Overview
PACER is a web-based system providing electronic public access to United States federal court records. It offers access to over 1 billion documents filed across all federal courts. Users can search for cases, access dockets, and retrieve documents. PACER provides APIs, including the PACER Authentication API and PACER Case Locator (PCL) API, enabling programmatic access for automated systems. Commercial users can leverage these APIs to create data scraping scripts, though large pulls are recommended during off-peak hours (6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Central Time) to avoid disruption. NextGen CM/ECF XML Case Opening and Docketing is supported allowing bankruptcy petition preparation software vendors to open a bankruptcy case in NextGen CM/ECF, following XML submission guidelines. The system integrates with CM/ECF, the case management/electronic case files system used in federal courts.
Common tasks
