How do I use PACER to find the Giuffre v. Maxwell docket and download unsealed filings?
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Executive summary
Accessing the Giuffre v. Maxwell docket and downloading the court’s unsealed filings is a two-part task: locate the correct Southern District of New York civil docket (No. 1:15‑cv‑07433) and then retrieve the specific unsealed entries via PACER or public mirrors that have republished the court’s released materials [1] [2] [3]. Third‑party repositories and docket aggregators can speed discovery and sometimes provide free copies of filings that PACER originally hosted [4] [5] [6].
1. Identify the precise case and court before you start searching
The Giuffre v. Maxwell civil action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is commonly listed under case number 1:15‑cv‑07433 and appears on multiple docket aggregators that source PACER, such as CourtListener and Justia, which reproduce docket entries and filing summaries drawn from the court’s PACER feed [1] [2]. Using that exact case number or the parties’ names in the SDNY database narrows results and matches the official docket the court maintains [1].
2. Use docket aggregators to preview and map the PACER docket
Before purchasing documents on PACER, consult free public dockets—CourtListener’s Giuffre v. Maxwell page and Justia’s SDNY docket are practical maps of entries and often show which items were sealed or later unsealed [1] [2]. These services are explicit that their pages are “sourced from PACER and RECAP” and may not be fully up to date, so they are best used to identify docket numbers and filing dates rather than as the authoritative source [1].
3. Retrieve unsealed filings via PACER using the docket numbers discovered
Once docket numbers or filing descriptions are known, pull the corresponding entries on PACER for the SDNY docket 1:15‑cv‑07433; PACER is the official electronic filing system that will provide the court’s PDF filings, including documents the court has ordered unsealed [1]. The Southern District’s docket entries, and later protocol orders by the court, governed which materials were released; the court issued an unsealing order and a protocol that led to a rolling release of voluminous materials [7] [3].
4. Alternative sources and bulk copies of the unsealed batches
After the court ordered unsealing, several bulk releases of documents were reposted by third parties; for example, the court‑ordered batches were published in January 2024 and have been reposted on sites such as Public Intelligence and the Internet Archive, which host downloadable PDFs of the unsealed batches [3] [5]. Dedicated archives such as epsteinarchive.org also aggregate and index those unsealed documents to make exhibits, deposition transcripts, and related material easier to browse outside PACER [6].
5. Use RECAP/Free Law Project to reduce repeat PACER purchases and find mirror copies
The Free Law Project’s RECAP project and CourtListener can help locate whether a given PACER document has already been acquired by the community and mirrored; their dockets note when “RECAP” content is available and provide links to archived copies, making it possible to obtain materials without repurchasing them on PACER [4]. Those services explicitly encourage using their browser tools so copies bought on PACER become part of a public archive, which is why CourtListener pages flag when community copies exist [4] [1].
6. Legal context and caveats when downloading documents
Significant litigation and appeals shaped what the court released: appellate decisions and the district court’s unsealing protocol dictated which deposition transcripts and exhibits became public, and the Second Circuit and district court rulings explain that many deposition materials are judicial documents presumptively accessible [7] [8] [9]. Aggregators and mirrors are useful, but because they draw from PACER they may omit documents or lag behind the official docket, so PACER remains the authoritative source for the full and current docket [1] [2].