Answered By: Juan Jimenez
Last Updated: Mar 28, 2023     Views: 152

Law students have access to some dockets and pleadings in Westlaw and Lexis. Bloomberg Dockets has full coverage for federal dockets and filings, and also some state coverage. Please login to those services to access the material.

LexisNexis Uni allows all FIU students to search for selected court legal case pleadings. Use the Advanced Search option > Legal tab > then select "Briefs, Pleadings and Motions".

The links below point to additional resources:

Case search pages for Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach counties.

PACER, the fee-based Public Access to Court Electronic Records from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The resource covers federal cases. It requires registration and an on-file credit card. If your charges remain below a certain minimum per yearly quarter PACER will not charge your credit card.

Privacy/Public Access to Court Records: State Links, from the National Center for State Courts. 

Dockets, Court Documents, Transcripts, and Recordings, a research guide from the Univ. of Loyola at Los Angeles Law Library.

Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, for notable civil rights cases.

State & Federal Court Resources, from the Department of Justice.

legaldockets.com, a free ad-supported site.

In Florida appellate briefs are only available for the Supreme Court and the 1st DCA. The Fla. Supreme Court online docket can be found here. Both the Fla. Supreme Court and the District Courts of Appeal post archived videos of oral arguments.

The Florida District Courts of Appeal in general only post their docket entries and the final judgments, and do not post briefs as of April 2022. The exceptions are the 4th DCA which posts briefs where oral arguments are pending, and the 1st DCA which beginning in March 2023 began posting briefs and other information. Other papers, mostly the trial court pleadings and transcripts, or 'Records on Appeal', are not posted by the DCAs.

Federal Court Cases Integrated Database, from the Federal Judicial Center. "The IDB contains data on civil case and criminal defendant filings and terminations in the district courts, along with bankruptcy court and appellate court case information." This resource does not contain dockets, but allows researchers to compile and sort statistics using 14 separate data points.

Florida court's Statistics and Annual Reports, from the Fla. Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA).

Federal Statistics & Reports, from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Oral Arguments on video made during a trial test run period for allowing cameras into federal courts can be seen at https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/judicial-administration/cameras-courts/case-video-archive

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