WORKSHOP: Increasing Access to Federal Court Data Workshop--Fall 2015

该项目需要在宾夕法尼亚大学法学院举办一次讲习班，讨论如何增加获取联邦法院数据以供研究之用。现在。这样的访问是有限的，或者非常昂贵的，或者两者兼而有之。鉴于法院在我们的经济和社会中发挥着重要作用，这是一个重大缺陷。如果我们一开始就不能充分衡量司法系统的表现，我们就不能可靠地评估它的表现，更不用说改进它了。讲习班将汇集对在实证研究中使用联邦法院数据有经验或表现出兴趣的学者，以及在仓储和研究法院数据方面有经验的组织工作人员。在几个圆桌会议上，与会者将讨论后勤、学术和任何其他必须面对的实际挑战，以增加对联邦法院数据的获取。然后，他们将共同努力，在考虑到刚才提到的挑战的情况下，就如何增加这种机会提出具体想法。希望这些想法将成为参与者今后提出的提案或项目的基础，这些提案或项目的目的将是提供更广泛的法院数据研究机会。

This project entails the convening of a workshop at the University of Pennsylvania Law School to discuss ways to increase access to federal court data for research use. Presently. such access is limited, very expensive or both. That is an important shortcoming given the important role that courts play in our economy and society. We cannot reliably assess the performance of our justice system, much less improve it, if we cannot adequately measure its performance in the first place. The workshop will bring together scholars with experience or demonstrated interest in using federal court data in empirical research, as well as organizational staff with experience in warehousing and studying court data. In several roundtable sessions, participants will discuss the logistical, scholarly, and any other practical challenges that must be faced to increase access to federal court data. They will then work together to develop concrete ideas for how to increase such access, taking into account the challenges just mentioned. It is hoped that these ideas will form the basis for future proposals or projects by participants, which will be directed at providing broader research access to court data.