How to Read Federal Court Records for Free — Around PACER
The federal courts charge ten cents a page. A free archive already holds most of what you are looking for.
Federal lawsuits, bankruptcies, and criminal cases are public — but the official system, PACER, charges per page and requires an account. For most research you do not need it. A nonprofit archive has mirrored millions of those filings and made them free to search and read.
Start with CourtListener and RECAP
CourtListener, run by the Free Law Project, hosts a huge searchable database of opinions and dockets. Its RECAP Archive holds documents that PACER users have donated back — so if anyone pulled a filing before you, it is often already free. Search by party name, company, judge, or case number.
- Search the person or company name in CourtListener.
- Open the docket; read the entries. Many attached documents are already free via RECAP.
- Install the free RECAP browser extension if you ever do use PACER — it saves what you buy into the public archive.
Someone already paid the ten cents. RECAP is where that page lives now — free.
When you must use PACER
For a document no one has donated yet, PACER is the source of record. Accounts are free to create; you are charged per page but fees are waived if you owe under a set amount per quarter, which covers light research. Pull only the docket sheet first (cheap), identify the exact document, then fetch just that.
State cases are separate
PACER and CourtListener are federal. For state court cases — most landlord-tenant, small claims, family, and local criminal matters — you use the state or county court portal instead. NU's guide to pulling any court record free covers the state side.
The takeaway
Check CourtListener and RECAP first; they are free and often complete. Fall back to PACER only for the specific document that has not been archived yet, and pull the docket before the pages. For verifying a company's litigation history before you do business, this is the fastest honest route.