Federal Court Data: Best Federal Court Datasets & Databases

What is federal court data?

Federal court data is information relating to US courts which operate at a federal level. These include the Supreme Court, Courts Of Appeals, District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, National Courts, and Patent Trial & Appeal Board.

What are the attributes of federal court data?

The main attribute in a federal court dataset is the kind of suit or area of law the case relates to. For example, the case could relate to intellectual property, bankruptcy, civil rights, or personal injury. Other common attributes included in a federal court dataset are case name, case number, appearance dates, party, representatives, attorneys, judge, proceeding type, docket entry, and outcome.

What is federal court data used for?

Federal court data is mainly used by people within the legal system, such as Am50 law firms and individual attorneys. However, it’s also often used by private companies and other organizations, from Fortune 500 businesses to higher education institutions. Use cases of federal court data include:

Case research
Buyers can view summarized versions of relevant cases to extract the key information without ingesting the full file. This makes case research far more efficient. Specialist federal court data providers and DaaS (data as a service) companies can also automate the research process. This way, buyers receive only the cases, briefs, pleadings and legal motions which are relevant to their research.

Case tracking
Federal court data providers also guarantee timely information for ongoing cases: buyers can monitor case developments in real time and get alerts when important events happen in proceedings. By receiving federal court records on an automated basis, users ensure that they review every filing as soon as it happens. This is especially important for urgent cases to reduce delays.

Case management
Data-driven legal strategy is helping law firms and attorneys optimize their practices. Federal court data-as-a-service companies remove the overhead of dealing with thousands of irrelevant court documents by ensuring clients only receive the most relevant information. This frees up time for lawyers and law firms to improve their litigation and put court data to real, immediate use.

What are the sources of federal court data?

For federal court data with USA coverage, Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is a digital platform displaying obtain case and docket information to signed-up users. PACER is available to the public via an access fee. Many federal court data providers scrape data from PACER and then convert the data into more accessible formats and structured datasets. Other federal court data providers publish databases by crowdsourcing documents already downloaded by other PACER users. This means federal court data buyers can save on access fees because they don’t have to pay to use PACER. Other federal court data providers source their datasets from raw documents including bar records, judicial records, and settlement agreements.

Why is federal court data important?

Transparency and democracy around the legal system are crucial to ensure the system remains just and fair. With access to federal court data, users are able to better understand the inner workings of the legal system by scrutinizing what’s happening at an individual court level. In most countries, public records are completely open access unless they’ve been sealed by an injunction or court order. However, the data is often unstructured and stored in ways which makes access unfriendly to navigate. That’s why external data providers are supplying federal court data APIs: to make access to public legal records more efficient, user-friendly, and tailored to a specific use case.

Where can I buy Federal Court Data?

Data providers and vendors listed on Datarade sell Federal Court Data products and samples. Popular Federal Court Data products and datasets available on our platform are UniCourt Judge Data API - USA Judges in State and Federal Courts (AI Normalized) by UniCourt and Legal (Judicial - Court ) Lawyers List Datasets | Grepsr by Grepsr.

How can I get Federal Court Data?

You can get Federal Court Data via a range of delivery methods - the right one for you depends on your use case. For example, historical Federal Court Data is usually available to download in bulk and delivered using an S3 bucket. On the other hand, if your use case is time-critical, you can buy real-time Federal Court Data APIs, feeds and streams to download the most up-to-date intelligence.

What are similar data types to Federal Court Data?

Federal Court Data is similar to State Court Data and Judge Data. These data categories are commonly used for Legal Analytics and Legal Intelligence.

What are the most common use cases for Federal Court Data?

The top use cases for Federal Court Data are Legal Analytics and Legal Intelligence.