Supreme Court Docket Watch Screensaver

United States federal courts are organised in layers: district courts hear cases first, circuit courts of appeals review them, and the Supreme Court sits at the top. Court filings and opinions are public records, but they were historically hard to search. CourtListener, a project of the non-profit Free Law Project, gathers legal information from the courts and makes it searchable and available through APIs.

An opinion is a court’s written explanation of its ruling. Many are labelled as published and carry precedential weight, while others are unpublished and carry less. A case name in the list shows the parties, and the court identifier indicates which court issued the opinion. Lower courts decide far more cases than the Supreme Court does, so much of what appears comes from them.

The headline of a filing is not the verdict. Reading a case name tells you nothing about who won, whether the ruling was later appealed, or how broad its effect is. Coverage of CourtListener can also lag the courts themselves, so recent opinions may show up after a delay. This is a window onto public legal records, not legal analysis or advice.