Online Appellate Opinion Sources – Rating The Websites
When we’re blogging, we frequently have to track down appellate opinions that haven’t been added to Lexis or Westlaw yet – let alone been published. That means that we’re repeat users of the websites that courts have established (or in some cases not) to provide the public, such as us, with access to their newly issued opinions. So for something a little different, we’re going to provide you with a list of these website pages, as well as any opinions of our own, about the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Don’t expect actually to read this post from beginning to end – it’s dreadfully boring. Just remember it’s here whenever you need to get a slip opinion quickly.
Federal Courts
Supreme Court:
The most recent United States Supreme Court opinions are found here. The site’s okay in that it lists opinions by chronological order and has the full name of the case. It also tells you who wrote them, if you know the abbreviations (the first letter of the Justice’s name, and if that’s ambiguous, the first letter of the first name as well). But for the nation’s highest court, we frankly expected better. There’s not a hint on the page what any of these cases are about; even whether they’re civil, criminal, or administrative in nature. Maybe the Court thinks that all its opinions are so important and well-known that people who come to its site know that. If they do, they’re wrong, at least about us.
First Circuit:
First Circuit opinions are located here. The page is pretty bare bones, with just dates, caption names, and the court of origin.
Second Circuit:
The Second Circuit makes us work. We have to start here, and then click on a menu for today’s or this week’s opinions, and choose either “opinions” (what we usually want) or “summary orders” (which we rarely look at). All this work isn’t particularly rewarding, since all we get is the opinion name and date – not even the court below. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but the Second Circuit’s website is sleepy.
Third Circuit:
You get two choices: precedential opinions and non precedential opinions. Both are by date, give the docketed name and tell you what court the appeal was from.
Fourth Circuit:
The Fourth Circuit’s almost unique among the federal appellate courts (at least the ones we frequent) in that it’s hosted by PACER. That’s not a bad thing, either. In addition to the basics, the site also contains short-phrase descriptions (“criminal,” “civil private”) that at least tell us something about the substance of the opinion. There are other problems with PACER, but the Fourth Circuit’s website isn’t one of them.
Fifth Circuit:
We don’t like this one very much. To start with, it’s organized by docket number rather than date – except for the most recent cases. Docket numbers are important to court clerks, but frankly, we don’t give a damn. We’re generally searching by date, and that means we have to look through the whole list of cases – and the list is generally pretty long. The Fifth is a busy court.
Sixth Circuit:
We think that the Sixth Circuit’s opinionspage is designed by the same folks who did the First Circuit. Yawn.
Seventh Circuit:
Like the Second, you have to click through on this pageto get any opinions, but at least it’s only a choice between “today” and “this week.” Once we get to the opinions, it’s a little better, with a “case type” column that at least gives us some idea what’s in there.
Eighth Circuit:
We like the Eighth Circuit’s opinion page. It’s got the best substantive description of its opinions hands down. At this site, we never click on an opinion involving a drug company as a defendant only to find that it’s an employment discrimination case we don’t care about. The other circuits would do well to study how this one does it.
Ninth Circuit:
It’s a pretty good page for a busy court. It’s by date, and it provides both court of origin and a subject matter code. And it’s all sortable, too, if we’d like to see, for example a list of all “civil” cases. There’s a drop down that takes the user to a separate page for unpublished opinions.
Tenth Circuit:
This one’s probably the worst of the lot, although it’s got relatively nice graphics. It’s another site with a docket number fetish. If you miss even one day, the site takes away even the names of the opinions. And even for the day’s current opinions, it’s just the docket number and name. There’s no substantive description, or even court of origin.
Eleventh Circuit:
There are several views on the Eleventh Circuit’s page. Probably the best one for our purposes is this one. It’s organized by date and gives the complete name. But someone has decided that the lower court docket number is more important than any topical description. Nobody but a court clerk would make that choice. Some other views also have a “type” code that could really use a glossary to be understandable.
District of Columbia Circuit:
Check that – the Fourth Circuit’s not unique. The DC Circuit uses PACER too. We don’t use this one much, but we thought we’d include it for completeness’ sake. We’re glad we don’t; it’s not very good. It’s by docket number rather than date or name, and no other information is provided. You can click through to a month-by-month search, which provides more opinions, but not more information about them. D on’t choose the by day option, either. We did, and had no idea what we were looking at.
State Courts
Alabama:
Alabama appellate courts don’t believe in online opinions. Uniquely, the Alabama Supreme Court’s website doesn’t have any opinion option at all. Neither does its unified judiciary page. Alabama Getaway indeed.
