Search the Record

10.5 million opinions, word for word

Annlex searches the full text of 10.5 million American court opinions from 3,355 courts across 365 years. Every result is the opinion itself, not a summary of it.

Three ways to search

Boolean search matches the words you type. Put a phrase in quotes for an exact match, join alternatives with OR, and exclude a word with a minus sign. It is literal and fast, and it is the mode to use when you know the language the court used. Typing a case caption like Miranda v. Arizona goes straight to the case.

Semantic search matches meaning. It finds opinions that make the same argument in different words, which makes it the mode to use when you know the concept but not the vocabulary.

Hybrid runs both and blends the rankings. It is the default, and a sound starting point when you are not sure which you need.

Narrow the field

Advanced search filters by court, judge, year range, docket number, precedential status, and citation count, so a query can ask for only published Ninth Circuit opinions since 1990, or only cases cited at least a thousand times. Filters apply to the full text of Boolean results. Semantic and hybrid results are matched on meaning first, so court, judge, and docket filters may not fully constrain them. Results are ranked by relevance unless you sort by date or citations. When you find the case that matters, Opinion Lens checks what the opinion actually says, passage by passage, against its own text.