Not long ago, I blogged about the Washington Supreme Court broadcasting on television and making available on the internet, its oral arguments.

Now, Paul Bush of Legal Dockets Online sent me an email telling me about a new pilot project by the federal courts. The U.S. Courts website, reports:

Continuing its efforts to enhance the transparency of courtroom proceedings, the federal judiciary is about to launch a pilot project to make digital audio recordings publicly available online.

Five pilot project participants – three bankruptcy courts and two district courts – will integrate their recording and Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) systems to make audio files available later this summer on the Internet, the same way written files have long been available.

“We’re just treating the audio file as we would a written file,” said U.S. Bankruptcy Judge J. Rich Leonard in the Eastern District of North Carolina . “We think providing access to an audio file will prove to be enormously helpful.”

The pilot project will start in the bankruptcy courts in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Northern District of Alabama, and the District of Maine. The district courts will be the District of Nebraska and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Further information about the project can be found here.

The Seventh Circuit has made its oral arguments available for some time now. To see other courts doing the same is great.