Federal Court Records and PACER: Accessing Public Documents

Federal court records are official documents generated by the federal judiciary and maintained as part of the public record under the principle of open courts. The Public Access to Court Electronic Records system — universally known as PACER — is the primary platform through which the federal judiciary makes those records available nationwide. Understanding how PACER works, what it covers, and where its boundaries lie is essential for attorneys, journalists, researchers, litigants, and members of the public who need to locate or review documents filed in federal proceedings.

Definition and scope

PACER is an electronic public access service administered by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts that provides case and docket information from federal district courts, bankruptcy courts, and courts of appeals. Authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1913 note (Electronic Public Access Program), PACER allows registered users to retrieve dockets, pleadings, motions, orders, and judgments from participating federal courts across all 94 federal judicial districts.

The scope of PACER extends to civil, criminal, bankruptcy, and appellate case records. Not all documents in a federal case are publicly accessible — sealed filings, grand jury materials, certain juvenile records, and documents restricted by court order remain unavailable through the system regardless of registration status. The distinction between public documents and restricted documents within the same docket is a foundational boundary that PACER enforces at the document level, not only at the case level.

PACER charges a fee of $0.10 per page accessed, with a cap of $3.00 per document, as established by the fee schedule published by the U.S. Courts Electronic Public Access Program. Quarterly billing statements below $30.00 are waived, effectively making low-volume research free. Courts are also required to provide free access to certain opinions under the E-Government Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-347).

For a broader orientation to how federal courts are organized and what types of cases generate these records, the home page provides a structured entry point into the federal judiciary's structure and jurisdiction.

How it works

Accessing PACER requires a registered account, obtainable at pacer.uscourts.gov. Registration is open to the public — no bar membership or legal status is required. Once registered, a user can search across the PACER Case Locator, which indexes cases from participating courts nationwide, or search within a specific court's CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) portal.

The workflow for retrieving a document follows this sequence:

  1. Search the PACER Case Locator by party name, case number, filing date range, or nature of suit code to identify the relevant docket.
  2. Open the docket report for the case, which lists every filing in reverse or forward chronological order with a document number and description.
  3. Select the specific document — each link opens a PDF of the filed item, and the system calculates the page count before charging.
  4. Review or download the document — downloaded files carry a PACER watermark identifying the date, time, and account used for retrieval.
  5. Monitor billing through the quarterly statement tied to the registered account.

The CM/ECF system, which is the back-end filing platform used by attorneys to submit documents electronically, feeds directly into PACER. When an attorney files a motion in a U.S. district court, that filing becomes available in PACER within minutes. The federal court filing process and CM/ECF access are closely intertwined — parties with cases pending in a court typically receive free CM/ECF access to their own case documents.

Common scenarios

PACER is used across a wide range of practical research and litigation contexts. The most frequent include:

Decision boundaries

Several distinctions govern what PACER can and cannot deliver, and where users must turn to alternative sources.

PACER vs. Free Alternatives: The RECAP Archive, maintained by the nonprofit Free Law Project, mirrors documents that PACER users have previously downloaded and makes them freely searchable. Approximately 1.5 billion pages of federal court documents had been uploaded to RECAP as of figures cited by Free Law Project. However, RECAP does not contain all PACER documents — only those previously retrieved and shared by users of the RECAP browser extension.

Electronic Records vs. Paper Records: Federal cases filed before a court's transition to CM/ECF — a process that occurred across different courts at different points between 1996 and the mid-2000s — exist only as paper files held by the individual court clerk's office or transferred to a Federal Records Center operated by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Retrieving pre-electronic records requires contacting the court clerk directly or submitting a request through NARA's archives system.

Sealed vs. Public Documents: A document marked sealed by court order does not appear in PACER at all — the docket entry may show a placeholder, but no content is retrievable. Understanding which types of federal litigation commonly involve sealing requires familiarity with federal criminal procedure and the standards courts apply under press and public access doctrines rooted in the First Amendment and common law.

Federal Courts vs. State Courts: PACER covers only the federal judiciary. State court records — which encompass the vast majority of U.S. civil and criminal litigation — are maintained separately by each state's court administration and are not accessible through PACER. The structural contrast between federal and state systems is examined in detail on the federal vs. state courts page.

Attorneys admitted to practice before a federal court have CM/ECF filing accounts that also grant direct PACER access. Self-represented litigants navigating federal courts should review the representing yourself in federal court and federal court filing fees and waivers pages before attempting to access or file documents through CM/ECF.