March 2013 25 How are American judges reading today? We have been asking that question for several years. The answers vary, and have been changing rapidly. es fall within one or more of these categories: Paper readers. Three years ago, most American judges we asked were reading legal arguments exclusively on paper. Yet within the past few years, judges who read arguments exclusively on paper have become the minority. Judges who do still read on paper give several reasons. Some have no choice because their court’s files are maintained on paper and legal documents are available only on paper. Some resolutely prefer paper over screens, even though their courts manage files electronically. And some judges alternate between reading on paper and screens; they are more likely to read arguments on paper when they need to study a complex issue in depth. PC readers. In courts that use e-filing and electronicdocument management, a majority of judges are reading on PC screens. As an illustration, in Houston, the civil trial courts completed the transition from paper-document management to electronic-document management in 2009. By 2010, more than 20 of the court’s 25 judges were reading arguments on screen. Similarly, the judges in Houston’s appellate court had made the electronic transition by 2012. Only two years before all appellate court files were maintained on paper, and all written arguments were read on paper. Today, most appellate justices in Houston read written arguments primarily on screens. Tablet readers. In 2011, we began hearing reports of appellate judges who read at least some written arguments on iPads and other tablet devices. These include judges in courts such as the Ninth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, and the Texas Supreme Court. Judges are more likely to read on a tablet when their court uses electronic-document management, when the individual judge reads legal arguments out of the office, and especially when the court has purchased tablets for the judges. But most tablet readers do not read on tablets all of the time. When judges with tablets are in the office, most report that they are more likely to read on paper or on a PC screen. The reading media of judges and court staff is in flux. Yet it is clear that more and more judges and court staff are reading on screens rather than paper. How e-filing and screen reading affect how an argument is read Upon first examination, it may not make sense that screen reading is different from paper reading. The words of a text on a screen and on paper are the same. Yet the reading environment is quite different. Paper readers typically read line-by-line, down the page. Paper readers tend to focus on one text at a time, and do one task at a time – reading. It is for this reason that paper, and books, invoke the image of studying. A paper reader is typically immersed in a single text, slowly absorbing its meaning. He tends to read slowly and carefully. By the late 1990s, web designers had learned that the Internet’s information explosion had changed the very mechanics of reading. They discovered that screen readers read differently from paper readers. When the eye movements of screen readers were analyzed by eyetracking readers, web designers found that readers were more likely to skim text, focusing only on a few portions of the page. Eye-tracking studies have shown that screen readers tend to focus on only several lines of text running across the page at certain particular points – typically the top of the page, headings, and the first line or two of paragraphs. Readers also tend to focus on the text in a narrow band on the left side of the page running from top to bottom. Because this reading pattern is shaped like an ‘E’ or an ‘F,’ web designers refer to it as the ‘F-Pattern.’ © 2013 Xchanging