The purpose of this data collection is to provide an official public record of the business of the federal courts. The data originate from 94 district and 12 appellate 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.
