Judicial Branch - Courts/Legal - Government Information - Research Guides at Syracuse University Libraries

Legal/Court Information

Supreme Court and U.S. Federal Courts

The Supreme Court examines the meaning of laws, how they are applied, and whether they challenge the Constitution. Once the Supreme Court makes a decision, it can only be changed by another Supreme Court decision or by amending (changing) the Constitution.

Supreme Court Historical Society
Historical and background information on the Supreme Court and Justices. Includes the current court, previous court locations, sample cases, selected digitized collections.
Supreme Court of the United States
Includes information about the supreme court, the constitution, biographies of current justices, list of all justices who have ever served (including who appointed them, their home state, etc).
Federal Judicial Center
The education and research agency for the U.S. federal courts. Features federal judiciary history, educational programs and materials, class action notices, etc.
U.S. Courts
The home page of the U.S. federal judiciary. Provides information on and links to all U.S. federal courts.

Court Sessions - LIVE

LIVE Court Audio
Listen to cases LIVE being argued before the Supreme Court

Research Tools for the Judiciary

Supreme Court Database
From Washington University. Lessons on how to analyze cases as well as case data, 1791-2022.
United State Supreme Court - (FindLaw)
Court docket section allows users to browse cases by topic or month. Site also includes justice biographies, rules of the Court, briefs (most recent five years), headlines and other news, and decisions, also most recent five years.
Legal Information Institute
From Cornell Law School. Allows users to search for recent decisions by keyword, docket number, year, words in case name. Archives decisions back to 1990, also groups them by subject. Includes the Wex, a collaboratively built, freely available legal dictionary and encyclopedia

Print sources located in the Government Documents Reference Collection.

United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition

Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Includes annotations, summaries of counsel briefs, additional indexing and pocket parts, all of which are not included in the official version below. 1790 - present.

KF101 .U581

Government Information Reference

3rd floor, Bird Library
United States Reports

Also called Official Reports of the Supreme Court. Includes opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1790 - present.

K.F101.U586

Government Information Reference

3rd floor, Bird Library

Government Information: Judicial Branch - Courts/Legal

Legal/Court Information

Court Sessions - LIVE

Research Tools for the Judiciary