Free Legal Research: Federal Case Law

FindLaw divides the courts by circuit and provides party name, docket number, and text searches for federal appellate court case law. U.S. Supreme Court cases are also available.

Google Scholar provides access to thousands of full-text U.S. federal court cases. The Scholar search runs just like the search engine so you can search by keywords and phrases. To narrow your results to include only federal cases, use the "Select Courts" option.

Each federal court has its own website and many publish their court opinions online. This central webpage links to the different individual court websites.