Finding United States Supreme Court Briefs and Oral Arguments

Quick Links:

• Introduction
• Finding U. S. Supreme Court Briefs
• Finding U.S. Supreme Court Oral Argument Transcripts and Recordings

1. Introduction

Legal briefs are the written documents in which the attorneys in a case present their legal arguments to the court. When researching a case, it is sometimes instructive to examine the written briefs that were filed by the opposing parties as well as the arguments presented orally to the court after the briefs have been filed. Doing so can sometimes help one to better understand the motivation behind the court's decision in the case as well as the arguments on both sides of the issues before the court. This guide provides information on how to find both briefs and oral arguments in United States Supreme Court cases.

Briefs and other types of documents are filed with the U.S. Supreme Court at various stages in the appellate process. When a party first seeks review from the Court, it files a "petition for a writ of certiorari" in which the party states the facts of the case, the legal question(s) in the case, and the arguments as to why the Court should hear the case. At that time, the case will be assigned a unique docket number (e.g., 07-5439). The opposing party has the opportunity to respond to the petition by filing a "brief in opposition," stating why the Court should deny the petition. The petitioner can then file a "reply brief" to respond to new points raised in the opposition brief.

If the Court decides to hear a particular case (i.e., "grants certiorari"), the parties will argue the merits before the Court, first by filing "merit briefs" and then through oral argument. Additionally, outside parties who have a strong interest in the subject matter of the case can seek permission from the Court to file their own briefs on the merits called "amicus curiae" (friend of the court) briefs.

This guide focuses on electronic sources of petitions and briefs available for free on the internet as well as print and microfiche sources available at the USC Law Library. Each source is limited in the time period it covers and/or the selectiveness of the cases and/or briefs included. Generally, the more recent the case, the more likely the briefs will be available online. For information on finding U.S. Supreme Court briefs not available at the USC Law Library or briefs filed in lower federal or state courts, consult with a research librarian.

Many of the sources discussed in this guide organize briefs by Supreme Court term. Each Court term is one year and begins on the first Monday in October. Thus, the October 1997 term ran from Monday, October 6, 1997 through Sunday, October 4, 1998. The first part of a case's docket number indicates the term in which the case was filed (e.g., the case assigned the number 06-245 was filed in the Court's 2006 term).

2. Finding U. S. Supreme Court Briefs

• Internet Sites

  The following websites all provide free access to U.S. Supreme Court petitions and briefs. Most of these sites include very recent briefs filed with the Court but have limited historical coverage.

  • Findlaw
    

    The Supreme Court Briefs page on Findlaw provides access to U.S. Supreme Court briefs going back to the 1999 term. To access the briefs for a particular case from this website, first choose the term in which the case was being heard and then look for the name of the case from the alphabetical list provided. When you click on the case name, you will be provided a statement of the questions presented in the case as well as links to relevant documents, including petitions and briefs filed at the various stages of the process. Keep in mind that this website only offers selective coverage of petitions and briefs. Therefore, for some of the cases listed for each term, you may find only a limited number of briefs (or none at all).

  • ABA Supreme Court Preview
    

    The ABA Supreme Court Preview website provides briefs on the merits going back to the Court's 2003 term. Amicus briefs are included, but only for cases from the current term. The site is organized by term and month (according to when the cases were argued before the Court). The main Preview page provides links to lists of cases argued in each term (listed alphabetically by case name). The "Alphabetical Order (A-Z)" link (shown near the bottom left portion of the screen shot below) is for the current term and the links under the "Past Terms" heading (shown near the bottom left portion of the screen) are for the earlier terms. There is also a Search box under the "Past Terms" heading that you can use to type in keywords from the name of a specific case.

    
  • Office of the Solicitor General

    The Office of the Solicitor General of the United States is responsible for supervising and conducting litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the U.S. government, which is involved in a substantial amount of the cases before the Court. The Office's staff attorneys participate in the preparation of the petitions, briefs, and other documents filed with the Court in cases involving the government. The Office also sometimes writes amicus curiae briefs in cases not involving the federal government.

    The Office's Briefs webpage contains merit briefs (including amicus briefs) filed by the Office since 1982 as well as documents filed by the Office at the petition stage since July 1998. For the most part, documents on this website are organized by Court term, based on when they were filed (e.g., a brief filed in May 2005 would be listed as a document from the 2004 term). For both briefs and petitions filed with the Court since July 1998, you must limit your search either by filing type ("Type of Filing By Term") or subject ("Subject/Client") (shown below on the left hand portion of the screen under the heading "Briefs").

