What is the current state of the law regarding the right of meaningful access to the courts?

The right of meaningful access to the courts prohibits officials from actively interfering with inmates' attempts to prepare or file legal documents. Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 350 (1996). The right of access to the courts is only a right to bring petitions or complaints to federal court and not a right to discover such claims or even to litigate them effectively once filed with a court. Id. at 354. The right "guarantees no particular methodology but rather, the conferral of a capability -- the capability of bringing contemplated challenges to sentences or conditions of confinement before the courts." Id. at 356.