California Courts, Decisions & Rules
Court Decisions, Forms, Judicial Profiles
- Cases @ LSNC.net – trenchant summaries of select cases of interest to legal services attorneys, including California Appeals and California Supreme Court decisions (1999 – present).
- California Courts @ Judicial Council
- Recent Opinions – Supreme Court and Appellate Court – download opinions issued in the last 120 days, first place to look for decisions issued today.
- California Official Reports @ Lexis|Nexis – all of California’s precedential appellate decisions, dating from 1850 to the present. Opinions are searchable by Official Reports citation; docket number; issues; and names of parties, judges, justices, and appellate counsel. This free service also provides downloads of court decisions in multiple formats (Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, as well as RTF and TXT formats. (Caveat: Basic access to opinions is free but Lexis-based services listed on the left-navigation menu at this site are proprietary and are not free.)
- Archived Opinions – decisions posted her after 120 days; caveat: these are "as-filed" versions of opinions; post-filing corrections are not reflected in these opinions, and modifications are not integrated; better option may be to use California Official Reports described above.
- Oral Argument Calendars – Supreme Court and Appellate Court – download copies of oral argument calendars posted for individual courts in last 120 hours, and for all courts in last 120 days.
- Supreme Court of California Practices and Procedures – internal operating practices and procedures, as adopted by the California Supreme Court.
- Judicial Council Reference – repository for reports, statistics and other institutional documents produced by the Administrative Office of the Courts and Judicial Council task forces and committees.
- California Appellate Courts Case Information System – provides online access to case information, calendar listings and e-mail notifications.
- District Courts of Appeal (DCA) – recent opinions by DCA, local rules, judge bios, and more:
- California Case Law @ FindLaw – remember when FDR was President? You don’t? Well, actually, to be honest neither do we. But that’s how far back FindLaw now offers free online access to California Supreme Court and Appellate Court decisions, back to 1934!
- California Case Law Slip Opinions @ FindLaw – archived copies of Supreme Court and Appellate Court slip opinions back to October 1996, originally available on the Web at the Judicial Council of California site, above.
- California Court System @ FedCourts.com – includes California-specific federal, state and local court resources.
- Judicial Profiles @ Appellate Counsellor
California and Local Court Rules
Superior and Municipal Court Websites
Specialized California Court Resources
- Self-Help Center @ Judicial Council – killer site, innovative prototype for online pro se and other self-help legal resources, with info about the California court system, family law, domestic violence, small claims, juvenile law, guardianships, and more.
California State Bar Association
California State Bar Publications
- Publications – comprehensive, alphabetical listing of bar publications, many available as free downloads.
- California Bar Journal – official monthly publication of the California State Bar.
- California Lawyer – online version of monthly "unofficial" bar journal, most articles free online after one month.
- Consumer Information @ California State Bar – offers a wide range of over 20 legal guides and pamphlets for the non-lawyer, including:
Ethics Resources
