How to Look Up a Court Case — In Plain Words

This page is general information only. It is not legal advice.

The short answer

Federal court cases are looked up in a system called PACER.

PACER is the federal courts' own online system for case records.

You need a PACER account to search.

There is no fee to register for the account.

Looking at records costs $0.10 per page.

One document costs no more than $3.

If your charges for a quarter are $30 or less, the fees are waived for that period.

That means you owe nothing for that quarter.

State court cases are not in PACER.

State courts run separate systems.

What PACER is

PACER stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records.

The PACER site says the service “provides electronic public access to federal court records.”

It also says PACER “provides the public with instantaneous access to more than 1 billion documents filed at all federal courts.”

PACER covers federal courts.

That means federal district courts, federal bankruptcy courts, and federal appellate courts.

The PACER Case Locator page states it this way: it is an index “for all federal court records in district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts.”

PACER does not cover state courts.

State cases are covered in a later section of this page.

What you can look up

Registered users can look up case records.

The pricing page gives these examples of a document: “a docket, motion, order, judgement or brief in a case.”

A docket is the court's list of what has happened in a case.

The fee page also names case-specific reports.

Examples it gives are the docket report, the creditor listing, and the claims register.

The pricing page also lists transcripts of court proceedings.

It says transcripts “are added to PACER 90 days after they are produced.”

It also lists audio files.

Audio files are “.mp3 files for some hearings as part of the court record.”

Court opinions are in PACER too.

The pricing page says: “Court opinions are always free.”

The account you need

The “What is PACER?” page speaks of “Registered users.”

Registered users can search for a case.

The Policy and Procedures page says: “There is no registration fee.”

It also says: “By registering for a PACER account, I assume responsibility for all fees incurred through the usage of this account.”

The same page explains how you get access after you register.

“Users who provide a credit or debit card at the time of registration will receive access to court records upon the card's validation.”

“Users who do not provide a card number during registration will receive an authentication token via U.S. mail in 7-10 business days.”

This page does not sign you up for anything.

Accounts are handled on the PACER site itself.

If you know which court has the case

The PACER help page says this:

“If you know what court the case was filed in and you know the case number, login to PACER to search directly using the Query option.”

So this path needs two things.

You need to know the court.

And you need to know the case number.

If you do not know which court has the case

Use the PACER Case Locator.

The PACER site calls it “a national case locator index for all federal court records in district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts.”

The help page says: “The PACER Case Locator is a nationwide index that searches all federal court case records in one central location.”

It also says: “If you are unsure where the case was filed and/or you do not have a case number, you can use the PACER Case Locator to find it.”

“You can search nationwide or you can limit your search criteria to a specific state to locate your case.”

If you are a registered PACER user, you already have access to it.

The Case Locator page says: “If you are a registered PACER user, you automatically have access to the PACER Case Locator with your username and password.”

A search gives back basic facts about the case.

“A search will return the party name, the court where the case is filed, the case number, date filed, and date closed.”

From the case number, you can get to more detail.

“You can access more detailed case information stored within CM/ECF from the case number in the PACER Case Locator.”

The index is not updated every minute.

“Every 24 hours, typically nightly, the PACER Case Locator is updated with new case information.”

What it costs

All of the prices in this section come from pacer.uscourts.gov.

They are printed here in the site's own figures.

Per page.

The pricing page lists: “$0.10 per page”.

The fee question page says: “Access to case information costs $0.10 per page.”

The Policy and Procedures page says: “Use of the PACER system will generate a $.10 per-page charge.”

How a page is counted.

“For HTML-formatted information, a billable page is calculated using a formula based on the number of bytes extracted (4,320 bytes = 1 billable page).”

“For PDFs, the actual number of pages is counted (1 PDF page = 1 billable page).”

The charge is based on the pages that result from your search.

It is not based on printing.

The fee page says: “The $0.10 per-page charge is based on the number of pages that result from each search and accessing each requested report or document online.”

The Policy and Procedures page says the same thing in other words.

“The per-page charge applies to the number of pages that results from any search, regardless of the number of pages viewed, printed, or downloaded.”

The cap for one document.

The pricing page says: “You won't be charged more than $3 per document.”

The fee question page says: “The cost to access a single document is capped at $3.00, the equivalent of 30 pages for documents and case-specific reports like docket report, creditor listing, and claims register.”

