Except for corporate lawyers and a handful of highly successful biglaw attorneys, the law profession isn’t as profitable as it once was. Student loans and creeping costs have done a lot of damage. Same with many doctors who are having to go work for group practices owned by PE firms.
Free PACER access might actually help average people get better legal representation by reducing the cost burden on the small independent attorneys who don’t mingle with execs and politicians at the country club.
I think if you do the math on this you're going to find that PACER fees are not really a significant component of the cost of representation. Westlaw/Lexis-Nexis maybe?
Fair, I agree that those are a much bigger component. Still, every little reduction in cost probably helps. The cost of education is the real killer but I have no idea how to fix that.