Alaska:
Alaska Supreme Court opinions are available here. It’s a pretty bare bones operation, but it still beats Alabama’s.
Arizona:
Arizona Supreme Court opinions are here. From this page choose the year. After doing that for, say, 2010, the results are pretty slim – date, docket name, docket number. The Arizona intermediate appellate decisions, segregated by court, are much more informative, hereand here.
Arkansas:
Start here, where there are links to the most recent opinions for both the state’s supreme and intermediate appellate courts. Then you can click through either court until eventually arriving at a chronological list of dates on which opinions issued. Arkansas makes us work for its opinions.
California:
They don’t tell you a whole lot about them (especially with California’s peculiar writ practice that puts “Superior Court” in the name of a lot of opinions, but California appellate opinions are here. There’s a dropdown menu that allows a choice of Supreme Court or intermediate court opinions, along with date criteria – all on the same page.
Colorado:
If the Colorado Supreme Court keeps its opinions on its website, we can’t find them. So we ended up here. But we must admit, we didn’t try all that hard before going to the Colorado Bar Association’s somewhat more user friendly opinion page instead. Still, it would be nice if they put the names of the opinions where we could see them.
Connecticut:
If you’re lucky enough to want an opinion on the day of filing from a Connecticut appellate court, it will be here. Otherwise you’ll have to click through to the “archives” for either the Supreme or appellate courts of the state.
Delaware:
Bang! And you’re right there. Both Supreme and Superior courts (granted, it’s not a big state). Very accessible and well organized – although the “description” could use a bit more specificity.
District of Columbia:
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia maintains a search page for its opinions here. Recent opinions are available by month. Just names and numbers, though.
Florida:
The opinions for both the Supreme Court and the five DCAs are available from this page. Clicking through, the Supreme Court opinions are here(without much description beyond the case name) and there are also links to the individual District Courts of Appeals if you click through enough screens.
Georgia:
The Georgia Supreme Court’s opinion page itselfisn’t much, but it has links to recent opinions by year. The link we’re putting up next will eventually expire, but here is the page for the 2010 opinions – most recent ones at the bottom (different than most of the sites we’ve seen). No descriptions, just case names and docket numbers. The Georgia Court of Appeals has a completely different site. Neither site links to the other, which is odd. We didn’t find any opinions on the Court of Appeals’ site.
Hawaii:
Aloha! The opinion page is really easy to use without a lot of clicks – but will probably expire and be changed when 2010 ends. Both Supreme and appellate decisions all in one place organized by date. No real substantive descriptions, though.
Idaho:
The Idaho Supreme Court keeps a good opinions pageas these things go. There’s even a short description of each of the cases, and criminal cases are segregated on a different page that we never have to look at. The same is true of the opinions for the state’s intermediate appellate court, available here.
Illinois:
Illinois Supreme Court opinions are available here. There’s a handy-dandy summary available for each case, although the takes an extra click. The opinions are sortable in various ways, although I doubt we’d ever get past the default mode. Good page. The Illinois intermediate court opinions are available here, although without any helpful summaries.
Indiana:
Indiana Supreme Court opinions are collected chronologically here, and possibly here (although there were no really recent opinions when we checked). The same is true for the Indiana Court of Appeals, here and here. There are no substantive descriptions on any of these pages.
Iowa:
You have to do a lot of clicking but it’s all there – eventually. The Iowa Supreme Court posts its most recent opinions here and archives them here. They even tell us what’s coming here. The same set of links are available on the Iowa intermediate appellate court page. Oddly the Court of Appeals has very useful summaries here, while the Supreme Court has none.
Kansas:
Kansas has everything (Supreme and appellate) all on one convenient page. Convenience trumps everything else, though. There are nothing but docket names and numbers as a guide to what’s in these opinions.
Kentucky:
There’s a lot of idiosyncratic terminology in Kentucky. The supreme court’s called the Court of Justice, and its opinions are called “minutes.” They’re available here. All that page contains are dates, but clicking on each date opens up a nifty window with very useful summaries of the cases. The Kentucky Court of Appeals keeps its minutes (opinions) here. It’s the same kind of click-on-the-date deal, but without the nice substantive summaries.
Louisiana:
The Louisiana Supreme Court site’s an odd duck (or should that be pelican). There doesn’t seem to be an archive of recent opinions as such, but the page for “news releases” will – after clicking on the releases described as “opinion” – yield first the name of the case and then the opinion. That’s not particularly user friendly, but we didn’t see any other way to get there from here.
