Answered By: Kate Britt
Last Updated: Dec 08, 2023     Views: 1975

Docket Terminology

Generally, court dockets contain all materials filed by the court or by any party in a court proceeding. The docket itself is referred to by its docket number. The chronological listing of items of the docket is called the docket sheet.

Docket Content by Court

Trial-level dockets often reference the underlying complaint, answer(s), motions, orders, final judgments, and other pleadings. Appellate-level dockets generally reference appellee and appellant briefs, amicus briefs, and other documents relating to appellate cases. 

Locating Dockets

There are a few options for searching court dockets:

  • Bloomberg: under "Litigation," click "Dockets Search"
  • Westlaw: under "All Content," click "Dockets" 
  • Lexis+: under "Content Type," click "Dockets"
  • Lexis+ CourtLink: Lexis+ CourtLink provides an advanced search interface on the Lexis+ platform. To get to CourtLink, login to your Lexis account, click the "product switcher" box in the top left corner of the page, and select Lexis Advance CourtLink.
  • CourtListener RECAP Archive (https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/): This free resource from the CourtListener project gathers crowd-sourced documents from federal dockets and makes them available through its web interface.
  • PACER: The Law Library does not have a PACER account to provide to students. However, any member of the public may create an account and search PACER for fees assessed per-search and per-page of download. If you incur fees less than $30 per quarter, you will not be charged. We recommend starting with other options available to you (Lexis CourtLink, RECAP Archive) first before searching in PACER.

Dockets and Court Filings research guide

  • Our guide https://libguides.law.umich.edu/dockets takes you through the various options in order of how likely you are to find your material.
  • This guide also has basic information for finding state court dockets and filings, as well as historical or archived records.

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