Introduction

The Federal Court system is comprised of the Supreme Court created by Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Congress divided the nation into districts and created federal courts for each district under Article I, Section 8. The present structure includes:

• Supreme Court
• 13 courts of appeals
• 94 district courts
• 2 courts of special jurisdiction: U.S. Court of International Trade and U.S. Court of Federal Claims

Congress retains the power to create and abolish federal courts, as well as to determine the number of judges in the federal judiciary system. See also: History of the Federal Judiciary via Federal Judicial Center.

Indexes and Guides

• CQ Supreme Court Collection UCB Only
  Combines historical analysis with updates and commentary of US Supreme Court decisions, biographies of Supreme Court justices, Supreme Court institutional history and the US Constitution. Also includes background and commentary on constitutions from over 100 countries.
• Hein online UCB Only
  Provides full text to historical issues of legal journals.
• LegalTrac UCB Only
  Access all major law reviews, and specialty law and bar association journals. Use LegalTrac to identify the journal articles that you'd like to read. Then check Lexis-Nexis Academic to see if the articles are available there. Coverage includes 1980-present.
• Lexis-Nexis™ Academic (Legal Research) UCB Only
  This database provides the complete text to federal and state case law as well as full text articles from law reviews, legal newspapers and magazines.
• Online Research: Databases via UCB Law Library

Courts

• Supreme Court
  • Case Citation Finder (1790 to present)
  • Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States prepared by the Congressional Research Service via GPO Access
  • Speeches
  • Supreme Court Historical Society
  • Supreme Court Collection Opinions via Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (1990 to present)
    • Historic Supreme Court Decisions - by Party Name
  • Supreme Court Opinions via FindLaw (1893 to present)
  • United States Reports (vol. 502 [October 1991 term] to present)
• U.S. Courts of Appeal
  • First Circuit
  • Second Circuit
  • Third Circuit
    • Opinions via Villanova Law Library (May 1994 to present)
  • Fourth Circuit
    • Opinions via Emory University School of Law (1995-2001)
  • Fifth Circuit
  • Sixth Circuit
    • Opinions (1999-)
  • Seventh Circuit
  • Eighth Circuit
  • Ninth Circuit
  • Tenth Circuit
    • Tenth Circuit via Washburn University School of Law Library (October 1997 to present)
  • Eleventh Circuit
    • Opinions via Emory University School of Law (November 1994-March 2003)
  • D.C. Circuit
    • Opinions via Edward Bennett Williams Law Library at Georgetown (March 1995 to present)
  • Federal Circuit
    • Opinions via Edward Bennett Williams Law Library at Georgetown (August 1995 to present)
• U.S. District Courts via
  • Administrative Office of the United States Courts
    • Search for a District by County Name
  • FindLaw
• Federal Courts Finder via Emory University School of Law

Other Internet Sites

• Guide to Law Online via the Law Library of Congress
• Judicial Branch via Department of State's INFORMATION USA
• Supreme Court Collection via Cornell University's Legal Information Institute
• WashLaw Web via Washburn University School of Law