Judge and Disclosure Database
For the benefit of researchers, practitioners, and the public we are proud to host a comprehensive and growing structured database of judges and their financial interests.
The database contains information about more than sixteen thousand state and federal judges, making it a treasure trove for those wishing to do judicial analytics. This data has been sourced from books, court websites, commercial data sources, public records requests, and federal financial disclosure forms.
Information currently includes biographical data about each person, their financial disclosure records, the roles they have held before, during and after their time in the judicial branch, their political affiliations, their education, and any retention events that kept them in a judicial position (such as a reappointment).
The financial disclosure information is a one-of-a-kind resource that we built by processing over 250,000 pages of disclosure forms. It has information about:
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Over 1.7 million investment records.
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Around 14,000 sources of income outside of regular investments.
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More than 1,900 gifts received by federal judges.
This collection was used by the Wall Street Journal in their groundbreaking series on judicial conflicts of interest.
In 2023, ProPublica utilized our dataset for an ambitious investigation into the Supreme Court, which led to their winning the prestigious public service Pulitzer Prize in 2024. The Pulitzer committee praised ProPublica's "groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court." This recognition underscores the critical importance of judicial transparency and the impact of our database in supporting investigative journalism.
We hope this database, its APIs, and its bulk data will be valuable tools for practitioners and researchers across the country.
Free Law Project created this project with support from and in collaboration with Pre/Dicta, Justia, Elliott Ash of Princeton University, the National Science Foundation, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
What's next?
The database is a constant work in progress, and we are regularly adding more judges and financial information. We need your support to do more of this work.
To learn more about this data, or to get involved, please get in touch or see the related blog posts.