Where the cap does not apply.

The fee question page says: “The cap does not apply to name search results, reports that are not case-specific, and transcripts of federal court proceedings.”

The pricing page says the same about searches and reports.

About search results, it says: “There is no maximum fee for these searches.”

About reports that are not case-specific, it says: “There is no maximum fee for these reports.”

About transcripts, it says: “There is no maximum fee for transcripts in PACER.”

Searches with no matches still cost.

The pricing page says you are charged for a search “even if the search displays ‘no matches found.’”

The fee question page gives the amount.

“This charge applies to the number of pages that results from any search, including a search that yields no matches (a charge of $0.10, one page, for no matches).”

The Policy and Procedures page says: “Searches that result in no matches incur a charge for one page of data.”

Audio files.

The pricing page lists: “$2.40 per audio file”.

The Policy and Procedures page says: “Audio files of court hearings retrieved via PACER will generate a $2.40 per-file charge.”

Examples the site gives.

• “Enter party name ‘johnson, t’ and receive two pages of matches. The charge is $0.20.”
• “Enter case number 01-10054 and select Docket Report. The docket is 10 pages, so the charge is $1.”
• “Select a link within the docket report to view a document. The PDF document is five pages, so the charge is $0.50.”

Billing and the quarterly rule

Billing is done by the quarter.

The pricing page says: “Users are billed on a quarterly basis if they accrue more than $30 in the previous quarter.”

It also says: “You will receive an invoice via mail or email.”

The fee question page states the waiver rule.

“NOTE: If you accrue $30 or less of charges in a quarter, fees are waived for that period.”

The same page adds: “75 percent of PACER users do not pay a fee in a given quarter.”

The PACER site's own pages word this cutoff two ways.

The fee question page and the pricing page put it as $30 or less waived, with billing only above $30.

The Policy and Procedures page words it as “less than $30.”

It says: “no account is billed for usage of less than $30 in a quarter.”

This page prints both wordings, the way the site prints them, rather than pick one.

The Policy and Procedures page describes the statements.

“Statements, which contain a summary of the charges the account has incurred, are sent in January, April, July, and October.”

It also says: “All new accounts automatically default to email billing.”

When PACER is free

The pricing page lists times when PACER is free.

• “You are a party in a case and receive a Notice of Electronic or Notice of Docket Activity (one free copy) from a court.”
• “You view case information at any federal courthouse.”
• “You are an individual or group who was granted a fee exemption.”
• “Court opinions are always free.”

The same page explains fee exemptions.

“Courts may exempt individuals or groups, such as indigents, pro bono attorneys, academic researchers, and non-profit organizations from paying a fee, upon request to the court.”

The court opinions page adds one point about opinions.

“All court opinions are available through PACER for free for registered users.”

Asking the PACER Service Center to find records

The pricing page has a section called “The PACER Service Center can find your court records.”

It gives two ways the records can be sent.

Delivered electronically: “$30.00 per name or item searched plus $0.10 per page per document delivered electronically, up to five documents. The $3 maximum for any document applies.”

Delivered by U.S. Mail: “$30.00 per name or item searched plus $0.50 per page for paper copies of documents.”

The same section says: “The PACER Service Center can answer your questions about the best ways to search for a case for free.”

Limits the PACER site states

Older cases are not all covered the same way.

The “How far back” page says: “When using PACER or the PACER Case Locator there is some variation among courts as to the date ranges of information offered.”

It tells you how to check a court's dates.

“When logged into the PACER Case Locator click the ‘court information’ menu to display available date ranges for the cases in each court.”

It also says: “Please contact the court directly for additional details.”

Transcripts have a timing limit too.

As noted above, transcripts “are added to PACER 90 days after they are produced.”

And the Case Locator index is updated every 24 hours, not right away.

State court cases are a different system

PACER is for federal courts only.

A state court case is not in PACER.

State courts are separate from federal courts.

Each state's courts run their own system.

Many states run their own online case-search sites.

Those sites are run by that state's courts.

The names of the sites differ by state.

The coverage differs by state.

The costs differ by state.

So the first step for a state case is to work out which state's court heard it.

Then look for that state court's own case-search site.

This page does not list state sites.

It does not give state prices.

Those details change from state to state.

This page is general information only. It is not legal advice.