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US Federal Case Law

Reported opinions from the us federal courts of appeals.

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Cases in the News - Documents

Apple Lawsuits - Antitrust, patent and other lawsuits involving Apple, including Apple e-books antitrust litigation .

Camp Lejeune Lawsuits - Injury lawsuits based on contaminated water at a military base.

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Legal Research

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Case Law Resources

An interdisciplinary, international, full-text database of over 18,000 sources including newspapers, journals, wire services, newsletters, company reports and SEC filings, case law, government documents, transcripts of broadcasts, and selected reference works.

• Google Scholar for Case Law Google Scholar offers an extensive database of state and federal cases, including U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal District, Appellate, Tax, and Bankruptcy Court Opinions, U.S. State Appellate and Supreme Court Opinions, Scholarly articles, papers, and reports. To get started, select the “case law” radio button, and choose your search terms.
• Caselaw Access Project The Caselaw Access Project (CAP), maintained by the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, includes "all official, book-published United States case law — every volume designated as an official report of decisions by a court within the United States...[including] all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American Courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands." As of the publication of this guide, CAP "currently included all volumes published through 2020 with new data releases on a rolling basis at the beginning of each year."
• CourtListener Court Listener is a free and publicly accessible online platform that provides a collection of legal resources and court documents, including court opinions and case law from various jurisdictions in the United States. It includes PACER data (the RECAP Archive), opinions, or oral argument recordings.
• FindLaw Caselaw Summaries Archive FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• FindLaw Jurisdiction Search FindLaw provides a database of case law from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well as several state supreme courts. It includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate Court Opinions and U.S. State Supreme, Appellate and Trial Court Opinions. Search for case summaries or by jurisdiction.
• Justia Justia offers cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and U.S. District Courts. Additionally, you may find links to many state supreme court and intermediate courts of appeal cases. Content includes U.S. Supreme Court Opinions, U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court Opinions, Selected U.S. Federal Appellate & District Court dockets and orders and U.S. State Supreme & Appellate Court Opinions.
• PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) PACER is a nationwide database for accessing federal court documents, including case dockets. It covers U.S. District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, and the U.S. Court of Appeals. Users can search for and access federal case dockets and documents for a fee.
• Ravel Law Public Case Access "This new Public Case Access site was created as a result of a collaboration between the Harvard Law School Library and Ravel Law. The company supported the library in its work to digitize 40,000 printed volumes of cases, comprised of over forty million pages of court decisions, including original materials from cases that predate the U.S. Constitution."
• The RECAP Archive Part of CourtListener, RECAP provides access to millions of PACER documents and dockets.

State Courts

• LLI Listing by Jurisdiction The Legal Information Institute provides a comprehensive list of states and links to their legal resources and websites.
• State Court Websites This page provides a list of various state court system websites by state.
• Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal The Pennsylvania Judiciary Web Portal provides the public with access to various aspects of court information, including appellate courts, common pleas courts and magisterial district court docket sheets; common pleas courts and magisterial district court calendars; and PAePay.
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Opinions

US Supreme Court

• US Reports he opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published officially in the United States Reports.
• US Reports through HeinOnline
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• Last Updated: Nov 5, 2024 3:48 PM
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Library electronic resources outage May 29th and 30th

Between 9:00 PM EST on Saturday, May 29th and 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, May 30th users will not be able to access resources through the Law Library’s Catalog, the Law Library’s Database List, the Law Library’s Frequently Used Databases List, or the Law Library’s Research Guides. Users can still access databases that require an individual user account (ex. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law), or databases listed on the Main Library’s A-Z Database List.

• Georgetown Law Library
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Free and Low Cost Legal Research Guide

Free sources of case law.

• Introduction
• Free Sources of Statutes & Codes
• Free Sources of Legislative History
• Free Sources of Administrative Regulations
• Free Sources of the Constitution
• Free Sources of Secondary Sources
• Low-Cost Legal Databases

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There is an abundance of free case law available online. Unfortunately, many of the editorial enhancements and finding aids that legal researchers are accustomed to are not available through these free sources. For example, these sources do not provide digests or headnotes, which organize cases by points of law. Instead, these sources utilize browsing and keyword searching as the principal means of finding relevant cases. Researchers should be aware of these limitations and understand that keyword searching and browsing are not necessarily the best methods to find cases.

For guidance on the significance of case law and methods for finding relevant cases, please see our  Case Law Research Guide .

U.S. Supreme Court Cases

Federal Circuit Court Cases (Reported)

Federal District Court Cases

State Court Cases

Online access to state materials varies widely. Please consult our  state research guides  for information about individual jurisdictions.

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• Last Updated: Oct 3, 2024 9:50 AM
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