Federal courts
PACER Without Overpaying
Most investigators could use PACER for nothing and pay for it instead, because nobody explains the quarterly waiver.
- Rate
- 10¢ per page
- Cap per document
- $3.00
- Free if under
- $30 per quarter
- Opinions
- Always free
PACER is Public Access to Court Electronic Records — every federal district court, bankruptcy court and appellate court. Civil filings, criminal dockets, bankruptcies.
The billing, properly explained
You’re charged 10 cents a page for search results and documents. Any single document is capped at $3.00 regardless of length, so a 400-page bankruptcy petition costs $3.
If your total for a quarter is $30 or less, the charge is waived entirely. Not discounted — waived. You’re never billed.
That’s 300 pages a quarter for free. For most investigative work that’s more than enough, and it means PACER research is effectively free if you’re even slightly careful.
Written opinions are always free and never count toward the total.
Register, and register properly
Registration is free at pacer.uscourts.gov and requires a credit card on file, which is what puts people off. The card isn’t charged unless you exceed $30 in a quarter.
Register as an individual rather than as a firm unless you need shared billing.
Search all courts at once
Use the PACER Case Locator rather than going court by court. It searches every federal court nationally by party name in one query.
People file where they lived at the time. Searching only your local district is the commonest reason a case is missed.
Cut the page count
Billing is per page of results, not per search. A broad name search returning forty pages of results costs four dollars before you’ve opened anything.
Narrow by court, date range and party type first. Set results per page higher so the same result set spans fewer billable pages.
Read the docket before buying documents
The docket sheet lists every filing with a description. Read it and decide what you actually need.
In a bankruptcy, that’s usually the petition with schedules and the statement of financial affairs. In a civil case, the complaint, the answer, and any judgment or settlement.
Check RECAP first
The RECAP archive is a free public repository of PACER documents that other users have already purchased. If somebody has bought a document, it may be available at no cost.
The browser extension checks automatically as you browse PACER and shows you what’s already free. It also contributes anything you buy back to the archive.
Watch your quarterly total
Your account shows usage. If you’re approaching $30 in a quarter, the marginal cost of the next page stops being zero — and going a dollar over means paying the whole amount.
Quarters end in March, June, September and December. Heavy research at the start of a quarter costs the same as heavy research at the end, but knowing where you stand matters.
What PACER does not have
State court cases. The overwhelming majority of litigation happens in state court, and PACER holds none of it. Divorce, most contract disputes, most criminal matters, landlord cases, small claims — all state.
For those, see the state pages, which list the court search for each state and, where there’s no statewide search, every county.
Sealed is sealed. A docket entry may exist with the document unavailable. That tells you a filing happened and when, which is often useful on its own even when you can’t read it.
Go deeper
PACER — An Investigator’s Dream
Signing up, setup, account administration, case and party searches, and in-depth walkthroughs of civil, criminal and bankruptcy files — at least two of each. Plus a bonus section on state and county searches. $49.99.
See the course