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Docket Research

This guide provides an overview of accessing courts materials through docket searching.

GETTING STARTED WITH PACER

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an online system that provides public access to federal court records and documents. PACER allows users to access a diverse range of court records, including dockets, and judgements from U.S. district courts, courts of appeals, and bankruptcy courts. While there isn't institutional access to PACER offered through the law library, the law library team can help you navigate and conduct cost-effective research through PACER. 

PACER operates on a fee-based system, where users are charged a fee to access court documents. Case information accessed through PACER costs $0.10 per page. For a single document, the cost is capped at $3.00. For detailed fee structures, refer to webpages Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule and PACER Pricing: How fees work.

COURT LISTENER'S RECAP

CourtListener is a free legal research website. CourtLink offers RECAP Archive, a collection of PACER documents and dockets obtained through the RECAP browser extension. If you would like to contribute to making court documents more accessible and you use PACER, consider downloading the browser extension. For more information about installing the RECAP extension, refer to Free Law Project's website on the RECAP Project. 

PACER FEE EXEMPTION

Pacer offers individual researchers a fee exemption for scholarly work. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Court centralizes and coordinates the review of PACER fee exemption requests submitted for multiple courts. They assess whether requests are in accordance with Judicial Conference policies and the discretionary fee exemptions of the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule.

For requests from individual researchers associated with educational institutions, they assess whether the request is for a defined research project, is intended for scholarly research, is limited in scope, and that it is not intended for redistribution on the internet or for commercial purposes.

For requests that are in accordance with Judicial Conference policies and the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule, they provide guidance and a recommendation to each court from which records are requested, leaving the ultimate decision on whether to grant a request with the courts themselves.   

To request a fee exemption, follow these steps:

  1. Download Multi-Court PACER Fee Exemption Request Form (pdf). Right-click the link to the form and click "Save link as" to download the PDF form to your computer.
  2. Open and complete the form with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  3. Save the completed application.
  4. Send the completed application to: Multi-CourtExemptions@ao.uscourts.gov.