Notifications
Court case notifications
If you are counsel of record in a federal case, the court already emails you the moment anything is filed, free and immediately, and no service can beat that. Everybody else — every self-represented litigant, and every case you are watching but not in — gets nothing from anyone.
Check the case you want to be told about
United States federal district courts — all 94 districts, including the territorial district courts. State, county and municipal courts are not supported yet.
No account needed to checkFederal courtsResults in seconds
Who gets told, and by whom
| You are | Does anything reach you? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Counsel of record in the case | Yes — the court's own filing notice, immediately, free. | Use it. Nothing here is faster. Come back for the matters you are not in. |
| Representing yourself | Usually nothing, unless your district lets you register for electronic filing. | Ask the clerk first. If the answer is no, this is what CaseMagic is for. |
| A party but not the filer's client | Whatever your lawyer forwards, when they get to it. | Watch the docket yourself if you want to know at the same time they do. |
| Watching a case you are not in | Nothing. Nobody owes you a notice. | This is the case a monitoring service exists for. |
What a notification has to contain to be worth opening
The test is whether you can act on it from the notification alone, on a phone, without logging into anything. Four things do that:
Which case, by name
The caption, not an account alert. “New filing in Smith v. Acme” tells you something; “CaseMagic notification” tells you to open an app.
What was filed, in the docket's words
The entry text as the court wrote it. An order to show cause reads very differently from a notice of appearance, and a summary flattens that.
When
The filing date, and the time the docket was read. Both, because they are not the same number and the difference is how stale your picture is.
Where to read it
A link to the free copy where one exists, and an honest statement when one does not, rather than a link that turns into a PACER bill.
Then the part a notification cannot do
Knowing that something was filed is half of it. The other half is understanding it, and a docket entry is written for the clerk, not for you. Every case you connect keeps a Case Passport — one structured record of the matter — and that record is what your AI assistant loads when you ask it what the latest order means. How that works.
Why PACER does not alert you · Docket alerts · Several matters at once
What is free and what is paid
Everything about the past is free. Everything about the future is paid. Checking a case costs nothing and needs no account.
Free, every time
- the case caption, court and case number
- the assigned and referred judges
- filing date, status, cause of action and nature of suit
- the total number of docket entries
- the five most recent docket entries with their real text
- a link to the free copy of a filing where one exists
- the time the docket was last checked
What a subscription adds
- continuous monitoring, so you are told about new activity instead of checking
- a permanent CaseMail address for the case
- the Case Passport, which accumulates docket activity and correspondence together
- access from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and other MCP-capable assistants
A free check reads the court source and then serves the same answer for 15 minutes. A watched case is re-checked about every 6 hours. Nothing here is real time, and every result carries the time it was last checked.
Pricing
Every plan includes Watch, CaseMail, the Case Passport and AI access. 7-day free trial, card required, cancel any time.
Individual
$99/month
1 monitored matter. One monitored matter.
Professional
$299/month
Up to 10 monitored matters. For a small practice with several active matters.
Practice
$599/month
Up to 50 monitored matters. For a firm running a full docket.
Questions people ask before they start
Does the court send notifications for free?
Yes, to registered filers in the case. The electronic filing system generates a Notice of Electronic Filing when a document is filed and emails it to counsel of record. It is immediate and it costs nothing. It is also the single most important fact on this page, and a monitoring service that hides it from an attorney is selling them something they already have.
I am representing myself. Can I get those notices?
Sometimes. Some districts allow a self-represented party to register for electronic filing and receive notices; others do not, and the rule is set district by district. Ask the clerk of your court directly — it is a two-minute question and if the answer is yes it is free.
So when is a paid notification worth anything?
When nobody is obliged to tell you. A case you are not counsel on: a client’s other litigation, a matter before you are retained, the docket on the other side of a deal, a competitor’s suit, a case you may join. Also when you want several cases in one place rather than in one inbox among the rest of your mail.
How fast is a CaseMagic notification?
Slower than a court notice, and the page says so rather than implying otherwise. A watched case is re-read on a schedule; new entries reach you after the next read, not at the instant of filing. If you are entitled to the court’s own notices, take those — they are faster and free.
What does the notification actually say?
What happened, when, in which case by name, the entry text as the docket has it, and a link to the free copy of the document where one exists. Not "you have an update".
Will it email me about things that are not real changes?
It tells you about docket entries it has not seen before. It does not invent "activity" out of a re-read of the same page, and it does not send a daily message when nothing happened.
Using it from an AI assistant
The same lookup and the same monitoring are available inside the assistant you already use. How that works · ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini · Grok