Law/Legal Information: Courts
Legal guides, rules/regulations, codes, and legislative and judicial information.
Recommended Judicial Databases
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowIncludes Shepherd's Citations, legal news, legal reference sources, law reviews and state and federal statutes and case law including for the Supreme Court. Does not include state trial courts or jury trials.
- WestlawNext Campus Research This link opens in a new windowWestlaw includes U.S. (including Supreme Court) and state case law after 1944. The system also includes access to: United States Code Annotated, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register (fulltext after 1980), state administrative codes and statutes. Secondary legal materials include the American Jurisprudence encyclopedia, American Law Reports (2d series+ and Federal) and several hundred journals and law reviews. Users may search by citation, parties to legal cases, and by subject.
- Texas State Law Library Electronic DatabasesTexas residents may register for 30 day access to select online databases or use others at the library in Austin. Some of these are helpful for accessing judicial information including Supreme Court research.
- Google Scholar Case LawChoose Case Law on the Google Scholar site to search and read opinions for US state, appellate, and Supreme Court cases. Good for gaining on overview before checking LexisNexis or Westlaw.
Official Supreme Court Decisions
Check the Rice Library catalog for paper and microfiche copies of United States Reports (older editions are at the Library Service Center) and for other electronic versions.
- United States Reports [Vols. 1-542 (1754-2004)]United States Reports serve as the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables and proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. HeinOnline has entered into an agreement with the Library of Congress (LOC) to offer reports for vols. 1-542 (1754-2004) free to the public.
- United States ReportsSupreme Court site containing not just opinions, but the full text, from cover through index, of bound volumes 502 et seq., including all of the opinions, orders, and other materials issued for the Court's 1991 Term and subsequent years. Additional volumes will be included here after they are published in print form.
- United States Reports (from UNT)Supreme Court reports collected by the UNT Digital Library. Check for dates covered.
- United States Supreme CourtOfficial site of the United States Supreme Court containing slip opinions from the last few years, term orders, schedules, rules, bar admission forms and instructions, visitors' guides and other general Supreme Court information.
Additional Sites
The following are unofficial sites that offer access to case law for general information.
- FindLaw Cases and CodesContains resources and links for both state and federal laws. Search separately US Courts of Appeals including the United States Supreme Court and browse Supreme Court cases from 1760. Provides an archive of Supreme Court opinion summaries from September 2000 to the present.
- Justia.comProvides free access to US Case Law, US Federal Law, and US State Law. (Check each section for years of coverage.) The Supreme Court section allows you to browse opinions from 1791 to the present. Please note - official Supreme Court case law is only found in United States Reports.
- OyezMultimedia free site to "make the work of the Supreme Court accessible to everyone through text, images, audio,and video. " Serves as the "authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955," Includes news, analyses, a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, and detailed information about every justice.
Courts
- PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records)Provides on-line access to U.S. Appellate (including the Supreme Court), District, and Bankruptcy court records and documents nationwide. You must register to access the documents and pay a small fee.
- Quick Links and Sources to U.S. Court OpinionsIncludes links to the Supreme Court, Federal Courts, Circuit Courts, and special courts. Provided by the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.
- ScotusblogBloomberg Law blog written by lawyers and law students since 2002 about the U.S. Supreme Court. Contains discussions about current cases, listings of upcoming arguments, information about recently decided cases and upcoming petitions, and amicus curiae briefs for selected cases. The "plain English issue" feature translates legal issues into ordinary English.
- United States Court OpinionsGovinfo.gov collection providing links to appellate (circuit courts), district, bankruptcy and national (U.S. Court of International Trade) opinions from April 2004 to the present.
- United States Supreme Court Decisions (Cornell University Law School)Search archived decisions by topic, author, or party. View updates of current cases.
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