There is a great deal of Supreme Court material available in print and online. Following is information on the materials I've been asked to get. The topics covered are:
Note: U.S. Supreme Court Rules are discussed in the separate entry for "Federal Court Rules."
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1. Admission to Practice
Attorneys must be specially "admitted" to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. The form to file for admission, with instructions, is posted on the Supreme Court's Bar Admissions page.
2. Biographies of Justices
Biographies and evaluations of sitting justices are available in The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary. Brief bios and each justice's major opinions are listed in the Supreme Court collection posted by Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII). For more information, search the judge's name in a news (or legal news) database and/or in a good Internet search engine. See also "Judges," especially to get bios for retired judges from the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.
3. Briefs
Supreme Court briefs are available free back to the October 1999 term on Findlaw. If that doesn't work, merits briefs from cases granted review by the Court back to the 2003 term are posted by the ABA, and briefs from particularly significant cases throughout the court's history are posted by the Curiae Project.
For better searching, Supreme Court briefs back to the 1990-91 term (1995-6 for Amicus briefs) are available on Lexis (GENFED;BRIEFS) and Westlaw (SCT-BRIEF).
The CIS U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs microfiche set goes back to 1897 for argued cases and back to 1975 for "non-argued cases (including in forma pauperis cases) in which one or more justices wrote a dissent from the per curiam decision to deny review." This set is available in most large academic, government and bar law association libraries.
To go back even farther, BNA's Law Reprints publishes a microfilm/fiche set called United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs with briefs back to 1832. This set is held in the Columbia Law School Library in New York City, as well as other large law libraries.
A digital library called U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 by Thomson/Gale is available in many large law school and government law libraries.
Briefs back to 1833 are available -- in hard copy and on microfiche -- in the Records & Briefs Office of the Supreme Court library in D.C.
I've heard that some old law firm libraries have old briefs in bound volumes. You could also contact the Court and/or the Library of Congress. For more information, see Where to Find Briefs of the U.S. Supreme Court.
4. Calendars, Schedules, Lists
The Court's calendars, schedule and hearing lists are posted on the Court's Web site (www.supremecourtus.gov).
5. Case Files
To get copies of pleadings, orders and other documents listed on the docket sheet other than briefs, cert. petitions and opinions (which are discussed above), you have at least the following choices.
(1) The Curiae Project posts free records and briefs for particularly significant Supreme Court cases (http://curiae.law.yale.edu).
(2) For recent high profile cases, you can try Lexis (GENFED;EXTRA or STATES;EXTRA), or one of the subject-specific reporters, such as the ones published by Mealey's or Andrews. "Andrews Litigation Reporters" and "Mealey's Litigation Reports."
(3) Westlaw DOCK-SCT database includes selected filings back to January, 2000.
(4) For cases at least five years old, some large law libraries get the complete case files in the U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs microfiche set (currently published by CIS). The set is available in many large county, bar association and academic libraries. If you don't know of a local source, I know you can get copies of case files from the ABCNY library in New York City (212-382-6666).
(5) You can hire a document retrieval service to go to the Court and copy the files. Exception: Case files for old Federal cases are shipped off to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, DC. You can have someone drop by to make copies or arrange to have the NARA do the work for you. The NARA phone number is 202-501-5385; they are located on Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets.
(6) Older cases are available through U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978, an online database by Thomson/Gale that is available in many large academic and government libraries.
See also the "Briefs" section, above.
6. Certiorari
To see if a party has recently filed a cert. petition, or to see if the court has recently granted or denied cert., search the party's name in the Docket section of the Court Web site and/or call the Court's Public Information Office at 202-479-3211. For older cases, use KeyCite on Westlaw, Shepard's on Lexis or call the Court.
The Court's cert. granted or denied statements are posted free in the Supreme Court's Orders Lists (www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/orders.html). The statements are searchable in Westlaw's Supreme Court database (SCT) within one hour of release. Mayer Brown's Supreme Court Docket Reports provides summaries of cases of interest to the business community when the Supreme Court grants certiorari.
