Free and Low Cost Online Legal Research: Beyond Westlaw, Lexis & Bloomberg

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information from federal appellate, district and bankruptcy courts, and the PACER Case Locator via the Internet. Registration required. $.10 per page.

Not comprehensive. An initiative to provide open access to public records, the RECAP the Law Archive makes available pleadings from PACER that have been uploaded to RECAP. RECAP also makes available a Firefox or Chrome extension that can be installed to assist their project.

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

Launched in 2004, CourtTrax provides online court information search and retrieval services for Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona and Nevada state courts; the federal court system; and superior, district, municipal and appellate/supreme courts that offer online access in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

Coverage of all federal courts. Charges a flat rate per year per user for the entire service, including dockets. Additional fees for PACER costs and docket runner service charges.

A portal service that aggregates web links for public records, court case dockets and filings.

Searchable database of approximately 11 million pages and more than 350,000 separate documents. Approximately 150,000 Supreme Court cases are featured. May search full-text, by case name, court term year and document filing date, U.S. Reports citation. Also allow browsing of authors and cases.

Most notable on this page is the link to "Judges of the United States Courts," which takes you to the "Biographical Directory of Federal Judges" and the "Federal Judges Biographical Database." The Biographical Directory of Federal Judges provides information about all judges who have served since 1789 on the U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, and the former U.S. Circuit Courts. The Federal Judges Biographical Databases allows users to create customized lists of judges based on various criteria, including nominating president, type of court, dates of service, and demographic groups.

Reports include: Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act Report; Civil Justice Reform Act Report; Federal Court Management Statistics; Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics; Judicial Facts and Figures; Judicial Business; Statistical Tables for the Federal Judiciary; Wiretap Reports and the Director's Annual Report.

Includes historical information on authorized judgeships for all courts. See also "Judicial Vacancies" and "Judgeship Appointments by President" links on left of page.

Russell R. Wheeler and Cynthia Harrison. (Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center, 2005). 30-page PDF.

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.

Provides historical analysis of Supreme Court decisions, biographies of justices, institutional history and the U.S. Constitution. Offers quantitative analysis of the Justices’ voting patterns. Provides full text and analysis of constitutions from over 100 countries.

Searchable database of presidential nominations for ambassadors, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and many other officials.

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

For judicial nominations from prior Congresses, scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on the Archive link.

Provides fact sheets on the federal judiciary, detailing vacanies, nominations, and trends.

This 50 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.