LibGuides: Dockets, Briefs, and Court Filings Research: U.S. District/Trial Courts

Intro: U.S. District and Specialty Trial Courts

U.S. District Courts are the trial courts of the federal court system. There are 94 federal judicial districts, including the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (D. Mass.). Each district also has a bankruptcy court, and the U.S. Tax Court handles disputes between taxpayers and the IRS. Dockets and court filing availability varies but usually begins around 2003, when the federal docketing system PACER was widely implemented. Due to PACER charges, we recommend the following sources when performing this type of research at BC Law.

Current Dockets & Court Filings

Bloomberg Law: U.S. District Courts, Specialty Trial Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals
Preferred BC Law source for federal dockets. Use the Courts dropdown menu or start typing court name to select court(s) of interest. The information "i" icon will give you individual coverage information for each district, tax, or bankruptcy court. You can search by docket number or keywords. Narrow by fields like parties or judge and by filters like date, nature of suit, or case status. See Bloomberg box below for more tips.
CourtLink (via Lexis)
BC Law's access to CourtLink includes good access to federal dockets and underlying filings, but no ability to update on demand or to track the docket.
U.S. Tax Court Dockets
Search by name or docket number for a case in the U.S. Tax Court's DAWSON system for cases filed on or after May 1, 1986. If you aren’t affiliated with a case, you will only see limited information about that case. Additional information may be available in Bloomberg Law, above.

NOTE: You may have more robust access to sources like Lexis's CourtLink and Westlaw Dockets at your workplace, so ask colleagues there for the preferred platform. Those resources are limited in comparison to Bloomberg Law at BC Law for federal dockets and court filings.

Briefs, Pleadings, Motions, and Historical Materials

If you're at BC Law or somewhere else with a good docketing platform like Bloomberg Law, you can pull actual court filings like briefs, pleadings, motions, and supporting memoranda from a case docket. However, there also are databases on Lexis and Westlaw that allow you to search by keyword to find examples of court filings that focus on particular issues. This can help with developing legal arguments or thinking through your own drafting tasks.

Lexis: Briefs, Pleadings and Motions
Includes briefs from the U.S. Supreme Court (including petitions for cert), U.S. Courts of Appeals, U.S. Tax Courts, and all state appellate courts. Choose the filing type and/or the jurisdiction of interest to search by keyword.
Westlaw: Trial Court Documents
Selected pleadings, motions, jury instruction filings, exhibits, and interrogatories from selected state trial courts, United States District Courts and United States Bankruptcy Courts. For specific coverage details, see the scope information on the individual pages. Coverage is for civil cases only.
Westlaw: U.S. Tax Court Briefs & Petitions
Selected coverage for briefs and petitions filed with the U.S. Tax Court beginning with 1999 for briefs and 2004 for petitions. Select older documents may be available.
Bloomberg Dockets: Find Example Briefs & Motions
Bloomberg Law's advanced docket search allows you to find sample briefs & motions. Use filters to select motion type, court, nature of suit, etc. Adjust, as needed, to get a manageable number of search results.
National Archives Court Records
For historical information that isn't available through online databases, a visit to or copy request from the court or National Archives (depending on how old) may be required. Fees are usually required to have case files reproduced.

Bloomberg Law Tips

Bloomberg Law is generally BC Law's preferred platform for federal dockets. It pulls data from PACER (see below), and charges are generally included with our subscription fee.

To login:

Search your BC email account for a message with Bloomberg Law credentials—an account should have been set up for you when you first started here.
If you can't find your login information, try to reset your password.
If it doesn't appear that you have an active account, contact lawresearchhelp@bc.edu, or you can register yourself with your BC email address for an account.

Once you are in:

Coverage: Varies by jurisdiction; under the Litigation tab, you'll see an option for "Docket Coverage" to get specific coverage information.
Searching: Use the Advanced Docket Search feature to structure a search based on what you know about a specific case or the types of cases that need to find.
Updating: If you're looking for current information, be sure to click "Update" to update the docket sheet. You can accept the collection fee - each BC Law user has a generous individual limit. You'll be notified if you're getting close to your limit.
Filings: If a filing is immediately available, it will say "View." Click to open. If it says "Request," you can request the document. You can accept the collection fee—each BC Law user has a generous individual limit (you'll be notified if you're getting close to your limit). If the document is not available electronically, you'll get a message saying that a courier is necessary. This has to be approved and requested by a reference librarian.
Tracking: To track the ongoing litigation in a particular case, click the "Track Docket" link at the top of the docket sheet to sign up for email alerts.

Help:

Training materials from Bloomberg Law
Reach out to the Teaching & Research Librarians at lawresearchhelp@bc.edu

PACER, Justia & RECAP

The federal docketing website PACER (an acronym for Public Access to Court Electronic Records) provides public access to case and docket information for the U.S. District and Bankruptcy courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals. There's no fee to register for an account, but there are search fees and fees per page to access the court records. Therefore, we do not distribute the password. If you are unable to find what you need through Bloomberg Law or other listed resources, please consult a reference librarian, who can check PACER for you.

Note: Free sites like Justia pull information from PACER and provide some material free of charge. Another is the RECAP Archive, created by the the Free Law Project, a searchable collection of millions of PACER documents and dockets contributed by those who have already paid the fees to access this public information. Coverage is spotty but helpful.