CasePortal is Courthouse News Service’s web-based platform for managing access to and delivery of all the publications that Courthouse News Service offers. Through CasePortal, subscribers can manage report delivery settings; create custom reports, dinger alerts and other notifications; view case details and docket sheets; download available case documents; and manage firm account and billing preferences. The CasePortal platform also provides access the Daily Brief, which reports on state and federal appellate decisions.
While the CasePortal platform offers a modern interface, the content that can be accessed through CasePortal is gathered through the same old-fashioned news reporting that has always been the bedrock of Courthouse News Service – or CNS, as it is sometimes called – since its founding more than 30 years ago. Back then, Courthouse News Service’s reporters and other journalists on the courthouse beat visited their assigned courts at the end of the day to see the stack of new civil complaints that had been filed that day. Those complaints typically sat in a stack by the intake desk, waiting for clerks to hand-docket them. Reporters also looked at the new opinions the judges had issued.
Times have changed. Paper complaints and opinions are becoming a thing of the past; replaced by electronic versions of these documents available either online via court websites or at the courthouse via computer kiosks. The news media industry has shrunk, and most media outlets no longer have the resources to check the day’s new complaints and opinions to see which ones might be newsworthy. But Courthouse News Service still conducts its news reporting in the traditional way. Its journalists – real, human people, spread across the U.S. – still check their assigned courts every day for newsworthy new civil actions. They write original summaries of these complaints for Courthouse News Service’s new litigation reports. Courthouse News’ Los Angeles-based reporter prepares the Los Angeles State report, its Manhattan-based reporter prepares the New York Supreme report, and so on. When you access content from CasePortal, you are accessing content from one or more of these new litigation reports, even though that content may look a bit different when accessed through one of CasePortal’s case libraries, or delivered to your email in-box via a dinger.
Thank you for subscribing to Courthouse News Service. We hope you enjoy CasePortal, and we welcome any suggestions you have for improving it. Email us anytime at [email protected].