General Legal & Policy Research

Federal

Federal Case Law

What: This Web site, created by the Law Library of Congress, has excellent general legal resources, including tools for accessing federal case law.
How to search:  Users must already know which court the decision they are seeking originated from in order to effectively use this site.  Users may select the U.S. Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, District Courts, or courts of Special Jurisdiction to search for decisions.  The Law Library of Congress site offers links to multiple Web sites offering similar materials, but with different search tools.  Of those Web sites, the more useful and easily accessible Web sites are provided below:

• Supreme Court Opinions (See below)
• Court of Appeals Opinions - Organized by Circuit, the Library of Congress site offers multiple outside case law sites to search opinions and lists the states within each Circuit. The Emory School of Law Federal Court Finder, provides easy access to Court of Appeals opinions.  Once users select the appropriate Circuit Court of Appeal, they may search for opinions by date, party name, and keyword. 
• Cornell's LII District Court Opinions - This page offers quick links for each District Court's opinion search page.  Each District Court's search page offers different methods of accessing information; however most offer a party name, keyword, or date search function. 

Helpful hints: While subscription-based online case law research tools offer ease of access and more search options, they charge subscription fees. Free online case law research sites may be sufficient, depending on your frequency of use and extent of reliance on case law research.  The more users know about the case opinion sought, for example court of origin, party name, or date, the easier accessing that case will be on free online case law resources. 
Other Web sites: Since free online research for case law can prove challenging even for the web-savvy, users should try different search Web sites adding those they prefer to their bookmark or favorites files.  Other Web sites offering free online case law research services include:

• FindLaw Federal Judicial Resources - Good for Supreme Court and Court of Appeals searches as the Web site offers several methods to search case law.
• Lexis ONE - A free (requires registration) service of Lexis-Nexis, the online legal research service, that offers excellent party name search function.  Once your initial search is completed, the free registration process must be completed in order to access the text of the case opinion searched.