Court reporting company Smith Bernal is effectively scrapping its free online judgment archive – after just eight months.

Casebase, which holds every Appeal Court and Crown Office judgment from April 1996, is being scaled down because support costs were too high.

"It wasn't so much the technical costs, but the amount of time spent on the phone explaining Casebase to users," said publishing manager Sarah Andrews.

Smith Bernal will concentrate on developing its subscription-based Casetrack system. Casebase will only be updated once a year.

"Most Casebase users were not lawyers," Andrews added.

"A lawyer would be more likely to use Casetrack, which is updated daily and offers full-text searching. Casetrack also includes chancery, Queen's Bench and employment appeals tribunal judgments and Court of Appeal rulings.

Although Casetrack will cost £75 a year for individual lawyers and £750 for firms with more than 26 partners, it will be free to academics, charities and other non-profit making organisations.

Smith Bernal has been in talks with the LCD about giving a free service to the judiciary, but has been hampered by the limited number of judges with Internet access.

Barrister Laurie West-Knights, vice chairman of the Society for Computers and Law, said: "Casebase was a good start, but it fell short of what we had been hoping for.

We hope that when the arrangements with Smith Bernal are reviewed later this year, the Court Service will ensure that transcripts can be made freely available on the Internet."