The Federal Court System

Covers: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Puerto Rico

The 1st Circuit is the smallest of the regional circuits by authorized judgeships, with just six seats, and it consistently carries one of the lightest caseloads of the 13 circuits.

Its territory includes the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico, making it the only regional circuit whose docket regularly includes appeals arising from a legal system shaped by Puerto Rico's Spanish civil-law history.

Justice Stephen Breyer served on the 1st Circuit from 1980, including four years as its chief judge, until President Clinton elevated him to the Supreme Court in 1994. Justice David Souter was confirmed to the same court in 1990 but was nominated to the Supreme Court months later, before he heard a single case on it.

It traces its roots to the Eastern Circuit, one of the three circuits created by the Judiciary Act of 1789; the numbered First Circuit and its court of appeals date to 1891. Its principal courthouse, the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse on Boston Harbor, opened in 1998.

Covers: Connecticut, New York, Vermont

Because its territory includes New York City, the 2nd Circuit hears an outsized share of the nation's securities, banking, and corporate law appeals, giving it influence over financial regulation far beyond its three-state territory.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor served on the 2nd Circuit for more than a decade before her 2009 Supreme Court appointment, one of several justices whose careers passed through this court.

Judge Learned Hand sat on the 2nd Circuit from 1924 to 1961 and remains one of the most frequently quoted lower-court judges in American law; his cousin Augustus Hand served alongside him. Thurgood Marshall was a 2nd Circuit judge from 1961 to 1965 before leaving to become U.S. Solicitor General.

The circuit also carries one of the country's heaviest immigration dockets, driven by the volume of removal cases arising in the New York City area, and it sits at the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse on Foley Square in Manhattan.

Covers: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, U.S. Virgin Islands

More than half of all U.S. publicly traded companies are incorporated in Delaware, so the 3rd Circuit frequently hears federal appeals touching corporate governance and shareholder disputes that shape business law nationwide.

Its territory also includes the U.S. Virgin Islands, making it one of only two regional circuits, along with the 1st, that includes a Caribbean U.S. territory.

Justice Samuel Alito served on the 3rd Circuit from 1990 until his Supreme Court appointment in 2006. The circuit's District of New Jersey is also one of the busiest venues in the country for pharmaceutical patent litigation, because so many drug companies are headquartered in the state.

The court has 14 authorized judgeships and is headquartered at the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia.

Covers: Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia

Because Virginia and Maryland are home to the CIA, NSA, and the Pentagon, the 4th Circuit hears an unusually large share of national-security and classified-information appeals compared with other circuits.

It also covers the Eastern District of Virginia, nicknamed the 'Rocket Docket' for having some of the fastest case-resolution times of any federal trial court, which shapes the pace of appeals reaching this circuit.

The 4th Circuit decided the government's early 'enemy combatant' appeals after the September 11 attacks, including the Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla cases, because both men were held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, within the circuit; the Supreme Court reviewed both.

For much of the late 20th century the 4th was regarded as the most consistently conservative federal appeals court, though its makeup shifted after a run of appointments beginning in 2009.

Covers: Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas

Until 1981, the 5th Circuit also included Alabama, Florida, and Georgia; Congress split off those states to create the new 11th Circuit because the original 5th's caseload had grown too large for one court to manage.

Before that split, the undivided 5th Circuit issued many of the landmark rulings that enforced school desegregation across the Deep South in the years following Brown v. Board of Education.

With 17 authorized judgeships covering Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, the modern 5th Circuit hears a large volume of immigration and border-enforcement appeals because of its position along the southern border, and it sits at the John Minor Wisdom U.S. Courthouse in New Orleans.

Covers: Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee

In 2014, the 6th Circuit became the only federal appeals court to uphold state bans on same-sex marriage, creating a circuit split that the Supreme Court resolved the following year in Obergefell v. Hodges.

The circuit's territory sits entirely within the industrial Midwest and Upland South, and its docket has historically included a large share of labor and employment law appeals tied to the region's manufacturing base.

The 6th Circuit also heard the University of Michigan affirmative-action cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, en banc in 2002 before the Supreme Court took them up and decided both in 2003.

Covers: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin

Judge Richard Posner, a pioneer of the law-and-economics movement in legal scholarship, served on the 7th Circuit for more than three decades and authored thousands of opinions that remain widely cited today.

