Sources of Legal Data

BJS is the primary statistical agency of the Department of Justice. It is one of the thirteen principal federal statistical agencies throughout the Executive Branch, agencies whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.
The mission of BJS is to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. BJS also provides financial and technical support to state, local, and tribal governments to improve both their statistical capabilities and the quality and utility of their criminal history records.

The Court Statistics Project (CSP) — a joint project of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) — publishes caseload data from the courts of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These data are provided by the offices of the state court administrator in those jurisdictions. The data reported here conform to the definitions and case counting rules in the State Court Guide to Statistical Reporting (Guide).  States publish their own data that may be more extensive, although not directly comparable to other states for a variety of reasons, including differences in court structure, case definitions and counting practices, court rules, statutes, or terminology.  The experience of the CSP staff, along with adherence to the Guide's reporting framework, ensures comparability of the data reported to CSP.

The purpose of this data collection is to provide an official public record of the business of the federal courts. The data originate from 100 court offices throughout the United States. Information was obtained at two points in the life of a case: filing and termination. The termination data contain information on both filing and terminations, while the pending data contain only filing information. For the appellate and civil data, the unit of analysis is a single case. The unit of analysis for the criminal data is a single defendant. Updated bi-annually with annual data.

These reports contain analysis, charts, and tables presenting data on the workload of the U.S. courts of appeals, district courts, and bankruptcy courts and of the federal probation and pretrial services system. Covers 12-month period ending March 31. Reports are released yearly, dating back to 2001.

The IDB contains data on civil case and criminal defendant filings and terminations in the district courts, along with bankruptcy court and appellate court case information from 1970 to the present. The FJC receives regular updates of the case-related data that are routinely reported by the courts to the AOUSC. The FJC then post-processes the data, consistent with the policies of the Judicial Conference of the United States governing access to these data, into a unified longitudinal database, the IDB.

This data collection provides comparable measures of state appellate and trial court caseloads by type of case for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Court caseloads are tabulated according to generic reporting categories developed by the Court Statistics and Technology Committee of the Conference of State Court Administrators. These categories describe differences in the unit of count and the point of count when compiling each court's caseload. Major areas of investigation include: (1) case filings in state appellate and trial courts, (2) case dispositions in state appellate and trial courts, and (3) appellate opinions. Within each of these areas of investigation, cases are separated by main case type. Types include civil cases, capital punishment cases, other criminal cases, juvenile cases, administrative agency appeals, and several other types. Updated annually.

This section of uscourts.gov provides statistical data and analysis on the business of the federal Judiciary. Specific publications address the work of the appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts; the probation and pretrial services systems; and other components of the U.S. courts.

The Supreme Court Database is the definitive source for researchers, students, journalists, and citizens interested in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Database contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1791 and 2023 terms. Examples include the identity of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed, the parties to the suit, the legal provisions considered in the case, and the votes of the Justices.

Includes a number of historical datasets related to federal and state campaign finance. Data and statistics are still gathered but published on OpenSecrets.org.

"Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, our mission is to serve as the trusted authority on money in American politics. We pursue our mission by providing comprehensive and reliable data, analysis and tools for policymakers, storytellers and citizens. Our vision is for Americans to use data on money in politics to create a more vibrant, representative and responsive democracy."

NOT from the U.S. Government but uses US Government data. "Data USA puts public US Government data in your hands. Instead of searching through multiple data sources that are often incomplete and difficult to access, you can simply point to Data USA to answer your questions. Data USA provides an open, easy-to-use platform that turns data into knowledge. It allows millions of people to conduct their own analyses and create their own stories about America – its people, places, industries, skill sets and educational institutions. Ultimately, accelerating society’s ability to learn and better understand itself."

StatsAmerica is a service of the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, with support from the Economic Development Administration. It compiles data from federal and state sources, which are cited on each data visualization.

Database which provides access to comprehensive, independent, and nonpartisan data about United States federal law enforcement, staffing, and spending.

Washington state-appointed data custodian for police use-of-force reporting requirements. Will include visualizations and analytical tools for reviewing statewide data. Agencies had to begin reporting use-of-force incident data in September 2025.

The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, and socializing.

BEA is an agency of the Department of Commerce. BEA produces economic accounts statistics that enable government and business decision-makers, researchers, and the American public to follow and understand the performance of the nation's economy. To do this, BEA collects source data, conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation methodologies, and disseminates statistics to the public.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), part of the Department of Transportation (DOT) is the preeminent source of statistics on commercial aviation, multimodal freight activity, and transportation economics, and provides context to decision makers and the public for understanding statistics on transportation.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (Forum) is a collection of 23 Federal government agencies involved in research and activities related to children and families. The Forum was founded in 1994 and formally established in April 1997 under Executive Order No. 13045. The mission of the Forum is to foster coordination and collaboration and to enhance and improve consistency in the collection and reporting of Federal data on children and families. The Forum also aims to improve the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children and families.

The United States Government’s open data site is designed to unleash the power of government open data to inform decisions by the public and policymakers, drive innovation and economic activity, achieve agency missions, and strengthen the foundation of an open and transparent government.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is a semi-independent agency under the U.S. Department of Energy and is the nation’s premier source for impartial energy information. By collecting, analyzing and sharing information on renewable energy, petroleum, natural gas, alternative fuels, and more, EIA helps policymakers and industry stakeholders make informed, data-driven decisions. To protect EIA’s independence and the public’s trust in their findings, EIA’s data, analyses, and forecasts are not approved or signed off on by any other officer or employee of the U.S. government.

The Environmental Protection Agency is an independent agency tasked with environmental protection matters. The Where to Find Data page on the EPA site contains links to data sets on topics including air quality, chemicals, toxic materials, and water quality.

This site is managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. HealthData.gov is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. Statistics such as student loan data, graduation rates, dropout rates are available.

The Census Bureau's mission is to serve as the nation’s leading provider of quality data about its people and economy. Data and reports include the American Community Survey, Census of Governments, Decennial Census of Population and Housing, and the Economic Census.

The survey provides information on how much consumers spend on a variety of product categories, based on age, occupation, income, and other demographics.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management.

This resource aggregates data about legal education, primarily from the American Bar Association, the Council of Graduate Schools, the Law School Admissions Council, the National Association for Law Placement, Rosenblatt's Deans Database, and the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics.

Database covering multiple facets of technology legal standards. Maintained by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.