U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs

U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs is an invaluable tool for practitioners, students, faculty and historical researchers.  This database is from Gale and covers court records and briefs from 1832-1978.  Note: this database doesn’t have the case opinions (which are available in a lot of other places).

The interface is fairly simple making it easy to use for someone not familiar with it.  This database has records and briefs for cases granted cert but also those cases which were not granted cert and thus not heard by the court.

Under the “Basic Search” options users can search by date, docket number, or US Reports citation.  Keyword searching is also available.  When searching keywords you can search the whole of the document or by the author of the document or case name.  The “Advanced Search” options allow users to combine multiple keywords (using AND, OR, and NOT connectors), as well as search by document type (e.g. Amicus Brief, Appellee’s Brief etc.) .

For additional help using this database, contact your friendly reference librarians at (216) 687-6877.

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