FILED
Sep 02 2025
United States District Court
Northern District of Ohio
General Order
GENERAL ORDER NO. 2025-18
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
)
PACER FEE EXEMPTION FOR ) ORDER NO. 2025-18
STEFAN SAVAGE )
)
Stefan Savage, a professor associated with the University of California at San Diego, has
submitted a request for a PACER fee exemption from the fees imposed by the Electronic
Public Access fee schedule adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States Courts.
The applicant falls within the class of users listed in the fee schedule as being eligible for a
fee exemption on the basis that the applicant is performing academic research. Additionally,
the applicant has demonstrated that an exemption is necessary in order to avoid unreasonable
burdens and to promote public access to information.
Accordingly, the applicant shall be exempt from the payment of fees for access via PACER
to the electronic case files maintained in this Court to the extent such use is incurred in the
course of researching the use of GenAI in federal trial courts by empirically measuring the
incidents of “hallucinated” legal citations in the contemporary period (2025) versus the control
period before the introduction of GenAI tool (2019). The applicant shall not be exempt from the
payment of fees incurred in connection with other uses of the PACER system in this Court.
Additionally, the following limitations apply:
1. The fee exemption applies only to the applicant and is valid only for the purposes
stated above.
2. The fee exemption applies only to the electronic case files of this Court that are
available through the PACER system.
3. By accepting the exemption, the applicant agrees not to sell for profit any data
obtained as a result of receiving the exemption.
4. The applicant is prohibited from transferring any data obtained as a result of
receiving the exemption, including redistribution via internet-based databases.
5. The exemption is valid until August 19, 2026.
The exemption may be revoked at the discretion of the Court at any time. A copy of this Order
shall be sent to the PACER Service Center, which should provide applicant’s PACER account
with a fee exemption to access the records of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
Ohio for:
Stefan Savage
PACER Account No. 8049601
Department of CSE
UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093
Phone: (858) 822-4895
[email protected]
IT IS SO ORDERED.
FOR THE COURT
Sara Lioi
Chief Judge
