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Judicial Externship Legal Research Sources & Information

A brief overview of resources and suggestions for Case Western Reserve Law School students serving as judicial interns.

Judge or Magistrate Information

Judge Analytics Through Lexis Context 

  • Look for your judge by court or by typing the name.
  • Once your judge’s page launches Ravel defaults to your judge’s opinions in order by the frequency of times cited by other cases, giving you an indication of your judge’s influential cases.
  • When you click on the “About” tab, Ravel shows recent mentions of your judge in legal news (e.g., Law 360 on Lexis) and in general news sources.

Westlaw  Litigation Analytics

  • Provides access to useful biographical information on judges, including:
    • The judge's background and experience
    • How a judge has ruled on various motions in the past and helps lawyers identify the most persuasive arguments.
    • See which law firms have had the most experience before a judge or court..
    • View how a judge has handled expert challenges, and how they have fared on appeal.

 Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.

  • Available on Westlaw the Almanac provides contact and biographical information, noteworthy rulings, lawyer evaluations, and media coverage of federal judges.

Bloomberg Law Federal Trial Court Dockets

  • Type name of court (e.g., SDNY) in Courts box, select the court (e.g., " U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Dockets") > type name in Judge box > set Case Status field to "Open" > "Submit"
    • For currently pending cases, set the Case Status field to Open; otherwise, you will see all cases
  • Reading the results - the "Federal Nature of Suit" filter shows (in descending order of frequency) the types of cases pending.
    • The number in (parentheses) - not the number in [square brackets] - is the number of results in that general category, according to the civil cover sheet (a form filed by the attorney filing a complaint, which requires a single "check the box" response).
    • Click on Select More ... to see a full alphabetical list of the case types (and their frequency) appearing in your results.
    • You can also use the check boxes to filter for case types you have a particular interest in, but note that not all legal topics neatly fit into one of the Nature of Suit classifications.
    • See Bloomberg Law Advanced Legal Research – Searching Dockets (Recording).  

The American Bench:  Judges of the Nation. Print: Law Library Reference KF 8700 .A19A5.

  • Biographies provided.
  • Federal and state.  (Federal District Courts are located with each state).  

BNA's Directory of State & Federal Courts, Judges & Clerks  Print: Law Library Reference KF8700.A19B15  (2019).

  • Appellate court and general trial court judges.
  • Provides contact and biographical information for state court judges, as well as charts of each state's court structure.

U.S. Courts

  • This website contains links to federal courts around the country. Some include clerkship information.