Where do I find court records to serve as research for future cases and academic study?
If by court records you mean Supreme Court cases, U.S. Court of Appeals, and Federal District Court cases, you can usually access these through subscription databases like LexisNexis or WestLaw. These allow you to search for court cases by keyword, legal citation or subjects. FindLaw.com has *some* full text court cases but it is nowhere near as exhaustive as WestLaw or LexisNexis. If you’re a law student you should have access to these databases. Contact your law library. If you are looking for more local court records (criminal or civil cases) you usually have to go to the courthouse in that jurisdiction and ask for them. There isn’t full text of these kind of records available very often. Unless the case involved a juvenile, you can usually see most any case you want. It helps, though, to know what you’re looking for (so the court clerks can help you best) I used to be a news reporter covering the court beat, and I would go every afternoon around 3:30 p.m. to see what had happened t