Maine:
There’s not a lot of description, but clicking here takes one directly to recent Maine Supreme Judicial Court opinions.
Maryland:
Opinions of both the Maryland Court of Appeals (the state’s supreme court) and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals (the intermediate appellate court) are available here. But several more clicks are required to get to the opinions themselves. It’s necessary to select the court and then sort (typically by date). Cases from 2010 are available here (MCA) and here (MCSA), but these links will no longer be current at the end of the year. Neither page has any description of the cases beyond their captions.
Massachusetts:
The supreme court (technically the Supreme Judicial Court) of the state (technically the Commonwealth) of Massachusetts has some sort of arrangement with Westlaw to handle dissemination of the Court’s recent opinions starting here. Clicking on “opinions” for either the supreme or intermediate appellate courts generates a free search of the opinions for the last week or so. For anything before that, there’s an opinion archive here. There’s no information about what the cases are about.
Michigan:
One-click recent opinion service for the Michigan Supreme Court is available here, although this link will expire with the end of the current court term. No information is provided beyond the name of the case. The court’s non-expiring link to “recent opinions” is here. Recent opinions for both the Michigan Court of Appeals can be found here, but it really helps to know what you’re looking for first. This uniquely uninformative set-up gives only dates – not even opinion names. The names don’t appear until the individual files are unzipped.
Minnesota:
The Minnesota Supreme Court puts its most recent opinions here. They come with very helpful summaries. A similar page exists here for the Minnesota Court of Appeals. However, only the most recent opinions are kept at these pages. We’re not sure whether these pages expire or not, but if they do, links to the current “most recent opinions” pages for both courts are available here. There’s a free online archive and other resources for older opinions, and information about that is available here. This is one of the most user-friendly court systems we’ve encountered.
Mississippi:
We weren’t sure what to expect after our experience with Alabama, but were pleasantly surprised. Recent Mississippi Supreme Court opinions, organized by “hand down date” are available here. One click on the selected date and a pretty well organized list of opinions appears with considerable information (although not necessarily a subject matter description). An identical set up for the Mississippi Court of Appeals is here.
Missouri:
Recent Missouri Supreme Court opinions are located here. Clicking on any of the dates creates a drop-down menu with not only the cases by name, but also some of the most detailed “overview/summaries” that we’ve seen anywhere. Kudos for that. All Missouri appellate court decisions are available in essentially the same format here. If only Mo. App. opinions are desired, they’re available, by district, here (eastern), here(southern), and here(western).
Montana:
The most recent Montana Supreme Court opinions are here. Nothing but case names and docket numbers are provided. Anything more than a month old requires a rather involved search that can be performed here. Comparatively, it’s a rather difficult to use site.
Nebraska:
Recent Nebraska Supreme and Court of Appeals decisions are available by week here. Clicking on the desired week just gets you case names and docket numbers. Quite convenient but not very informative.
Nevada:
The most recent Nevada Supreme Court decisions are available on this page as “advance opinions.” There are only case names and dates.
New Hampshire:
The New Hampshire Supreme Court posts its opinions (both recent and otherwise) here. One click on the date leads to a list of opinions by name. For comments, see Nebraska.
New Jersey:
Recent opinions for both the New Jersey Supreme Court and the Appellate Divisions of the New Jersey Superior Court are available by name, here. While there’s not a lot of info about the opinions, it doesn’t take a lot of clicks to get to them, either. There’s a separate link at the very bottom for “squibs,” which leads to opinion summaries, but for some reason the squibs don’t link back to the opinions, so they’re rather frustrating to use. Some New Jersey trial court opinions are also available, both publishedand unpublished. Although it’s not directly on-point for this post, we can’t resist also pointing out the New Jersey mass tort webpage, which we’ve found extremely helpful.
New Mexico:
Recent New Mexico appellate decisions are here for the New Mexico Supreme Court, and here for the New Mexico Court of Appeals. They are not in date order, however, so be careful. There are no summaries. Really recent slip opinions are here(supreme) and here(intermediate).
New York:
Thispage is the best place to start for New York appellate decisions online. It’s got links that take you to the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) here. From there, a click on the desired month turns up a relatively bare-bones list of opinions by name. From the original page there are links to opinions (descriptions likewise limited) for each of New York’s appellate departments: First, Second, Third, and Fourth. There’s also a search function here for finding New York trial court decisions.
North Carolina:
North Carolina appellate opinions start here. There are yearly links for both the supreme and appellate courts. Clicking on them pulls up lists of opinions with useful short summaries.
