NEW: The Court is soliciting public comment on proposed U.S. Tag Court Rules.

Court Resources for Self Represented Litigants Pro Per

First, click here to access the form and instructions for starting your case.

ISM-1 provides an overview on civil procedure. The Court recommends you read it if you are pursuing a case.

Legal Research

To access articles on legal ideas and topics, try:

• Wex, which is one of the most comprehensive legal encyclopedias on the internet. The articles are more detailed with more citations to cases.
• Wikipedia, which is the largest encyclopedia on Earth. Its writing and coverage on legal topics, though, are inferior compared to Wex.
• Simple English Wikipedia, which breaks down legal topics in an easily-understandable manner. But it covers only basic legal topics.
• American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum are the most authoritative and complete legal encyclopedias, but they are expensive and only available at the law library or by using LexisNexis or Westlaw.

Looking Up Laws

If you know a law's citation, you can look it up at the Legal Information Institute. For federal law or regulations, you can also get it from Congress's OLRC or the eCFR from the National Archives. For Florida state statutes, the Florida Legislature has also put up a copy online. All states host a copy of their laws online. You can access each state's website through the state's abbreviation (e.g., NM.gov goes to New Mexico's state government.)

If you don't know a law's citation, first look it up online. For example, Wikipedia has statutory citations for U.S. laws under Codification as well as Public Law and Statutes at Large citations. For more recent federal laws, you can look up popular names or bill numbers on Congress.gov or doing the same for state laws through the Florida House or Senate websites. Or, you can look up law names in a Popular Names Table.

All or most states have adopted uniform laws like the Uniform Commercial Code that offer uniformity in state law.

Looking Up Cases

Accessing Cases

Tools like Google Scholar, Justia, and Casetext can be used for general searches of caselaw. For federal cases, try browsing GPO's federal court rulings. For more detailed sources, use the list below:

• U.S. Supreme Court: Look up recent opinions and editions of the U.S. Reports dating back to 1991 on the Supreme Court's website. Wikipedia offers listings of cases reported in the U.S. Reports. While the Supreme Court's website is best for recent cases, past cases are often readily available on other search tools like Google Scholar. Justia also provides the U.S. Reports online.
• U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal: Court of Appeal opinions are published in the Federal Reporter (F.), now in its 4th series (F. 4d). Court of Appeal websites often allow you to search recent opinions, often starting around 2000. The websites for the Courts of Appeal are ca*.uscourts.gov, where * is the circuit number. For example, ca9.uscourts.gov goes to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Barring that, you can look on the general resources above, or access Justia's court of appeals page, where you can browse cases by circuit court or in editions of the Federal Reporter.
• U.S. District Courts: Not all district court cases are published. Those that are published in the Federal Supplement (F. Supp.), now in its second series (F. Supp. 2d), can be looked up through Justia which also offers searching by state. You can also try GPO's federal court case collection above. For more recent cases, you can look them up on the court's website, through CourtListener, or even through PACER.
• Florida Supreme Court: Justia offers Florida Supreme Court decisions by year. The Florida Supreme Court's official website also has recent opinions and an opinion archive.
• Florida District Courts of Appeal: The Appellate Case Search on the website of the Florida Supreme Court not only searches Supreme Court opinions but District Court of Appeal opinions as well. The websites of the District Courts of Appeal (in the format *dca.flcourts.gov) also have access to the Opinion Archive tool. Barring that, Justia also has opinions from the DCAs.
• Florida Circuit/County Courts: Because decisions of these courts are not published, it can be far harder to find a case that supports your view. You can still try to access a case from the website of the county Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, though.
• Other States' Courts: Often cases of the higher courts are easy to find and use. First, try Google Scholar, Casetext, or Justia as these are often easier to use than state websites. If you can't find it there, consider going to the website of the court whose decision you want to find. Look for an Opinions link. If your court dosen't have a website, consider searching for one that covers the whole state, like courts.ca.gov.

Is Your Case Any Good?

First, check whether your case is still good law. If you have a case from SCOTUS or the Florida Supreme Court, a cursory online check to see if it's been overruled is probably sufficent. If it's from an appeals court, look up the case online to see if it's been ruled upon by a higher court. If it's from a trial court, do some more due diligence in order to make sure your case is still good law. There are other processes to do these checks, but unless you're in the law library or subscribed to an expensive legal service like LexisNexis or Westlaw, you should do your due diligence online so you can ensure your case is still good law.

For recent cases still pending appeal, our recommendation is not to cite those. Citations from trial courts are typically less persuasive than those from appallate courts as trial courts find the facts but appeals courts find the law.

Other Resources

Legal Books

Nolo is the pioneer in making the law accessible through books, software, and online resources. Some titles that may help you are: (* designates availability through the Seminole County Library)

• *Represent Yourself in Court provides a guide to formal court, including procedures, paperwork, and trial.
• *Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court provides information on small claims court, including negotiating a settlement, building a persuasive case, and collecting your money.
• *Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law provides a much more comprehensive legal research toolkit than the basic tools discussed above.
• *The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive The System provides in-depth information on every aspect of criminal law, from arrest to trial.
• *Nolo's Deposition Handbook provides practical advice on discovery and depositions.
• *Nolo's Encyclopedia of Everyday Law overviews lots of legal subjects, including court cases.

For more specific areas of law, Nolo offers books on real estate*, immigration*, patents and intellectual property*, business*, and more.