The following is a guest post by Anna Price, a legal reference librarian at the Law Library of Congress.
This edition of Research Guides In Focus covers another frequently-accessed Law Library guide – U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs. I regularly direct patrons to this guide, and rely on it for quick answers to Supreme Court research questions.
The Law Library of Congress is one of only ten depository libraries that holds a print collection of Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court. While the availability of these volumes on subscription databases has improved accessibility to Supreme Court materials, a few organizations have gone a step further and made these records freely available online over the last few years. That said, finding electronic copies of Supreme Court Records and Briefs from a particular time period can be challenging.
The guide addresses this issue by listing where to find Supreme Court Records and Briefs in print and microform, as well through free electronic resources and subscription databases, accompanied by the dates of coverage for each resource. In addition to the Supreme Court’s electronic filing system, which became operational in November 2017, the guide directs visitors to resources like FindLaw, the Office of the Inspector General, and SCOTUSBlog to retrieve Supreme Court Records and Briefs.
The guide also provides information on accessing oral argument transcripts and recordings, dockets, and other resources, such as The Journal of the Supreme Court of the United States.
We hope you will find this guide helpful in your research. As always, if you have any questions, please contact us through Ask A Librarian.