Use this training site to learn how to use PACER or to hone your skills and explore, at no charge and without registration. The site includes data from real cases filed in the New York Western District Court between 1/1/2007 and 7/1/2007 so users can get a feel for the type of case data and documents available through PACER.

Limited additional "Help" documentation is available at the PACER site, including FAQs and a small collection of PACER manuals ("How to Use PACER").

PACER is free when you use it onsite at a federal courthouse. The Northern District of California has public access terminals at Clerk's Office locations where you can search for and view (or print, for a fee) electronically filed materials generally from 2006 forward. (Clerk's Office > Viewing & Retrieving Court Documents)

PACER offers fee exemptions for individual academic researchers working on defined, scholarly, non-commercial projects. See details on making a Fee Exemption Request for Researchers. Note that you must agree that "data received through this exemption ... will not be redistributed via the Internet." Thus, researching under a fee exemption may require you to remove a RECAP extension (see "RECAP for selected federal docket materials" under Online Dockets & Briefs).

PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the federal court system's fee-based, online system to access docket sheets and many underlying full-text documents. The basic cost is $0.10 per page. You will need to register your own account—neither the Library nor the Law School maintain patron accounts. If you have access to a free or other subscribed service that offers PACER data and/or documents (e.g., RECAP, Bloomberg, Westlaw, or Lexis), it may make sense to try those services to get identifying details, before incurring PACER download costs.

Scope

Different courts implemented PACER at different times, and not all pre-existing cases were added. For a basic scope summary for each court, go to the PACER Case Locator (PACER home > Search for a Case > Search by National Index) and click on the “Court Information” tab (login required).

Finding case-identifying information

Use the PACER Case Locator to search nationwide to determine whether a party is or has been involved in litigation in any U.S. federal district, district bankruptcy, or appellate court, or to search for a specific case for which you have some but not all identifying information (party names, docket number, jurisdiction, etc.).

• Use “Cases (Advanced Search)” - hovering over the question mark icons shows the acceptable formats for the field.
• Advanced search allows you to limit by region (federal circuit, state, or state district).

Finding a specific case's docket

If you know the court (e.g., Northern District of California) and docket number, use that court's PACER site to get the docket sheet and/or to download any electronically available documents.

• If you have access to another service with PACER data, you can save PACER costs by finding specific limiting information such as date(s) filed or docket item number(s) first, allowing you to find and download the specific document(s) you want without incurring PACER costs for viewing the entire docket sheet.
• To find your court's PACER site, use PACER's Court CM/ECF Lookup page (login required - Home > Search for a Case > Search for a Specific Court). (The Case Management/Electronic Case Filing system is also used by filers to submit documents, and ECF use is not covered in this guide nor needed for downloading filings.)

Accessing a specific case's docket sheet and underlying documents

After login to a specific court's PACER system, use "Reports" (in the menu bar at the top) if you already have the case (docket) number and want to see the docket activity and/or obtain underlying documents. Choose Docket Sheets and enter the case's docket number (e.g., C-07-04771). To save PACER costs -

• limit report length by specifying filing or entry date/ranges, or Document Number (docket item number) if you have that information
• uncheck the boxes for displaying parties and attorneys in the case

Documents available for download will have a clickable link as the docket item number.

Finding dockets/cases by search criteria

After login to a specific court's PACER system, use "Query" (in the menu bar at the top) to research claims, types of cases, or parties involved in litigation filed in this particular court. The result will be a list of captions and docket numbers for any cases that satisfy the criteria; to obtain docket sheets or documents from those actions, follow the above instructions for Reports (under "Accessing a specific case's docket sheet..."). Search functionality and scope do not include searching the underlying documents themselves.

... by keywordauthortitlesubjectcall number go