How to research the judge assigned to your case
You got your case assignment and a judge's name you've never heard. Here's how to find the publicly documented record — and how to read it responsibly.
Where judicial data actually comes from: CourtListener, RECAP, and PACER
By the JUDGELENS Research Team · · 6 min read
When you search a judge on JUDGELENS, you're tapping a supply chain that runs from court clerks to a nonprofit's servers to your screen. Knowing how it works explains both the power and the gaps.
CourtListener: the engine
CourtListener, run by the Free Law Project, is a nonprofit that aggregates federal and state case law, judge databases, and oral-argument audio. It's the primary live source behind JUDGELENS search, profiles, and opinions. Its judge database includes structured service history for thousands of federal judges, and its search index covers millions of opinions.
RECAP: crowdsourced PACER
Federal trial-court filings live in PACER, the judiciary's official pay-per-page system. RECAP is the crowd layer: when litigants and researchers donate documents they've already paid for, they become free to everyone. That's why RECAP availability is spotty and uneven — it mirrors what people donated, nothing more. JUDGELENS shows per-case availability and never pretends the full docket is there.
Official sources and the states
The U.S. Courts site publishes official directories and the Supreme Court publishes its own opinions and orders. State courts are the frontier: most publish case searches as websites, not APIs. Our approach is link-first — send you to the official portal rather than scrape a fragile page — starting with Texas, Florida, California, and New York.
Why coverage varies
- Federal appellate and Supreme Court opinions are thoroughly indexed and freely available.
- Federal district-court opinions are indexed when published; many orders are never published at all.
- State trial courts range from excellent digital portals to paper-only records.
Every JUDGELENS profile and metric carries this context. Where the record ends, we say so — we never fill the gap with a guess.
JUDGELENS provides legal information, not legal advice. If you have a matter in court, consult a licensed attorney.
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The most dangerous judicial analytics are the ones that look precise. Our rule: if the record can't support a number, the number doesn't appear.
Motion outcomes, explained: grants, denials, and what the record can (and cannot) show
A motion to dismiss that gets granted tells you about one case. Whether a pattern exists requires sample size, case mix, and time — here's how to tell the difference.