Accessing Court Documents in the Public Record

Altlaw.com - Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Cases

Cornell Law School - Legal Resources Search

Websupp.org - Database of Federal District Court Cases

Justia.com - Huge resource containing District, Circuit and Supreme Court decisions. This resource also contains summaries of different areas of law.

Lexis - Search free case law - Search the last ten years of State & Federal Courts and U.S. Supreme Court from 1781 to present. Limited access, must register.

U.S. Courts - Official site of the U.S. Courts (district, circuit, supreme, bankruptcy)

MSPB Appeals - Database of full board decisions (Petition for Review) made to initial decisions of the Merit Systems Protection Board

Public Use Law Libraries

State and Local - This page contains links to various state, county, and court law libraries.

Law School Libraries - This page contains links to law school libraries.

Other Legal Resource Collections

Attig Law Firm - Good blog resource on EEOC and MSPB law.

Federal Open Government Guide - Includes templates for filing FOIA requests, as well as information on the Privacy Act

Congressional Legislation - THOMAS database

Legistorm.com - Congressional salaries and Representative disclosures

MSPB Administrative Judge Handbook

EEOC Administrative Judge Handbook

EEOC Report of Investigation (ROI) content guide

Military Legal Resources - Includes a link to the JAG professional journal, "Army Lawyer."

US Attys' Bulletin - Bi-monthly publication taking on a myriad of legal issues, including discrimination

Whistleblower Law - A summary of cases that have stripped whistleblowers of their rights

MSPB Samples - Pleadings & Orders from my own pro se case

Free Pro Se Tools

Electronic C.F.R. - Code of Federal Regulations

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Legal Dictionary - from law.com

Date Calculator - Essential (free) tool for calculating deadlines

You can also try Wolfram Alpha. Enter a date for options, or enter a phrase like "30 days from today."

Pro Se Handbook - from the Northern District Court of California. Officially titled, "Handbook for Litigants without a Lawyer."

E-Transcript Viewer - Free viewing software for opening .ptx files from depositions (like Acrobat Reader, but for transcripts)

Federal Judge Biographies - The Federal Judicial Center contains the results of research on operations and procedures in the Judicial Branch. It also contains the biographies of all judges dating back to 1789.

The Robing Room - User forum of ratings for federal judges and magistrate judges

Templates

Deposition - Standard introductory language for commencing a deposition (MS Word format)

Sample Depo - Sample deposition

Form for submitting pleadings - This comes from AFGE and is entitled "Discovery in MSPB Proceedings." However, the template is standard in court pleadings. (PDF file)

Recommended Pro Se Tools

Adobe Acrobat Professional - This software is expensive ($450 retail), but necessary. It provides excellent character recognition of faxed or scanned documents, and can produce bates stamp numbering on your exhibits.

Rapidfax.com - For a low monthly fee, Rapid Fax provides you with a phone number and you can send and receive faxes by email. This has been a tremendous timesaver, and has reduced the resources necessary to conduct business.

 

If you've been helped by this site, could you help out with site maintenance costs and hosting? A little goes a long way.

Introduction

The purpose of this separate webpage is to assist federal employees attempting to navigate the administrative court systems on their own. In particular, those filing for a hearing at either the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (EEOC) will find this page to be geared toward their needs. Other Pro Se appellants (in or out of federal service) may also find this page to be useful for its resources.

For those beginning the process at the EEOC, check out the following flowchart at the Department of Transportation's website.

For those beginning the process at MSPB check out the following guide from the MSPB website.

You'll also want to have the electronic Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) on hand for reference as well.

Preparation & Training Materials

Preparing for the Hearing, webpage to a 39-minute video from the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings. It's informative, and broken down into pieces for easy viewing. This is not for MSPB or EEO per se, but the fundamentals are the same.

Pro se blog material from Government Accountability is Citizen's Responsibility

Introduction to Basic Legal Citation - by Peter W. Martin is available online at Cornell Law School's site. It is an excellent guide to formatting citations for use in pleadings.

Other Legal Education titles - available from the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell. A sampling of titles include Administrative Procedure, Civil Rights and the Federal Rules of Evidence. LII is also the organization that makes the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure available online (see right-hand link).

[Personal note: if you like what you see, or you use their site, please give generously to the Legal Information Institute (LII). LII reports that donations only cover 20% of their cost.]