North Dakota:
Recent North Dakota Supreme Court opinions are available through this page. Once the relevant time period is selected, a list of opinions with useful case summaries appears.
Ohio:
One-click shopping for the most recent Ohio Supreme Court opinions is available here with links going back to the first of the year. There’s a useful “topics/issues” box to check, which will rerun the default search with additional information. There are 12 Ohio appellate divisions. To get their opinions, go here, then pick one of the twelve and click on that link. At the bottom of the page for any (we think, we didn’t check every single one) the chosen court, there’s a link for “opinions,” which brings up a similar list – although in the appellate courts, the “topics/issues” box being on is the default setting.
Oklahoma:
We had to hunt a bit, but we found the opinion page on Oklahoma Supreme Court’s site. Opinions are available by year – such as for 2010 -but there are no summaries. Ditto for the OklahomaCourt of Civil Appeals, here.
Oregon:
Oregon Supreme Court opinions are available here. From there, click on the desired month or year. All that’s there are case names and docket numbers. Ditto the Oregon Court of Appeals here.
Pennsylvania:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court releases all of its opinions online here. Unfortunately, the court releases all of its other orders on the same page, so a lot of sifting is required through denials of appeals, etc. There’s a lot of chaff here with the wheat. The information’s a little sparse, with only the name of the authoring justice along with the case name and docket number provided. Only the current month’s opinions and orders are listed, but links are provided for older ones. There are similar setups for both of Pennsylvania’s statewide appellate courts, the Superior Court (general appellate jurisdiction) here and the Commonwealth Court (for appeals involving governmental entities). Don’t even think about looking for trial (“Common Pleas”) opinions in one place – the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System isn’t that unified.
Rhode Island:
The Rhode Island Supreme Court makes all of its opinions available here. Click on the link for the desired year and – whoa! – excellent case summaries turn up. Rhode Island is one of the few states that puts its trial court opinions online in a single place (as opposed to having to dig them out court by court) here.
South Carolina:
The most recent South Carolina Supreme Court opinions, with helpful descriptions are found here, with additional links available for older opinions. Ditto the South Carolina Court of Appeals, at the same link – just go to the “Opinions/Orders” dropdown menu and select first “Published Opinions” and then “Court of Appeals.”
South Dakota:
South Dakota Supreme Court decisions are available here. Names and docket numbers only.
Tennessee:
The Tennessee Supreme Court uniquely offers its opinions by “quarter” here. Clicking on a selected quarter yields not only opinion links, but useful summaries. There’s a similar arrangement for the Tennessee courts of appeals here, which collects them all, regardless of division.
Texas:
Recent Texas Supreme Court opinions are available here – just select the desired time period. There aren’t any substantive summaries, just descriptions of the relief granted. There are 14 different Texas courts of appeals. To get their opinions, start here, and pick the particular region. Then choose “Released Orders/Opinions” and then open the date. Finally, the opinion names and links appear. Again, no descriptions that are worth anything. All the court of appeals websites seem to work the same, although we didn’t check every last one of them.
Utah:
The current year’s opinions for the Utah Supreme Court are available here. Ditto the Utah Court of Appeals, here. These are bare bones – just case names and docket numbers.
Vermont:
Links to the most recent Vermont Supreme Court opinions are here. There’s no information beyond the usual case name and docket number.
Virginia:
This is really convenient. All Virginia Supreme Court opinions are available here in chronological order (newest on top) – with substantive descriptions. They go back literally years, but they’re all in one directly accessible place: no clicks, no pop up boxes. If only every state were this simple. Ditto the Virginia Court of Appeals here.
Washington:
Online access to Washington appellate court decisions starts here. For the Supreme Court, try here. For the Court of Appeals, go here for Division I, herefor Division II, and here for Division III. Only names and docket numbers are provided. Really recent opinions are also available here.
West Virginia:
For the recent opinions of the West Virginia Supreme Court (there is famously no intermediate appellate court), start here. Clicking on “current term list” on the left hand side produces a list of the year’s opinions. Beware the organization, though. Only the most recent week’s opinions are at the top. Below that they’re organized by docket number. There are no descriptions, only case names and numbers.
Wisconsin:
For Wisconsin Supreme Court opinions, start at this page and select a time period: “today,” “this week,” “this month,” or your choice. A list of case names sorted by release date (unless the default is changed) will pop up. There are no summaries. Ditto for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals here.
Wyoming:
The recent opinions of the Wyoming Supreme Court are here. There are no summaries, but all of the parties are listed, which helps some.
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