It just occurred to me that somehow this site was never hunted even though it has been around for a bit and it's likely that in some manner, by virtue of reading news sites, you've even unknowingly seen what the site has to offer, or at least a slice of it. Whenever there's a lawsuit, or an arrest, or a court decision of note, journalists frequently directly link to PDFs hosted by the site. And since so much of our news involve the law in some way, in a way this is the front page of that machine, but there's so much more to the site than just an s3 bucket of PDFs. The federal government in theory makes court filings public by default unless it is sealed via a separate court order, but public doesn't mean free. PACER, the federal system to file and retrieve these public filings, cost money to access, and for complex cases, the costs can add up. The system is also unwieldy and looks like it was made in 1995 (and probably was, all things considered). The costs pose a real problem to transparency as well. You want to know what's going on in some interesting case you heard on the news? Well, good luck even finding out which jurisdiction's version of PACER (yes, all of the districts have separate sites) you need to go on, never mind paying for documents that are perfunctory and essentially boilerplate (pro hac vice orders, which just lets someone licensed in another jurisdiction to temporarily appear in the present one, is a usual culprit). Instead, here, if you want to follow, say, the FTX cases, it's laid out chronologically and the available PDFs are even searchable. You can also make any search result into an RSS feed to keep up with developments, and also look at older, or entirely obscure cases. Everything from the random warrant request sent to Google to ransomware lawsuits to just about anything that ends up in federal court under the sun can be found. Since American law frequently ends up affecting the rights and lives of those outside of the country - think the DMCA, extraordinary rendition, and all of the controversial things done in the name of Americans - and sometimes the only way to access primary sources is, well, through here. You can also look up decisions from the circuit courts of appeals and all the way up to the Supreme court, or listen to oral arguments that were taped, or even make visualizations to see how cases are linked. Most importantly, the site gives you enough information to tell if a case remains good law or not. Google Scholar is also free, but you'll have to read through all of the citations to see if you're reading history or the present. While this isn't going to replace going to law school, it will at least make you more informed about the legal landscape and see what courts are saying. Everyone has their niche interests that aren't necessarily covered by the press, but you can skip the middleman and do a search if you want. You can even set up webhooks and email alerts, since the whole thing is built in public, and the code is on Github, it's using tech that many of us use already but in a way that advances the public interest. Also, it has financial disclosures of judges, an API if you want to incorporate data into an app of some sort, and it's all free for the user. It's not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure, but it's kind of an amazing resource to have on hand for those even remotely interested in what's happening in the courts of America, and there are always a lot happening. Give it a shot. RECAP Archive features cases that are on the district court level and dockets that are currently open, the opinions from circuit courts of appeals and the like are under the opinions tab.

Court Listener

Actual free access to court filings, runs on open source

Actual free access to court filings, runs on open source