Quick Answer: PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the U.S. federal government’s official court records system. Registration is free at pacer.gov. Searching case dockets is free. Downloading documents costs $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per filing — and new accounts receive a $30 fee waiver. PACER is the authoritative source for every federal lawsuit, consent decree, bankruptcy filing, and enforcement action in the country. No private service has more complete or more current federal court data.
PACER.gov is the official public record. It is not filtered, not summarized, and not curated. When a company gets sued in federal court — by a consumer, by the FTC, by the CFPB, by a state attorney general — that filing goes into PACER. It cannot be removed. It does not expire. It is there whether the company likes it or not.
I’ve used PACER for decades. The cases I’ve found there have told me more about financial companies than any review platform ever has. The problem is that most people don’t know it exists, and those who do often assume the fee structure makes it expensive. It doesn’t. Ten minutes of research on PACER typically costs less than a dollar — if it costs anything at all.
This guide covers exactly how PACER works, how to register, how to search, and what to do with what you find.
PACER is the public record. Everything else is commentary.— Steve Rhode
What PACER Actually Is
PACER — Public Access to Court Electronic Records — is operated by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. It has been the official federal court records system since the early 1990s. Every federal district court, bankruptcy court, and appellate court in the country participates. Over a billion documents are in the system.
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When attorneys file motions, complaints, or orders with a federal court, they do it through CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) — the filing system. PACER is the public access interface to those same records. What an attorney files, you can read. The delay is usually hours, not days.
PACER covers three categories of federal courts:
- U.S. District Courts — civil and criminal cases, including FTC and CFPB enforcement actions, FDCPA suits, class actions
- U.S. Bankruptcy Courts — company bankruptcy filings, Chapter 7 and 11 cases, adversary proceedings
- U.S. Courts of Appeals — appellate decisions on cases that went up from district courts
PACER’s Fee Structure — The Numbers That Matter
The fee structure is simpler than most people think:
PACER Cost Breakdown:
Registration: Free
Searching case dockets: Free
Downloading documents: $0.10 per page
Maximum per document: $3.00 (30 pages cap)
New user waiver: $30 free credit
Quarterly exemption: No charge if your total use is under $30 in a quarter
The quarterly exemption is worth understanding: if you access less than $30 worth of PACER documents in any given quarter, you are not charged at all. For most people doing occasional company research, PACER costs nothing. The $0.10/page fee only kicks in if you exceed $30 in a three-month period — which requires downloading a substantial number of documents.
The $30 New User Waiver: Every new PACER account receives a $30 fee waiver. That’s 300 pages of documents, or roughly 100 typical court filings, at no cost. For researching a single company, the waiver usually covers everything you need before you ever pay a cent.
How to Register for PACER
Registration takes about five minutes. Here’s the process:
- Go to pacer.gov and click “Register for an Account” or “Sign Up”
- Choose account type: Select “Individual” for personal research. You will need a name, address, and email address.
- Set up billing: You’ll enter a credit card number, but you won’t be charged unless you exceed the quarterly $30 threshold or use more than your new-user waiver. The card is for billing if you become a heavy user.
- Receive login credentials: PACER mails your username and password by USPS — not email. This takes 7-10 days. Factor this into your timeline if you need access urgently.
- Pro tip: Register now, before you need it. The mail delay is the one friction point. If you register today, you’ll have access whenever you need it next month.
The Mail Delay Is Real: PACER sends credentials by postal mail as an identity verification measure. If you need to research a company urgently, CourtListener (the nonprofit free alternative) can handle most searches immediately with no registration. See my dedicated CourtListener and RECAP guide for the free first step. PACER is for when you need completeness or recency that CourtListener can’t provide.
Navigating PACER: The Three Core Tools
Once your account is active, you have three main ways to find information. Understanding which tool to use for which purpose saves time and money.
1. PACER Case Locator — Start Here for Company Research
The PACER Case Locator (pcl.uscourts.gov) is a nationwide index. It searches across all federal courts simultaneously instead of searching one court at a time. For company research, this is the right starting point.
Search options relevant to company research:
- Party name search: Enter the company name and search all federal courts at once. You’ll see a list of cases where that entity appears as a plaintiff or defendant.
- Date range filter: Narrow to a specific time period — helpful if you want recent activity only.
- Court type filter: Separate civil from bankruptcy filings in a single search.
The Case Locator search itself is free. You only pay when you click into an individual docket or download a document.
2. Individual Court PACER Search — For Specific Courts
If you know a case was filed in a specific district (e.g., Northern District of California for a Bay Area company), searching the individual court directly gives you access to the full docket immediately. Every federal court has its own PACER portal, accessible from the court’s website.
