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The Federal Court System
Table of Contents
Introduction to Federal Court System
The Federal Court System is composed of 94 District Courts, 12 Circuit of Appeals Courts and 1 Supreme Court. They work together to enforce and protect the Constitution of the United States. For additional information beyond this page, visit the U.S. Courts website at http://www.uscourts.gov/index.html
To get the full picture of how the system works, I highly recommend reading Legal Research FAQ, especially Part I at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/law/research/part1/.
For even more detail, visit the Government Documents Department's Tutorials on Finding the Law webpage at http://www.library.unt.edu/govinfo/tutorials-on-finding-the-law.
Structure of the Federal Court System
The United States court system has three levels of courts: District Courts, Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court. See a map of the federal courts at http://www.uscourts.gov/courtlinks.
District Courts are the lowest level and have the smallest jurisdictions, composed of part or the entirety of a state. One judge decides a case in a District Court. Federal cases must always start at a District Court, with a few exceptions. The District Court is the trial court in the Federal system and has a jury.
Circuit Courts of Appeals are the next level in the system. District Court cases can be appealed to the Courts of Appeals. A circuit is composed of the districts in several states. Three judges decide a case in a Court of Appeal.
The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal system. Nine justices sit on the Supreme Court. Cases can be appealed from the Courts of Appeals to the Supreme Court, but not all petitions for appeal are accepted. A petition of "certiorari" is filed and four of the nine justices must vote in favor to accept the case. The Supreme Court is the final legal authority in the United States.
Court Reporters
Federal cases are recorded in a number of publications, official and commercial. The publications are called reporters and each has a unique abbreviation in legal citations.
The Supreme Court has several reporters, three of which are:
- United States Reports (U.S.) - official
- Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.) - commercial, produced by West Publishing
- Lawyers Edition (L. Ed., L. Ed. 2d) - commercial, produced by the Lawyers Cooperative. This is the edition found in Lexis Nexis Academic.
The Circuit Courts of Appeals have one reporter, the Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, F. 3d) produced by West.
The District Courts have one reporter, the Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) produced by West. Only a fraction of District Court decisions are reported in F. Supp., but the unpublished ones are often available in Lexis Nexis.
Legal Citations
Full legal citations follow one standard form:
[Party 1 v. Party 2], [volume] [reporter abbrev.] [start page] [(court abbrev., year)]
Example: Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55 (S.C., 2004)
An abbreviated citation is allowed when the court is obvious based on the reporter, which is true of all federal cases. In this case, the court and year can be dropped from the citation:
Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55
A jump cite includes a page number to direct the reader to particular language:
Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 57
The "short form" of a citation is used when a case cites a source repeatedly. The full citation is used the first time and then the short form is used through the rest of the case.
542 U.S. at 57
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