In the past, whenever the Second Circuit has issued an opinion or a summary order, I would provide a link to the Second Circuit's pdf of the decision.
Recently, I noticed that, after 30 days, the Second Circuit takes down the pdf's. That's a small problem for the blog.
There are a couple of ways to address it: I could just give the Westlaw cite, but that isn't readily available to all readers. There are certain situations where I have no choice but to cite to the Westlaw (or Lexis) cite, but this doesn't seem like one of them.
Alternatively, I could download the pdf's and upload them here. I feel like that's more work than it is worth. At the same time, I think that's probably the only solution for summary orders, which are usually small files. I am going to start doing that for those.*
*There is also the somewhat similar Scribd option. I did it once, but I borrowed the embed (whatever that is) from another site. I haven't done enough research on that option. Apparently, it allows you to upload a file and then embed (whatever that is) the file on your site. I guess I just get lazy and don't want to do the extra work. But it is probably a decent option and, in the end, not that much work. I am going to look into it.
As for opinions, I think over time the size of the files will use up whatever memory space I am allowed here.
But I have come up with a solution. I have found a website that publishes the Second Circuit opinions. From what I can tell, they seem to publish a large number of decisions from around the country on a daily basis. Don't know how they can do that. I guess that's not my concern.
In any event, the site is called Leagle.
Honestly, I can't figure out what the site is all about. Here is what they say the agenda is:
"Leagle, Inc. is dedicated to making legal content and the knowledge contained therein more accessible and discoverable than ever before – anytime, anywhere, for anyone, through innovative, relevant web-based and mobile-media solutions"
They say that they can offer their readers the ability to "Search millions of pages of law with a single query."
So I guess they envision themselves as the common-person legal search engine. A rival stepchild to Westlaw and LEXIS, so to speak?
I have never actually searched on the site, so I don't know if it offers anything similar or better than those services. Except that it's free. I guess the producers of the site can make some money off the advertisements. Not sure how profitable that is, but they do have a bunch of advertisements up there.
I worry about hidden agendas. I can't figure out if there is one or what it would be. Maybe it is as altruistic as it says it is. It would help if I could figure out who exactly runs the site, but that's not clear from the site. They only say "we" or the "Leagle team."
But, for now, I won't complain since the site helps this blog. They publish the Second Circuit decisions and they seem to remain on the internet for eternity, or at least until the site goes down.
So, in the future, I will link to the Second Circuit's pdf if I get the post up the same day as the decision and then I will update the post with the Leagle link once it becomes available, which seems to be a day or two afterwards.
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