3. PACER Docket Search — Within a Known Case
Once you’ve found a case in the Case Locator, click through to the individual court’s PACER system. This shows you the full docket — every filing in the case, in order, with dates and document titles. The docket itself is free to view. Documents cost $0.10/page to download.
Step-by-Step: Researching a Financial Company on PACER
Step 1: Identify the Legal Entity Name
Before searching, find the company’s actual registered legal name. Brand names appear in court records inconsistently. The legal entity name appears on every filing. Find it in:
- Any contract you’ve signed with the company (the header line has the legal name)
- Your state’s Secretary of State business entity search
- The BBB profile (which lists the full legal business name)
Step 2: Search the PACER Case Locator
Go to pcl.uscourts.gov. Search the legal entity name as a party. You’ll get a list of federal cases across all courts. Note the court, the case number, the date filed, and whether the company is listed as plaintiff or defendant.
Step 3: Open the Docket in the Court’s PACER System
Click through to any relevant case. The docket page lists every filing in chronological order. The docket view itself is free. Scan the docket entries for:
- Document 1 — Complaint: The original filing describing what the company allegedly did
- Motion to Dismiss: The company’s attempt to end the case early — and whether it succeeded
- Order on Class Certification: A judge’s decision on whether to allow a class action to proceed
- Consent Decree or Judgment: The final resolution in government enforcement cases
- Stipulation of Dismissal: Usually means settlement — the case went away, often with a payment
Step 4: Download the Key Documents
You don’t need every document. The three most valuable are:
- The complaint (Document 1): Describes exactly what the plaintiff alleges, with specific facts and dates. Written in plain language by attorneys who face sanctions for false statements.
- The consent decree or settlement agreement: In government enforcement cases, this is the key document — it lists what the company agreed to stop doing and what it paid.
- Class certification order: If a judge certified a class, that means they found the claims credible enough to allow thousands of plaintiffs to proceed together.
A typical complaint is 20-40 pages. At $0.10/page, that’s $2-4 per document. Your $30 new-user waiver covers roughly 10-15 complaints.
Step 5: Check Bankruptcy Court Separately
Civil lawsuits and bankruptcy cases are in separate court systems. A search of district courts won’t surface a company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. In the PACER Case Locator, run a separate search filtered to “Bankruptcy Courts” using the same company name. A company that has filed for bankruptcy while holding consumer advance fees is a significant red flag.
What to Look For: Case Types That Matter Most
FTC and CFPB Enforcement Actions
These carry the most weight of any case type. When the Federal Trade Commission or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau files in federal court, they’ve already completed an investigation. They have documents, witnesses, and financial records. A consent decree or court-approved order means the agency found the practices harmful enough to require a federal court order to stop.
In PACER, these cases appear as: Federal Trade Commission v. [Company Name] or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. [Company Name].
Class Action Lawsuits
A class action means the harm wasn’t isolated — it was systematic. When a court certifies a class, a judge has found that the claims are credible and affect enough people to be litigated as a group. A 40,000-member class means 40,000 people had experiences similar enough to satisfy a legal standard.
Settlement ≠ Innocence: Companies settle cases to avoid the cost of litigation, not because they’re innocent. When you see a $20 million settlement, read what it required the company to do — refund customers, change practices, submit to monitoring. The settlement terms tell you more than the dollar amount.
FDCPA and Consumer Finance Cases
Debt collectors and financial companies get sued regularly under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. A single FDCPA case is low-signal. A company with 200 FDCPA cases in five years has a business model built on crossing lines and paying small settlements. PACER’s Case Locator shows volume — search the company name and count the cases in district courts.
State Attorney General Actions
State attorneys general bring cases in federal court when they’re pursuing injunctive relief across state lines or working with federal agencies. Search “Attorney General” [state name] [company name] to find these. They often appear alongside or just before FTC actions against the same company.
When You Need PACER vs. CourtListener
The nonprofit Free Law Project runs CourtListener.com — a free, no-registration tool that puts a public interface on PACER records. For most initial company research, CourtListener handles the job without any cost or registration. Use PACER when:
- You need recent filings: CourtListener lags PACER by 30-90 days. If a company was sued last month, PACER has it; CourtListener may not yet.
- You need a specific document not available for free: CourtListener shows you what exists; PACER lets you download anything, immediately.
- You need to confirm completeness: CourtListener’s coverage depends on community contributions. PACER is authoritative — if it’s not in PACER, it wasn’t filed.
- You need bankruptcy court records: CourtListener’s bankruptcy coverage is thinner than its district court coverage. PACER’s bankruptcy system is complete.
Best Workflow: Start with CourtListener for a free baseline search. If you find cases you want to read fully, or if you need to verify nothing was missed recently, log into PACER. The $30 new-user waiver and quarterly exemption mean most company research costs nothing. See the complete CourtListener and RECAP guide for the free-first-step process.
