How to Find a Federal Court Case

There are three ways into a federal docket: free archives, the PACER Case Locator, and a single court's own system. This guide runs them in the order that costs the least.

Step 1: Work out what you already know

Federal case search is a matching problem, and every extra fact you have makes it cheaper. Before you type anything, sort what you know into four buckets.

• A party name. A person or a company on either side. This is the most common starting point and the least precise one.
• A case number. If you have this, you are nearly done.
• A court. Federal cases are filed in a specific district — the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of California, and so on.
• A rough date. Even "sometime in 2023" cuts a name search down enormously.

One warning about names: parties appear exactly as they were captioned, not as they are known. A company may be filed under a subsidiary, a middle initial may or may not be there, and government agencies show up under the official name of the officer in charge. If a name search fails, try fewer characters rather than more.

Step 2: Decode the case number

A federal case number looks intimidating and is actually a small sentence. Take 1:23-cv-12345:

• 1 is the division or office of the district that received the filing.
• 23 is the year the case was filed, so 2023.
• cv is the case type: cv civil, cr criminal, bk bankruptcy, md multidistrict litigation, mc miscellaneous.
• 12345 is the sequential number within that year.

Letters after the number, like 1:23-cv-12345-ABC-DEF, are the initials of the district judge and the magistrate judge assigned to the case. They are useful context and are not part of the case number when you search.

Step 3: Try the free routes first

Nothing about federal case lookup requires you to spend money on the first attempt.

Search here without an account

You can run a federal case search on this site with no login: type a party name or a case number into the federal court records search, filter by district and filing year, and see the matching cases. That gets you the case number and the court, which is the hard part. A name search covers civil and criminal cases plus appellate matters; a bankruptcy case resolves only if you already have its case number.

Check the RECAP Archive

RECAP, hosted by the nonprofit Free Law Project at CourtListener, holds tens of millions of federal filings donated by PACER users. If the case is popular, the docket and many of its documents are probably already there for free. If the case is obscure or brand new, it probably is not — RECAP only has what somebody already bought.

Look for the opinion

If a judge has written an opinion, it is free in PACER and usually free elsewhere. When you want to know how a case came out rather than everything that happened in it, the opinion is the shortcut.

Step 4: Search the nationwide index with the PACER Case Locator

The PACER Case Locator is the federal judiciary's national index. It is the only official way to ask "is this party in any federal case anywhere" instead of guessing a court. It covers district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts, and the index is updated once daily.

Register for a PACER account

Registration is free. Choose the case-search-only account if you are not filing documents. Providing a credit card gets you immediate access; skip it and PACER mails an activation code, which takes 7 to 10 business days. Activation codes cannot be emailed or read out over the phone.

Source: PACER: Case Search Only registration

Run the search

Sign in at the Case Locator and search by party name or case number. A result gives you the party name, the court where the case is filed, the case number, the date filed, and the date closed. That is enough to go straight to the docket.

Remember that searches are billed on the pages they generate, even when they return nothing. Narrow by court and date range before you run a broad name search. Our guide to PACER fees explains exactly how that billing works.

Source: PACER: Search by National Index

Step 5: Open the case in its own court

The Case Locator tells you where a case lives; the court's own CM/ECF system holds the full docket and the documents. If you already know the court — because you have the case number, or because the dispute is obviously local — you can skip the national index and search that one court directly, which is usually cheaper.

Bankruptcy is the common exception to "one case, one court." A debtor may have adversary proceedings attached to the main case, each with its own number, and you often need the main case first.

Source: PACER: Search by Specific Court

Step 6: Read the docket without drowning

A docket sheet is a numbered list of everything filed, in order. New readers usually try to read it front to back and give up. Do this instead.

• Read the caption and the first entry to learn who is suing whom and over what.
• Jump to the most recent 20 entries to learn where the case is now.
• Scan for the words motion, order, and judgment. Those entries carry the story.
• Ignore the routine scheduling entries on the first pass.

Some entries have no document attached at all. A minute entryis the clerk's note of something that happened in the courtroom. A sealed document appears on the docket but cannot be opened by the public. Our legal glossary defines the terms you will hit most, from motion to dismiss to superseding indictment.

When you still cannot find the case

• The name is spelled differently. Search a fragment. "Rodrig" finds Rodriguez and Rodrigues.
• It is a state case. Landlord-tenant, most divorces, most personal injury, and nearly all traffic matters are state court, and PACER will never have them.
• It is sealed. Sealed and grand jury matters may not appear at all, and that is by design.
• It is old. Cases closed before electronic filing may exist only on paper, archived away from the courthouse. The clerk's office can tell you where.
• It moved. Cases get transferred between districts and consolidated into multidistrict litigation, which changes the number.

Doing this repeatedly

If you look up federal cases once a year, PACER plus RECAP is all you need and the $30 quarterly waiver will probably cover you. If you do it weekly, the friction adds up: separate logins, page charges on failed searches, and a docket sheet that explains nothing.

PacerPlus is built for the second group. One search box covers federal civil and criminal cases across the districts plus appellate matters, the subscription includes 150 PACER pages a month, filings get summarized in plain English, and 10 PacerAlerts email you when a watched case moves. Searching bankruptcy by party name is the gap — use the PACER Case Locator for that. See the pricing page or compare the options on our comparison hub.

Common questions

Can I look up a federal case for free?

Yes. Search here without an account, check the RECAP Archive, or use PACER within the $30 quarterly waiver. Opinions are always free.

What is the PACER Case Locator?

It is the judiciary's nationwide index of federal district, bankruptcy, and appellate cases, updated once daily. It tells you which court a case is in so you can open the docket there.

How do I search PACER by name?

Use the Case Locator with a last name and, if you have it, a first name, then narrow by court and date. Broad name searches are billed like any other search, so precision saves money.

Are federal court records public?

Most are. The exceptions are sealed filings, grand jury material, and information redacted for privacy, such as full account numbers and the names of minor children.

Does PACER cover state courts?

No. PACER is federal only. State trial court records are held by each state, and the search tools for them are separate.