Free Online Legal Research

Provides links to the websites for the U.S. Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, and District and Bankruptcy Courts for each federal district. Also includes listings of the U.S. probation and pretrial services offices and federal public defender organizations for the various federal districts (with links to their websites if available).

Provides both historical and current information on federal judgeships, including lists of judicial vacancies, nominations, and confirmations (from 1981 to the present). You can use the Search feature for the main United States Courts website to search this page.

This 44 page publication (in PDF) provides "an introduction to the federal judicial system, its organization and administration, and its relationship to the legislative and executive branches of the government." Published by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Regularly-updated list of judicial nominations, organized in reverse-chronological order; also searchable.

This searchable database of Congressional legislative history includes status information on judicial nominations. Select "Nominations" from the pull-down menu near the top of the screen. Select "More Options" to enter your search terms and filters. Note that you can restrict your search results to judicial nominations by typing "judiciary" under the "Organizations" heading.

Provides information on federal judicial nominees, including fact sheets on nominees, letters of support and opposition, and tracking/status information regarding nominations.

Provides biographical information on both current and former federal judges. Includes a main search box as well as an "advanced search criteria" page that allows one to "create customized lists of judges based on various criteria, including appointing president, type of court, dates of service, and demographics."

This site's mission is to provide a forum for evaluating federal circuit, district court and magistrate judges. It is maintained by North Law Publishers, Inc., a New York based legal publisher created by and for attorneys.

This archive provides free access to millions of federal court documents from the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database. While not all PACER documents are included in RECAP, the documents that have been uploaded to this archive are searchable. Anyone can contribute to the archive by installing the free RECAP internet browser extension.

The Justia Federal District Court Filings & Dockets site republishes public litigation records retrieved from the US Federal District Courts (with links to PACER). Search by party name, judge, jurisdiction, type of lawsuit, and date.

The "Statistics and Reports" section of the U.S. Courts website "provides statistical data and analysis on the business of the federal Judiciary. Specific publications address the work of the appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts; the probation and pretrial services systems; and other components of the U.S. courts."

The "Authorized Judgeships" section of the U.S. Courts website contains data on authorized judgeships for all federal courts.

This 30 page publication by Russell R. Wheeler and Cynthia Harrison provides a history of the federal courts.

The Supreme Court Historical Society, a private non-profit organization, is dedicated to the collection and preservation of the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. On this site, one will find links to the history of the Court, how the Court works, and some digitized Society publications.