U. S. Court of Appeals Briefs and Petitions

Westlaw not only has a database that provides access to selected briefs from the United States Courts of Appeals (CTA-BRIEF), but has also added a database that provides access to petitions from the United States Courts of Appeals (CTA-PETITION). Coverage varies by jurisdiction. Both databases contain PDF images of the briefs via a link called "Original Image of this Document with Appendix." There is an additional charge for the PDF version.

Some briefs in CTA-BRIEF also contain links to "Briefs & Other Related Documents" and copies of the opinion. Each Circuit has a different start date with the earliest coverage beginning in 1972 for the Firth Circuit. If you need to know the start date of a specific Circuit, click on the green "I" for information.