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United States of America Law

Find the Authorised/ Official Version of a Case

To find the names of official/authorised version of a US case, look at Australian Guide to Legal Citation Rule 24.1.3.

Court Hierarchy and Structure

Interpret Case Citations

To decipher an abbreviation in a case citation, use Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.  You can also look at the Law Report Abbreviations found in the Appendix of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation.  The following print resources are also available in the Law Library:

News from U.S Courts

RSS news feed from U.S. Courts

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Supreme Court Case

The opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published in the United States Reports ('US'). These 'Bound Volumes' are the Court’s only official and authorised report series. Prior to being published in the Bound Volumes, the Court's official decisions progress through three stages: firstly, Bench Opinions (only available online to subscribers of the Court's Project Hermes service - we do not subscribe); then secondly, Slip Opinions (available online on the Opinions of the Court website and on HEIN Online); then thirdly, Preliminary Prints (available online on HEIN Online). See more on the opinion publication process on the Supreme Court's Information About Opinions webpage.

A note on pagination: decisions in Bound Volumes and Preliminary Prints will have complete citations, for example Bush v Gore, 531 US 98 (2000). A Slip Opinion will have been assigned a volume number but not page numbering, so the citation will look like Trump v Hawaii, 585 US ____ (2018). This is a perfectly acceptable citation until it appears in the Preliminary Print. 

A note on parallel citations for early reports: early reports of US Supreme Court decisions were named for the clerk who compiled them: Dallas, Cranch, Wheaton, Peters, Howard, Black and Wallace. The United States Reports volumes 1 (1754) - 90 (1874) includes the content of these 'nominative' reports. For citation purposes, AGLC prescribes the inclusion of the parallel report citation in addition to the US citation. Such a citation is Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 30 US (5 Pet) 1 (1831). The United States Reports on HEIN Online and on the Law Library of Congress United States Reports website include the parallel citations. You can also translate a citation from a nominative reporter to a volume of the US Reports by using the chart on the Law Library of Congress's Early US Reports Citation Conversion webpage.

Finding United States reports and Supreme Court opinions

You can find U.S. Supreme Court opinions/decisions from the following resources. Please note that while some of these sources contain PDF replicas of the United States Reports, the only OFFICIAL source is the printed hard copy reports. We do not subscribe to the print reports.  

Online

Print

Federal Appellate and District Court Cases

You can find federal appellate court and district court (court of first instance) decisions from the following resources.  The authorised reports for federal United States Courts of Appeal are published in the 'F' series ('F', 'F 2d', 'F 3d', etc).  Authorised reports fof the federal United States District Courts (federal courts of first instance) are published in the 'F Supp' series ('F Supp', 'F Supp 2d', etc). 

Unreported Judgements

Decisions that are not designated by the courts for publication in print reporters are known as unpublished decisions and are non-precedential. Unreported judgements are often available via court web sites and online research services including Lexis and Westlaw. 

Tip: Because unreported cases have non-precedential value in the U.S., try to find the best-reported cases from the highest court rather than relying on unreported judgements. 

 

State Law Cases

The Court Statistics Project provides a interactive map of state court structures.  Just click on a particular state to learn more about the court structure and names of the courts in that state.

All decisions of each state's court of last resort, usually known as the Supreme Court, are published.  Some states publish all state intermediate appellate court opinions and others publish only selected opinions.  State trial court decisions are usually not published.

Cases from all fifty U.S. states can be found on LexisNexis and Westlaw.  Begin by searching the database covering both state and federal cases for a selected state.  This research strategy finds both state law cases and federal cases that have interpreted that particular state's laws.

Free Databases of U.S Law Cases

Subsequent Consideration of a Case

To check how subsequent cases have interpreted, applied or rejected legal issues in a case (noting up), you will need to use a case citator.  Subscription databases offer the best case citators.  Westlaw's KeyCite and Lexis' Shepards citators help you to determine if your case is still good law by providing references to subsequent cases have interpreted and may have superseded your case.  These citators also provide references to commentary/secondary sources that have cited your case.

Note the citator symbol assigned to your case (e.g. a red flag on Westlaw's KeyCite means that your case is "no longer good for at least one point of law”; and in Lexis, a red stop sign means “subsequent appellate history contains negative analysis.”).  Make sure you understand the meaning of the citator symbols and that you read the relevant later citing sources to determine how they apply to your legal research. Shepards and KeyCite results for the same case may vary, so it is always good idea to check both.

For Australian and other foreign consideration of U.S. cases, use:

American Law Reports

American Law Reports (ALR) is a multi-series publication comprised of articles that focus on unsettled areas of the law (often a split between federal circuits or state courts).  Each article discusses the issue in detail and provides extensive footnotes to leading judicial opinions.

Books