Data

The Comprehensive Courts of Appeals Database (CCAD) will be made publicly available upon publication of the methods paper.

The dataset will be deposited at the Harvard Dataverse and distributed in the following formats:

• Stata (.dta)
• R (.rds)
• Comma-separated values (.csv)
• Apache Parquet (.parquet)

Each release will be assigned a persistent digital object identifier (DOI). Users should cite the specific version used (see Citation).

Coverage

The database covers all published opinions issued by the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1892 through 2025. Variables include case identifiers, panel composition, litigant types, issue area, disposition, and ideological direction codings calibrated to the Songer and Supreme Court Databases.

Updates

The database will be updated on an annual basis to incorporate newly issued opinions. Version history will be maintained at the Dataverse deposit.

Data download links will appear here upon release.