want to stay ahead of the curve. With more than five million new documents added to PACER every month, the need for easier and faster access to those documents can be critical. We've got a brand new search engine that we demonstrated today that gives a much more tailored search capacity in terms of various categories of cases that you might be looking for. PACER is actually not one massive electronic filing cabinet, but it's an intricate system of more than 200 separate U.S. court databases. So implementing new search options will provide PACER users quicker and easier access to more documents. We can start making changes to PACER now. We have started already the party case index that we'll be releasing. It's a step in the right direction, but there are going to be regular updates at various intervals. Another PACER initiative is posting digital audio recordings of court proceedings. It's instant. The hearing that I do today is downloaded automatically overnight, so it's available the next morning. A stenographer transcribing could take weeks if not months. It's a usually more available way to hear what goes on in court rather than coming to court as one used to have to do to look at court records and now can do via PACER. Digital audio recordings of records in certain federal courts have been available on PACER as part of a pilot program, but the Judicial Conference of the United States recently voted to authorize the offering of such files on PACER by any court that wants to provide them. In my court, if you tried to pull it down, there'd be a mutiny. PACER users can review federal court decisions and opinions for free. The administrative office of the United States courts is evaluating a recent and extensive survey of PACER users to determine additional ways to improve remote electronic access to federal courts. For Judiciary Now, I'm Javier Hernandez. Thanks, Javier. To learn more about the PACER system, go to www.pacer.uscourts.gov. Reporting with the United States courts, I'm Chris Thomas in Washington.