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Our Financial Disclosure Database is Now Available to All

Michael Lissner

Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published their blockbuster report detailing over 100 judges that had likely violated the Ethics in Government act.

To do their work, the Wall Street Journal reporters had exclusive access to our database of financial disclosures.

Today we are making the database available to all.

Included in the database are:

  • Over 250,000 pages of financial records dating from 2003-2020, with complete coverage of every judge, justice, and magistrate between 2011 and 2018.

  • Over 1.5 million investment records.

  • Around 12,000 sources of income outside of regular investments.

  • More than 1,700 gifts received by federal judges.

And a lot more. We have made a huge effort to gather every possible disclosure. Read our coverage page for caveats and details.

If you know of sources we have not added or know of disclosures stuffed in drawers or closets, please get in touch. We'll put those documents online.

APIs and CourtListener

Starting today, this data is available in two new ways.

First, we have integrated this data into the CourtListener website, where you can look up any judge and see their disclosures.

For every judge that you look up, you will see a detailed page with all the data we have extracted, including their investments, gifts, spousal income, other sources of income and more.

A screenshot of Ginsberg's disclosures
A screenshot of disclosures for Justice Ginsberg.

Of course, we have made a simple downloadable PDF of every disclosure as well.

Visit the Disclosure Homepage

Second, because we know that some of you will have bigger ambitions for this data, today we are launching a new API for financial disclosures.

This API powers the CourtListener website above, and gives you access to all the information in the system.

This API is still in beta and may change over time, but is available starting immediately.

Read the API Docs

I cannot express how gratifying this launch is today. This project has been in the works for many years, and our fervent hope is that this new database will be used by others.

Working together is how we will make the legal ecosystem more transparent, equitable, and competitive. Let's do this!

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