Methodology
JudicialFinder is built from authoritative, public-domain records — and the build is a pure function of those records, so anyone can audit how a page came to say what it says.
Sources of truth
Different sources are authoritative for different facts, so we resolve each field to the source that owns it:
- Federal Judicial Center (FJC) Biographical Directory — judicial service, dates, seats, and seat succession for every Article III judge since 1789. Public domain.
- CourtListener / Free Law Project — opinions, the citation graph, and financial disclosures (from the public-domain bulk data). Public domain.
- Wikidata — cross-identifiers and portraits. CC0.
- Congress.gov + U.S. Senate roll-call records — nominations and confirmation votes. Public domain.
Connecting the same judge across sources
A judge appears in several datasets under different identifiers. We link them deterministically first — via the ID bridges the sources publish (the FJC nid, CourtListener’s fjc_id, a Wikidata QID) — then by an exact normalized key. Anything still ambiguous is proposed, never auto-merged: it goes to a human review queue rather than silently guessing.
Measured vs. computed
We separate what a record states (a confirmation vote, an appointment date) from what we compute from records (years of service, rankings). Computed figures show their formula. We don’t publish outcome predictions.
Accuracy & corrections
A validation gate runs on every build and blocks deploy if invariants break (an appointment with no judge, impossible overlapping tenures, a dangling link). Pages carry a visible “data last verified” date. Found something wrong? Tell us, and cite the primary source — we correct against the record.
Informational only; not legal advice. Verify against the primary source before relying on anything here. Not a consumer report (FCRA): not for credit, employment, insurance, or tenant-screening use.