The 7th Circuit covers just three states, one of the smallest territories among the regional circuits, but is frequently cited by legal scholars for the analytical rigor of its opinions.

Frank Easterbrook, another founder of the law-and-economics school, also served on the court and was its chief judge from 2006 to 2013. The circuit sits at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

Covers: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

The 8th Circuit covers seven states, second only to the 9th Circuit's nine, stretching from the Canadian border in North Dakota down to Arkansas.

Despite its large territory, the 8th Circuit has a comparatively low population and caseload relative to circuits like the 9th or 2nd, since much of its region is rural.

Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, served on the 8th Circuit from 1959 until his Supreme Court appointment in 1970, spending more time as a lower-court judge than most modern justices.

Covers: Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, N. Mariana Islands

The 9th Circuit is the largest in the country, by far. It covers about 20% of the U.S. population and more than 40% of U.S. land mass. Because of its size and the historically liberal lean of its rulings, it's also the most controversial and the most reversed by the Supreme Court. There have been long-standing proposals to split it into two circuits, but Congress has never acted on them.

Scholars note that the 9th Circuit's high number of total reversals partly reflects how many of its cases the Supreme Court agrees to hear in the first place, its reversal rate, the share of accepted cases that get overturned, is closer to other circuits' rates than the raw reversal count suggests.

With 29 authorized judgeships, the 9th is too large to seat every active judge for a rehearing, so Congress lets it hold a 'limited en banc' with an 11-judge panel, the chief judge plus ten drawn by lot, a practice used by no other circuit.

Justice Anthony Kennedy served on the 9th Circuit from 1975 until President Reagan elevated him to the Supreme Court in 1988.

Covers: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming

Justice Neil Gorsuch served more than a decade on the 10th Circuit before his 2017 Supreme Court appointment, continuing a tradition of the court producing federal appellate judges who move on to the nation's highest bench.

The 10th Circuit's six-state territory spans both the Rocky Mountain West and the southern Great Plains, giving it a docket that regularly includes federal land, energy, and Native American tribal law disputes.

The circuit is headquartered at the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in Denver, named for the Colorado-born justice who sat on the Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993.

Covers: Alabama, Florida, Georgia

Created in 1981 when Congress split the old 5th Circuit, the 11th Circuit inherited many of that court's landmark civil rights precedents as binding law for its own three states.

Florida's large population means the 11th Circuit now carries one of the heavier caseloads among the regional circuits, despite covering only three states.

Because it includes the Southern District of Florida in Miami, the 11th Circuit hears a heavy volume of international drug-trafficking, immigration, extradition, and maritime cases that arrive through South Florida's ports and airports.

Covers: District of Columbia, handles most federal agency and government cases

Don't underestimate the D.C. Circuit because it only covers one city. It's often called the "second most powerful court in America" because it handles virtually all challenges to federal agency rules and regulations, from the EPA to the FCC to the SEC. If a federal agency does something, and someone sues, it usually lands here. Many Supreme Court justices come from this court.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Brett Kavanaugh all served on the D.C. Circuit before their Supreme Court appointments, more than any other circuit has sent to the high court.

Congress has fixed the D.C. Circuit at 11 judgeships and has at times debated shifting some of its seats to busier circuits, since its purely federal docket produces fewer but weightier cases than a typical regional circuit.

Covers: Nationwide, handles patents, international trade, federal claims, and veterans appeals

Unlike the other circuits, the Federal Circuit's jurisdiction is defined by subject matter, not geography. It hears appeals in patent cases from any district court in the country, along with international trade disputes, federal employee and military pay claims, and veterans benefits cases.

The Federal Circuit is the only appellate court besides the Supreme Court with nationwide jurisdiction over patent law, meaning nearly every patent appeal in the country ends up here rather than in a regional circuit.

It was created in 1982 by merging the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals with the appellate division of the U.S. Court of Claims. Congress's goal was to bring uniformity to patent law, which had varied widely from circuit to circuit; since the mid-2000s the Supreme Court has reviewed and reversed its patent rulings far more often than in its first two decades.

If you disagree with the IRS about how much tax you owe, you can bring your case here without paying the disputed amount first. The Tax Court hears about 30,000 cases per year and has 19 presidentially appointed judges.

