Considerable costs and some court systems' lingering reluctance toward e-filing leaves little chance for a nationwide state-level court docket tracking system, docket tracking providers said during a recent American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) convention panel.

Held virtually Wednesday, the panel "Searching in All 50 State Court Dockets: Will It Ever Be a Reality?" discussed the likelihood and frustrating limitations of searching all U.S. state court dockets.

State-level courts' varying commitment to e-filing poses a challenge for easily collecting and updating dockets, the panel explained.

"Some courts are on different parts of the spectrum, and there's no e-filing and you have to send in a human [to collect the filings]," said Trellis CEO/co-founder Nicole Clark. "Others try to have more and more of their counties unified and on one system."

Fees for manually and electronically obtaining dockets is also blocking any hopes for a national repository of state court dockets.

"The big problem is the economics," said Bloomberg Law senior product manager Blayne Scofield. "Going court by court to collect the data is too expensive. The margins are tight with this business, it's difficult to justify the cost."

While e-filing may seem like a practical solution for a 21st century state court system, re:Search senior manager Phillip Vaden at Tyler Technologies noted jurisdictions where Fortune 500 companies aren't regularly being sued usually hear less demand for internet access to dockets.

To be sure, docket tracker providers are able to collect and update their platforms through RSS feeds, manual collections, business relationships and data scraping courts' public-facing websites. Still, while data scraping is fairly common, the tactic can run into hurdles, Scofield noted. "Courts will block access via IP address to some of its site for data collection. You have to be cognizant of how much and what you are collecting to avoid stepping on the court's toes."

Another challenge that may cause a lag for users is platforms processing the data and reformatting the documents into a file type and structure most useful for end users, Clark said. Courts also don't immediately post docket updates online, noted LexisNexis Primary Law vice president Alison Manchester.

"It's often because the court, especially at the trial level, is taking some time to get that opinion, document or docket posted," Manchester said. Or, "it's released by the court but there's a gap between the clerk reviewing it."

A lull in docket updates is also sometimes triggered by the docket tracking provider itself, Scofield added.

"It's intentional to make the experience better," Scofield explained. Staggering docket updates prevents constant reloads that can become taxing on the system. Plus, "There's a risk in a very busy class action that you would be pounded with frequent notifications as they come in."