This research guide is designed to assist students, scholars, and practitioners in locating materials on the United States Supreme Court and its decisions. It describes resources for Court opinions, orders, briefs, oral arguments, dockets, petitions for certiorari, and news. The guide focuses on resources available in the Ross-Blakley Law Library and free electronic sources.
United States Supreme Court Website
The website of the United States Supreme Court is an excellent starting point for research on the Court. The site has Court opinions available in slip form as pdf documents (until the print volume of the U.S. Reports is published), as well as opinions back to 1991 (Volume 502) from the bound volumes. Orders from the October term (OT) 2003 to the present are also available, and contain such information as the status of requests for certiorari and motions in pending cases. In addition, the Court’s Journal from OT 1993 to the present, transcripts of oral arguments from OT 2000 to the present, and audio recordings of arguments from OT 2010 to the present can all be accessed. The website also offers a docket search for cases from the current and prior terms, up-to-date unannotated Court Rules, information about bar admission to appear before the court, and secondary sources on the justices.
Supreme Court Today
Bloomberg Law's Supreme Court Today provides up-to-date information on Supreme Court developments, as well as the full-text of Court cases, Court dockets, calendars, and related Court news. It allows searching of petitions for certiorari, offers highlights of oral arguments, and synthesizes the current and upcoming terms in comprehensive charts. U.S. Law Week:Supreme Court Today is available on the subscription database Bloomberg Law.
The Supreme Court Compendium: Two Centuries of Data, Decisions, and Developments (Lee Epstein et al, 2021)
This print title provides historical and statistical information on the Supreme Court: its institutional development; caseload; decision trends; the background, nomination, and voting behavior of its justices; its relationship with public, governmental, and other judicial bodies; and its impact.