Tax Court judges serve 15-year terms rather than lifetime appointments, and their decisions can still be appealed further to the regional U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals covering the taxpayer's home district.

The court traces to the Board of Tax Appeals that Congress created in 1924; the Tax Reform Act of 1969 converted it into a court of record under Article I. It holds trial sessions in roughly 60 cities so taxpayers do not have to travel to Washington, and most cases settle before trial.

For disputes of $50,000 or less per tax year, taxpayers can elect a simplified 'small tax case' procedure with relaxed rules of evidence, but the tradeoff is that the resulting decision cannot be appealed by either side.

If you believe the federal government owes you money, for a breach of contract, a taking of your property, or certain other claims, you bring your case here. It also hears cases from federal contractors and Native American tribes.

The court's Office of Special Masters separately administers the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, deciding claims of injury from covered vaccines outside the ordinary civil lawsuit process.

The court descends from the Court of Claims that Congress established in 1855 to hear monetary claims against the United States. Today it has 16 judges appointed to 15-year terms, sits in the National Courthouse in Washington, and has its rulings reviewed by the Federal Circuit.

The vaccine program it oversees is funded by a 75-cent excise tax on each disease covered per dose of vaccine, has paid out billions of dollars in awards since 1988, and channels most vaccine-injury claims away from regular product-liability suits against manufacturers.

Handles civil cases involving international trade and customs law, things like whether an importer was charged the correct tariff rate, or whether goods were properly classified at the border.

Based in New York City, its judges hold Article III lifetime appointments, unlike judges on the Tax Court or Court of Federal Claims, and major cases can be heard by a three-judge panel rather than a single judge.

It is the successor to the Board of General Appraisers created in 1890 and the later U.S. Customs Court, which Congress renamed and gave full Article III status in 1980. It has nationwide jurisdiction and nine judgeships, no more than five of which may be held by members of the same political party.

Its decisions are appealed to the Federal Circuit and have included prominent challenges to tariffs imposed under trade-remedy statutes and national-security provisions such as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.

Military members are tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in military courts. This is the civilian appellate court that reviews those decisions, sitting above the military services' own courts of criminal appeals.

The court has five civilian judges appointed to 15-year terms, and since 1983 its decisions in certain cases can be further appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the only military court whose rulings the Supreme Court can review directly.

Congress created it in 1950 as the Court of Military Appeals when it enacted the UCMJ, and renamed it the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in 1994. Requiring all five judges to be civilians appointed by the President was a deliberate check placed outside the military chain of command.

It reviews only a fraction of courts-martial: review is mandatory in death-penalty cases and certain long sentences, while most other convictions reach the court only if it grants a petition, and it sits at a dedicated courthouse in Washington.

Each federal district has its own bankruptcy court. When individuals or businesses file for bankruptcy protection, their cases are handled here. Bankruptcy judges are not Article III judges, they serve 14-year terms appointed by the circuit court.

More than 300,000 bankruptcy cases are filed in federal courts each year, and because bankruptcy judges are appointed by the circuit court of appeals rather than nominated by the President, they don't go through Senate confirmation.

Bankruptcy courts are units of the district courts, an arrangement Congress adopted after the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Northern Pipeline v. Marathon held that the previous statute had given non-Article III bankruptcy judges too much judicial power. Congress responded with the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984.

Filings are dominated by Chapter 7 liquidations and Chapter 13 repayment plans for individuals, with Chapter 11 used mostly for business reorganizations. Annual filings topped 1.5 million around 2010 and have fallen sharply since.

If the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) denies a veteran's benefits claim and the veteran loses their internal appeal at the Board of Veterans Appeals, they can bring their case to this specialized court.

Established by Congress in 1988, decisions from this court can be further appealed to the Federal Circuit, and from there potentially to the Supreme Court, the same appellate path used for patent cases.

The Veterans' Judicial Review Act of 1988 that created it allowed veterans, for the first time, to challenge VA benefits denials in a court outside the agency. The court has nine judges serving 15-year terms and sits in Washington.

It reviews tens of thousands of appeals a year and often remands cases to the VA for more work. Its creation ended a long era in which VA decisions were effectively unreviewable, reinforced by a Civil War-era statute that had capped attorney fees in veterans' claims at $10 and so discouraged veterans from hiring lawyers.