You can find most old court records online for free by matching the case to the right system: federal cases live in PACER (which waives fees for anyone who racks up $30 or less in charges per quarter), state and county cases live on individual court portals, and anything predating electronic filing may require a trip through the National Archives or a direct call to the clerk of court. The trick is knowing which door to knock on before you start typing names into a search box.
Gather These Details First
Jurisdiction is the single most important thing to pin down. Federal and state courts run completely separate record systems, so you first need to figure out whether the case involved federal law (bankruptcy, federal criminal charges, federal civil suits) or a state or local matter (divorce, DUI, landlord-tenant, most criminal cases). Searching the right way in the wrong database returns nothing.
Beyond jurisdiction, pull together whatever you can of the following:
- Full legal names of the parties. Common names return dozens of irrelevant hits; a middle name or suffix narrows it fast.
- Case number. This is the fastest route to any record. Federal case numbers encode the filing year and a code for case type.
- Approximate filing date. Even a rough year range helps when you’re sorting through decades of records.
- Case type. Knowing whether it was civil, criminal, bankruptcy, or family tells you which court division handled it.
- Specific courthouse. Large counties and federal districts have multiple courthouses, and the wrong one returns empty results even when the record exists.
Most portals want names entered as “Last Name, First Name.” Reverse the order or misspell a letter and the system acts as though the record doesn’t exist. If you’re unsure of the exact spelling, try shortening the first name or using just an initial. Some advanced systems accept wildcards (an asterisk for unknown letters) or Boolean operators (“OR” between two possible spellings), though support varies.
Federal Cases: PACER and Its Fee Waiver
Public Access to Court Electronic Records is the official portal for documents filed in every federal district court, appellate court, and bankruptcy court in the country.1Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Public Access to Court Electronic Records It charges $0.10 per page, with any individual document capped at $3.00 regardless of length.2United States Courts. Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule The important part: PACER waives all charges if your account accumulates $30 or less in a quarterly billing cycle.3United States Courts. Find a Case (PACER) About 75 percent of PACER users pay nothing in any given quarter.
The waiver stretches further than it sounds. Because each document caps at $3.00, a 100-page filing still costs $3.00. You could pull ten long documents in a single quarter and stay under the threshold.
Register for a free account at pacer.uscourts.gov. Once logged in, search by party name or case number. Clicking into a case opens the docket report, a chronological list of every filing: motions, orders, responses, final judgment. Each entry links to the document itself as a downloadable PDF. Audio recordings of hearings are also available, at $2.40 per file.2United States Courts. Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule
Check RECAP Before You Spend a Cent
Before using any of your PACER waiver balance, check whether another user has already downloaded the document you need. The RECAP Archive, hosted on CourtListener, is an open collection of federal court documents that users originally bought through PACER and then shared publicly. It contains millions of docket entries and grows by thousands daily.4CourtListener. Coverage
Search the archive directly at courtlistener.com/recap, filtering by party name, case number, or keyword. CourtListener converts scanned PDFs into searchable text, so you can hunt by topic rather than only by case name.5CourtListener. Advanced RECAP Archive Search for PACER
There’s also a free browser extension called RECAP, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, that works inside PACER itself. Install it, and any document you buy through PACER automatically uploads to the public archive, while any document already in the archive appears as a free alternative right on the PACER page. It has been running on this pay-it-forward model since 2009.6Free Law Project. RECAP Suite — Turning PACER Around Since 2009
State and County Court Portals
State court records live on entirely separate systems from federal records, and coverage varies enormously. Some states run a unified statewide portal that lets you search every court in the state from one site. Others require you to find the specific county clerk’s website for the courthouse where the case was filed. There is no single national database for state court records.
On a county clerk or court website, look for links labeled “Public Access,” “Case Search,” or “Court Records.” You usually need to pick the right division before searching: a traffic ticket won’t surface in a superior court search, and a felony won’t appear in small claims.
Results typically open a docket or “Register of Actions,” a timeline of every event in the case: hearings, motions, continuances, final outcome. Many portals show these summaries free of charge but don’t offer the actual documents. If you need the underlying paperwork, like a signed order or a filed complaint, request it separately from the clerk’s office, sometimes for a fee. To preserve what’s on screen without paying, use your browser’s “Print to PDF” function to save the visible case history.
