When to use FJC data? It seems like the bulk data may have nearly everything independent of FJC?

[parker-howell]

The (very helpful--I can't thank you enough for publishing this page) Facts about FJC's Integrated Database page makes the following statement about the suppressed judge IDs in the IDB:

If you need these values, you might be able to obtain unredacted sources of the data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at University of Michigan. They appear to have this data in unredacted form, but getting access to it is extremely onerous.

This process is, indeed, onerous enough that I am wondering whether individuals like myself (i.e., researchers who need judge names or ids) can avoid it using only Free Law Project's bulk data. Two that end, two questions:

1. What percentage of cases are actually unique to the IDB (or, in Free Law Project's Bulk data: recap_fjcintegrateddatabase) that are not attainable from merging search_court to search_docket to search_opinioncluster to search_opinions? In other words, what would someone who ignores the FJC data entirely and uses only the data they can get via these other tables actually lose? Obviously, the FJC data is nice because it, "contains information about every case filed in the PACER system," but it seems like Free Law Project has come close to bridging any gap?
2. My reading of the complete model is that there is no way to reverse-engineer things to add judge names to the FJC data (i.e., I don't see a way to get the "judges" field from search_opinioncluster to recap_fjcintegrateddatabase, but if there were a way I think I'd have nearly all the judge names even without requesting NACJD's restricted data). Is this correct?

[mlissner]

Check out the assigned_to, referred_to, assigned_to_str, and referred_to_str fields in the docket table we have via our bulk download. I think we've got pretty much every judge in there at this point. If so, and if you're feeling spry, a tweak to that FJC page on free.law is probably due. We'd certainly welcome a PR with that tweak!