Empirical Research: Courts, Judges & Lawyers

General Materials

United States Supreme Court

Federal Courts of Appeal

Federal District Courts

State Courts

Foreign & International

• The History of the Federal Judiciary: includes some statistics on judicial salaries and judicial diversity.

• Bureau of Justice Statistics: includes statistics on corrections, courts, sentencing and probation.

• United States Courts Statistics: includes statistics on federal judicial caseloads, court managements and bankruptcy.

• Statical Resources from the American Bar Association: information on law firm size, law firm diversity. lawyer demographics & salaries.

• National Association for Law Placement: contains statistics on salaries, recruitment and hiring and diversity.

• Judicial Education Data: judicial branch education programming information from state and national provider.

• The Spaeth Supreme Court database: contains over 200 pieces of information for cases decided by the court from 1953 to 2017.

• US Supreme Court Amicus Curiae Database: this website contains a number of different datasets on different aspects of the US Supreme Court.

•  The US Supreme Court Justices Database contains information on individuals nominated (whether confirmed or not) to the US Supreme Court, starting with John Jay and continuing to Sonia Sotomayor.  There are 263 variables in the categories of background characteristics, nomination and confirmation, service on the court and departure from the bench.

• The Martin & Quinn Supreme Court Ideal Point Research: research on measuring the relative ideological position of Supreme Court Justices, from 1937 to 2008.

Back to Top

• The US Appeals Court database: includes information on cases from 1925 to 2010.

• Attributes of US Federal Judges Database: includes information on personal, social, economic, career and political attributes of judges at both US Courts of Appeals and District Court levels.  The Courts of Appeals dataset includes full information on judges who served from 1801 - 2000, and partial data on judges from 2000-2004.   
• Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base, 1970-2000: data originate from 94 district and 12 appellate courts offices.

Back to Top

• Attributes of US Federal Judges Database: includes information on personal, social, economic, career and political attributes of judges at both US Courts of Appeal and District Court levels.  The District Court Attributes dataset includes full information on judges who served from 1789 - 2000, and partial data on judges from 2000-2004.
• Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base, 1970-2000: data originate from 94 district and 12 appellate courts offices.

Back to Top

• State Supreme Court Data Project: contains information on State Supreme court decisions from 1995-1998.

• Court Statistics Project from the National Center for State Courts: includes information on state courts' structure and caseload.

• Judicial Elections Data Initiative: collects data on elections to state courts of last resort from 1990 to 2010.

• The State Court Organization data series: information on the structure and framework of state trial and appellate courts.  Includes information on selection and service requirements of judges, the governance, finance and administration of the judicial branch and the composition and workings of state juries.  Data were collected in 1980, 1987, 1993, 1998, 2004 and 2011.

• State Court Districts: from the US Census bureau, this site provides the State Court districts for each state.  It also has basic statistical information on each district, including information on the number of judges and how they are elected.

• National Census of State Court Prosecutors: located on the Bureau of Justice Statistics website, these reports provide information on prosecutorial activities nationwide.

• Punitive Damage Awards in Large Counties: by Thomas Cohen.

Back to Top

• The National High Courts Database: includes information on decisions by the high courts of eleven countries, over an extended period of time.  Countries include Canada, India, and Australia, amonst others.

•  European Court of Human Rights: statistics on cases and violations from 1959-2018. 

• Court of Justice of the European Union: the annual report of the ECJ includes statistics on the activitie of the Court of Justice as well as the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal.  Reports go back to 1997.

• Statistics Canada: created by the Canadian government's statistical agency, this website has surveys on a number of court-related issues such as youth courts, correctional services, and criminal and civil courts.

• International Courts Data: site provides access to datasets collected by scholars on institutions such as the ECJ, ECHR, ICJ and GATT/WTO, amongst others.

Back to Top