    

    After you make your selection(s), the names of the cases that meet your search criteria will be listed on the screen. If you click on the name of a case, you will pull up the document filed by the Solicitor General in that case. Keep in mind that there may be more than one link with a particular case name if the Solicitor General filed multiple documents in that case. If you have a very long list of cases, you may want to search on the page for a word or string of words from your case name by using the "Find on this page" feature on your internet browser (as shown below).

    

• Print/Microform Sources at the USC Law Library
  

  Below are two collections of briefs available at the USC Law Library that go back earlier in time than most of the internet sites discussed above. Because it takes a little while for the briefs to be included in these collections, they are not the sources to use to find briefs filed in currently pending cases before the Court.

• Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States (Closed Reserve)
  

  This multi-volume print publication contains petitions and briefs filed in major constitutional law cases since 1793. The set is organized chronologically, with each volume containing documents from one or more cases. The name(s) and year(s) of the case(s) included in each volume are printed on the volume spine. Each volume includes a table of contents, listing the various briefs included in that volume.

• Microform Collection
  

  The Law Library has a microform collection of Supreme Court petitions and briefs filed in cases decided since the 1934 Supreme Court term. These are located in the Library's Photocopy/Microform Room (Rm. 218). For cases from the 1934 through 1971 terms, most of the collection is on microcards, which can be read on a special microcard reader but not printed or scanned. Starting with the 1972 term, the collection is on microfiche, which can be printed and electronically scanned on the Library's microfiche reader/printer.

  To access the briefs from a particular case using the microform collection, you will need either the case's official United States Reports citation (e.g., 410 U.S. 113) or the case's docket number, depending on when the case was decided. For cases from the 1934 through 1973 terms (covered by volumes 293-418 of the United States Reports), the microform collection is organized by official citation. For cases decided since the 1974 term, the collection is organized by docket number. If you do not have the docket number, you can find it by going to the Court's opinion in the case (in either the print reporter or online). The docket number will appear above the opinion, right after the name of the case. For assistance in finding Court opinions, consult the USC Law Library guide How to Find Cases.

3. Finding U.S. Supreme Court Oral Argument Transcripts and Recordings

The Supreme Court began recording oral arguments before the Court in 1955. The arguments have also been regularly transcribed since 1969. The sources listed below can be used to access at least some of these recordings and/or transcripts.

• OYEZ: U.S. Supreme Court Media
  

  The Oyez website makes available both audio recordings and transcripts of Supreme Court oral arguments. The site currently contains recordings of oral arguments for most of the cases decided by the Court since the 1976 term as well as for some of the leading cases decided before then. (Recordings of the announcements of the Court opinions are also available selectively on this website.) Recordings can be accessed through streaming audio, and the files are available in MP3 format. Transcripts of oral arguments are also available on this site for all cases argued since 1980 as well as for selective cases argued before then.

  Both recordings and transcripts can be accessed from the Oyez-Cases page (shown below). From this page, you can select the Court term in which you are interested and then choose the case from the list provided in the center of the screen.

  

  When you click on the link for a specific case, you will retrieve a page with basic information about the case as well as links to the oral arguments and/or opinion announcements if available. Keep in mind that there is a lag time between the time arguments are heard and when they are available on this site.

  You can also sometimes access arguments on the Oyez site through other websites that provide links to Oyez. For example, if you click on a case name on the Curiae Project site discussed above, you will not only obtain links to Court briefs in that particular case but you will also be provided a link to the arguments from the Oyez site if they are available.

• Official Supreme Court Website
  

  The Supreme Court website has an Oral Arguments page that provides argument calendars showing when pending cases are going to be argued before the Court, information about finding oral arguments, and actual argument transcripts from cases argued since the 2000 term. If you click on the "Arguments Transcripts" link from this page, you will see a list of cases since the 2000 term that have been argued before the Court, listed roughly in reverse chronological order. If you click on the docket number for any one of these cases, you will retrieve the argument transcripts for that case. Unlike the Oyez website, transcripts are loaded on this website immediately after the arguments are held.

  For cases from the 2000-2004 terms, the Findlaw site discussed above provides links to the argument transcripts available on this official Court site. Therefore, you can use Findlaw to access both the briefs and argument transcripts for most of the cases from this time period.

• Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States (Closed Reserve)
  

  This print publication discussed above not only includes briefs but also oral argument transcripts for all of the landmark cases that were argued since 1955. With respect to the landmark cases argued before then, oral argument transcripts are only included for an extremely limited number of cases.