How PACER Fits Into the Full Research Stack
Federal court records are the third of four sources I use for any financial company. Each catches a different kind of harm:
The Four-Source Research Stack:
CFPB Complaint Database → Consumer reports to federal regulators (2 minutes, no cost, no account)
BBB Complaint Narratives → Consumer narratives (5 minutes — skip the letter grade, read the actual complaints)
CourtListener / PACER → Federal court records (3 minutes on CourtListener; PACER for completeness)
Trustpilot Pattern Check → Review distribution shape and 1-star narratives (3 minutes)
The full process takes about 13 minutes. The reason to use all four is that each catches what the others miss. A company can have hundreds of CFPB complaints and a 4.7-star Trustpilot score simultaneously — those two numbers only make sense together. Court records are the hardest to fake: nobody can remove a federal lawsuit. Here’s the complete guide to vetting any debt relief company.
A Fair Word About Lawsuits
A lawsuit is an allegation. It is not a finding of guilt. Anyone can file a civil lawsuit against any company for almost any reason, and many filed cases have no merit.
What matters is pattern and source:
- One private lawsuit over ten years — normal, tells you little
- Government enforcement action (FTC, CFPB) — serious, worth reading in full
- Ten private lawsuits with the same allegation in three years — pattern, worth significant weight
- Class action certification — a judge found the claims credible enough to allow thousands of plaintiffs to proceed together
- Multiple settlements without admission of wrongdoing — the company paid rather than defend, which has its own meaning
The company that wants you to trust them with your finances should be able to withstand ten minutes of PACER research. Most legitimate companies can. The ones that can’t have already answered your question.
Key Takeaways
- PACER.gov is the official government source — every federal lawsuit, enforcement action, and bankruptcy filing is there
- Registration is free; searching dockets is free; documents cost $0.10/page with a $3.00 cap per filing
- New accounts receive a $30 fee waiver — enough for extensive company research at no cost
- The quarterly exemption means you pay nothing if total usage is under $30 in any quarter
- Register now — credentials arrive by postal mail and take 7-10 days
- Start with the PACER Case Locator (pcl.uscourts.gov) to search all federal courts simultaneously
- Search bankruptcy courts separately — civil docket searches don’t surface company bankruptcy filings
- Government enforcement actions (FTC, CFPB) carry far more weight than private lawsuits
Frequently Asked Questions
Is PACER really free to use?
Registration is free. Searching case dockets and the nationwide Case Locator is free. Downloading documents costs $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per document. New accounts receive a $30 fee waiver, which covers most company research. The quarterly exemption means you pay nothing if your total PACER usage is under $30 in any three-month period. For most people doing occasional research, PACER never costs anything.
How do I register for PACER?
Go to pacer.gov and click “Register for an Account.” Select “Individual” as the account type. You’ll need your name, address, email, and a credit card for billing setup. The important caveat: PACER mails your login credentials by postal mail, which takes 7-10 days. Register now rather than when you urgently need access. Until credentials arrive, CourtListener.com provides free access to most significant federal cases with no registration.
What is the PACER Case Locator?
The PACER Case Locator (pcl.uscourts.gov) is a free, nationwide index of all federal cases. It searches across all federal courts simultaneously — you enter a party name and it returns matching cases from every district in the country, along with which court, the case number, and the filing date. It is the correct starting point for company research because it shows you everything at once rather than searching one court at a time.
Can I find state court records on PACER?
No. PACER covers only federal courts — U.S. district courts, bankruptcy courts, and appellate courts. State court records are not included. For state court records, search your state court’s own website directly, or check your state attorney general’s enforcement database for regulatory actions brought at the state level. Many of the most significant consumer protection cases are federal, but state cases can be important for regionally concentrated companies.
What does a consent decree tell me about a company?
A consent decree is a court-approved agreement in which a company settles a government enforcement case — typically with the FTC, CFPB, or state attorney general. The company usually doesn’t admit wrongdoing but agrees to specific terms. Those terms are public and typically include: prohibited practices (exactly what the company agreed to stop doing), monetary relief (refunds to consumers or civil penalties), and ongoing monitoring requirements. A consent decree means regulators found the practices harmful enough to require a federal court order to stop them.
What if I find no federal court cases against a company?
It’s a positive data point — but not a clean bill of health. A company can generate substantial consumer harm without anyone filing a federal lawsuit: the harm may be too small per consumer to justify litigation, the company may settle quickly before filing, or complaints may be channeled through arbitration clauses. Check the CFPB complaint database and BBB complaint narratives separately. The absence of federal cases combined with clean results in those two sources is meaningful. The absence of federal cases alone is one input, not a conclusion.
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