how do I search which law firms are representing which parties in
commercial law suits filed?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 05 May 2003 06:52 PDT

Depends in large measure on where the lawsuit was filed.  Can you let
us know:

(a) what country you're asking about and

(b) if the U.S., is there a particular state of interest, or are you
looking to search all commercial lawsuits in the country.

By the way, if there is a particular case or company you're interested
in, why not let us know here, and we might be able to track down the
specifics for you.

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Clarification of Question by durfeedude-ga on 05 May 2003 08:37 PDT

country: US
state: all
nature: larger suits involving public companies or substantial private
companies against each other...not class actions

Hello Durfeedude, and thanks for your question.

The best way to access the type of informatin you're after is to sign
up to the PACER system of the U.S. Courts.  Sign-up information, and
general background on PACER, can be found here:

http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/

"What is PACER?
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic
public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket
information from Federal Appellate, District and Bankruptcy courts,
and from the U.S. Party/Case Index."



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Click on the "Registration" button to get the sign-up information.

Signing up is a bit cumbersome, as it involves a snail-mail
application form, but once you're registered, the system can search on
existing cases by company name, as well as (if you're interested)
dates of the suit, and type of suit (contract dispute, trademark
infringement, etc).

There is a small charge to use PACER, but by "small", I really mean
*small*.  They charge 7 cents a page for any material you access -- I
rarely wind up paying more than $.35 for any case I'm looking up.

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Results vary from court to court and case to case, but generally look
like this.  I searched on recent cases involving IBM and got 95 hits. 
A typical record starts off identifying the case, court, judge,
parties, and their attorneys:

U.S. District Court

Middle District of Florida (Tampa) 

CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 00-CV-743

IBM v. Provider Solutions 

Filed: 04/17/00 
Assigned to: Judge James D. Whittemore 
Demand: $192,000 
Nature of Suit: 190 
Lead Docket: None 
Jurisdiction: Diversity 
Dkt# in other court: None 
Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Breach of Contract 



INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS            Ronald J. Marlowe
MACHINES CORPORATION              [COR LD NTC]
     plaintiff                    Stephens Lynn Klein LaCava
                                  Hoffman & Puya, P.A.
                                  301 E. Las Olas Blvd., Suite
                                  800
                                  Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
                                  954/462-4602

   v.

PROVIDER SOLUTIONS CORP.          James Lee Clark
     defendant                    [COR LD NTC]
                                  Law Office of James L. Clark
                                  1902 S. MacDill Ave.
                                  Tampa, FL 33609
                                  813/253-2626


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The record then goes on to identify all the docket entries in the
case, and these are also (sometimes) retrievable through the PACER
system.


Hope this is what you need.  If anything is not clear, or requires
elaboration, just post a Request for Clarification, and let me know
how I can assist you further.