Re: a couple of questions

["Aaron Swartz" <xx@aaronsw.com>]

The only way I know of is to go request the docket:

https://ecf.$court.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/HistDocQry.pl?$case_id

then hit the button and accept the charge.

The other think to try is to look at Justia and figure out what the
smallest-numbered case they list is. So for mad
http://dockets.justia.com/browse/state-massachusetts/court-madce/s-14350#resultslist
lists 
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-madce/case_no-1:1999cv10041/case_id-71161/
(i.e. 71161). But I don't know exactly what Justia indexes, so I
wouldn't rely on this on its own -- it might make sense to do both for
a couple districts and see how closely the match.

But, as you've noticed, the data's a real mess -- lots of stuff
imported out of order (for starters, they'll often do a bunch of real
cases to start with, then import the dockets for old cases, then go
back to real cases again), whole swathes of ID numbers that have been
skipped, tons of IDs that are, for no apparent reason, just pointers
to other IDs, etc. so it's gonna be tough to get any level of
confidence without better data (perhaps Justia has some?).

Happy to help.