Please Note: This program has now concluded. We are grateful to the indviduals and organizations that supported the digitization of the first 44 volumes of the Federal Reporter and 30 volumes of the Federal Cases. This effort included a full-page ad in the ABA journal and intensive use of social media and other outlets to make the first 100 years of the U.S. Courts of Appeal available on the Internet.

To the members of the American bar—and those who care about them—you now have the opportunity to make a tax-deductible contribution and adopt a volume of the First Series of the Federal Reporter of the United States!

Public.Resource.Org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation chartered with making the primary legal materials of the United States more readily available. We were honored with the Project 10^100 Award from Google and have invested $100,000 to double-key the Federal Cases. The Federal Cases are 30 volumes of judicial opinions, “comprising cases argued and determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States from the earliest times to the beginning of the Federal Reporter” and the scans were donated by William S. Hein & Co., Inc.

Double-keying these volumes means they are manually re-typed—twice. Typing the volumes twice and comparing the discrepancies yields an acuracy of 99.51%. Documents are further audited by legal professionals, then digitally certified.

Want to see an example? Here's In Re KETCHUM (1 F. 840): Compare the original PDF file, the double-keyed HTML file, and a regenerated PDF file.

Now, you too can help, by adopting one of the 300 volumes of the First Series of the Federal Reporter, which are all out of copyright. Your tax-deductible contribution of $1200 will pay to double-key 1,000 pages of Federal Appellate Opinions, and copies will be donated to the National Archives and the Government Printing Office.

Your name—and the link of your choice—will be inscribed on the Public Domain Wall of Fame and each case in your adopted volume will be a separate HTML file with a common footer:

This volume of American Law was transcribed for use on the Internet
through a contribution from [Your Name Here!!]

Your link can point anywhere, such as your firm's web site. A volume of the Federal Reporter typically has 150-250 cases. You can also make your tax-deductible contribution in honor or memory of your favorite member of the bar. You don't have to be a lawyer to give a gift you can cite forever!

This year, buy a gift for the public domain, give the gift of jurisprudence.