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U.S. Government Documents

Access to United States federal government documents

U.S. Courts

The Constitution Annotated

Library of Congress: How to Find Free Case Law Online

PACER: Public Access to Court Electronic Records

PACER holds billions of pages of documents associated with cases before federal courts. It is not appropriate for historical research but invaluable for recent and pending cases. PACER requires the creation of an account. It is not free, but limited research should not incur a charge. Your liaison librarian has a PACER account; he can demonstrate how to use it but will not conduct research.

Cases: Research Beyond Decisions

Frequently, researchers express a desire to explore a case, which may mean different things. Those interested in decisions as a matter of law will want the relevant case reporter for appeals of a lower court's decision. Those interested in the documents around a case at any level under any jurisdiction are engaged in a different research process. Much of what they do next depends on when and where the case occurred.

No one-stop site or resource exists for these alternately voluminous, scanty, or entirely missing case materials. If they survive, briefs, transcripts, and other materials may have been published or remain in manuscript in a local, state, or federal archive. Yale Law School's librarians have compiled an excellent guide for researching court records, briefs, and oral arguments.