To get certiorari petitions, you can:
- Buy the petition from CourtExpress;
- KeyCite the case on Westlaw and link to the Cert. Petition;
- Search Lexis (GENFED;BRIEFS or, for tax-related suits, FEDTAX;PETEXT), which posts selected cert. petitions about 6 weeks after filing (you might want to ask Lexis customer service to check if your petition is available before you go online);
- If cert has been granted recently, you can get a fax by calling the Court's Public Information Office (202-479-3211);
- Hire a document delivery service to pick up the petition from the Court in D.C.;
- For older cases, get copies from a large county, bar association or academic law libraries that gets the U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs microfiche set
- Look up the attorney who filed the petition, call and ask him/her to send you a copy.
7. Court Rules
The Rules of the Supreme Court are posted on the Court's Web site (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ctrules/ctrules.html). For more information, see "Federal Court Rules."
8. Docket Sheets
See the separate entry for "Docket Sheets." See also the "Briefs" and "Case Files" sections of this entry, above.
9. News
To find out what's been happening at the Supreme Court, check out Northwestern University's On the Docket, law.com's United States Supreme Court Monitor, Baker Botts' Supreme Court Reports and/or search legal news sources (see "News - Fast, Free, Current - Legal.")
10. Opinions
Case Reporters: U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published officially by the Government Printing Office in United States Reports, starting with Volume 91 (1875). The earlier official volumes are named for the Reporter of Decisions at the time. They are: Dallas, volumes 1-4 (1789-1800); Cranch, volumes 5-13 (1801-1815); Wheaton, volumes 14-25 (1816-1827); Peters, volumes 26-41 (1828-1842); Howard, volumes 42-65 (1843-1860); Black, volumes 66-67 (1861-1862); and Wallace, volumes 68-90 (1863-1874). United States Reports is available in .PDF format from the Court Web site back to volume 502 (1991). You can get copies of older U.S. Reports volumes from academic law libraries and from Hein Online.
In addition, opinions are published unofficially in West's Supreme Court Reporter (back to 1882), Lawyer's Edition (back to 1790) and United States Law Week (back to 1933). At least one of these sets is available in most law libraries.
Free Online Resources: In addition to the United States Reports sources mentioned above, Supreme Court opinions are posted free on BulkResource.org, FindLaw, lexisONE and the Supreme Court Web site. BulkResearch.org goes back to 1754, volume 1 of U.S. Reports. FindLaw goes back to 1893 (volume 150 of U.S. Reports) and provides star pagination. lexisONE goes back to 1908 (with some earlier opinions) but allows for more sophisticated searching. The Court's Web site has the best-looking printouts.
Fee-Based Services: For better searching and generally nicer print-outs, Supreme Court opinions are available on Lexis (GENFED;US) and Westlaw (SCT for cases decided back to 1945; SCT-OLD for cases decided from 1790 to 1944) within an hour of their release. Subscribers can get Supreme Court opinions from Versuslaw, Fastcase and LOIS.
11. Oral Arguments
Oral arguments are posted free on the Supreme Court Web site. If you can't find what you need, contact the court's transcription service, Alderson Reporting (800-367-3376 or 202-289-2260).
To get older transcripts, or to search the full text, use Lexis, which has transcripts back to October 1, 1979 (GENFED;TRAN), or Westlaw, which has transcripts back to 1990 (SCT-ORALARG). New transcripts are entered into the database about a month after the arguments.
12. Orders
The Court's Orders - and its "Opinions Relating to Orders" - are posted on the Court's Web site back to 2000 (www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/orders.html). In addition, Orders are posted on GPO Access back to 1992 (http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/court02.html).
13. Pending Cases
The cases pending before the Supreme Court are discussed in detail in the ABA's Supreme Court Preview newsletter. For quick, free summaries on the Internet, visit the NorthWestern University Medill School of Journalism's On the Docket and FindLaw's Supreme Court Docket.
Also see the "Questions" section, below.
14. Questions
The US Supreme Court Public Information office telephone number is 202-479-3211, which includes information on when an opinion is expected to be issued and how to get admitted to the Supreme Court bar. The Court's main number is 202-479-3000.