Expect codes and abbreviations: “DISM” (dismissed), “STAY” (proceedings suspended), “CMPL” (completed), and dozens more. Most court sites don’t publish a glossary, so you may have to search separately for that court system’s code definitions.
Free Tools for Opinions and Older Appellate Cases
Google Scholar is an underused resource for judicial opinions. On scholar.google.com, click the “Case law” radio button to search published decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court going back to 1791, federal appellate and district courts since 1923, and state appellate courts generally from the 1950s onward.7Library of Congress. Google Scholar – How To Find Free Case Law Online You can filter by jurisdiction and date range. It won’t produce trial court dockets or case filings, but it is the best free tool for appellate decisions and the reasoning behind them.
CourtListener also runs an opinions database separate from its RECAP archive, covering federal and state courts. You can search by topic, citation, or judge, and set up email alerts for new filings in cases you’re tracking.5CourtListener. Advanced RECAP Archive Search for PACER
The Internet Archive hosts a growing collection of historical court materials, including more than 125,000 U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs spanning cases from 1830 through 2019. The collection covers trial transcripts, evidence from lower courts, briefs filed by the parties, amicus filings, and the opinions themselves.8Internet Archive. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs: The Arguments That Shaped America Now Freely Available
Records From Before Electronic Filing
Electronic filing didn’t become standard in federal courts until the early 2000s, and many state courts adopted it later than that. For a case from the 1990s or earlier, the file likely wasn’t born digital and may not be online at all.
For federal cases, the National Archives holds court records dating back to approximately 1790. Records less than about 15 years old typically still sit with the court that created them, but older files transfer to National Archives facilities around the country, with location depending on the court of origin. All federal bankruptcy case files, for example, are stored at the National Archives facility in Kansas City, while Supreme Court materials are held in Washington, D.C.9National Archives. National Archives Court Records You can search the National Archives Catalog online to identify what exists and where it’s held, then request copies by mail or plan an in-person visit.
State and local records from the pre-digital era are harder. Many still exist only on paper or microfilm in courthouse basements and county storage. Some jurisdictions have run digitization projects, but progress is uneven. When you can’t find an older state case online, contact the clerk of court for that county directly. Be prepared for the record to have been moved to off-site storage, which can add days or weeks.
Records don’t last forever either. Courts follow retention schedules that set minimum periods for keeping different types of records. Serious criminal cases and historically significant records are often preserved permanently, but minor civil matters and traffic cases may be destroyed after as few as five to ten years. Once a retention period expires, the record may simply no longer exist.
What You Won’t Find in a Free Search
Some records are off-limits no matter how good your search is. Nearly every jurisdiction restricts the following categories:
- Juvenile cases, sealed in nearly all jurisdictions.
- Adoption records, sealed to protect the parties involved.
- Mental health commitments, kept confidential.
- Expunged or sealed criminal records, removed from public databases by court order.
- Cases sealed by a judge for reasons ranging from national security to trade secret protection.
Federal filings also go through mandatory redaction of personal identifiers before they become publicly available, and certain federal criminal documents (presentence investigation reports, unexecuted warrants, juror identifying information) are never released electronically.10United States Courts. Privacy Policy for Electronic Case Files
If a record you want falls into one of these categories, you aren’t searching wrong. It isn’t available to the public. If you’re a party to the case or have another specific legal basis, you can sometimes petition the court for access, but that requires a formal request and a judge’s approval.
Free Lookups vs. Certified Copies
Everything described above gives you informational access: read case summaries, view dockets, download documents for your own reference. That isn’t the same as a certified copy, which is an official duplicate stamped and signed by the clerk confirming it’s a true reproduction of the original.
The distinction matters when the record has to satisfy someone else. Employers running background checks, government agencies processing applications, banks approving loans, and attorneys filing documents in a new case usually require certified copies. A PACER printout or a screenshot of a state docket won’t do.
Certified copies cost money. Fees vary by jurisdiction, commonly running from a few dollars per page to a flat fee per document, and some clerks add a search fee if they have to spend time locating the file. Order them online, by mail, or in person through the clerk’s office at the court where the case was filed. For the research itself, though, free online access is enough to find the case, confirm its details, and decide whether paying for a certified copy is worth it.