Guide to Appeals Court Oral Arguments on YouTube

The livestream and archive are available on the Appeals Court's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@massappealsct/featured.

To watch live Appeals Court oral arguments in progress, please follow these steps:

1. First, if you don't know the hearing date of a case or session you want to watch, please go to the court calendar page at https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/calendar to find the case name, docket number, date and time of argument, and presiding Justices. Use the drop-down menu in the "Court Calendar" field and select either "Appeals Court Panel" or "Appeals Court Single Justice." The panel calendar is populated two months in advance. 
2. Then go to the Appeals Court's YouTube channel during the time when the desired oral arguments are scheduled. Argument sessions that are currently livestreaming will be featured near the top of the YouTube page. You can also click on the “Live now” tab below the YouTube channel heading to watch the livestreaming sessions. If the livestream hasn't begun yet, you won't be able to see it, and you'll need to manually refresh your browser page periodically until it starts. If you join late, please do not worry as you'll be able to rewind the livestream to where you want.
3. Some days, the Appeals Court has multiple sessions livestreaming at once. You can find the correct livestream by its title, which includes the names of the presiding Justices, or by the specific cases being heard, which are listed in the video's description pane. You may need to expand what's showing in the pane by clicking the "…more" button.

To watch past oral arguments, please follow these steps:

1. Go to the Appeals Court's YouTube channel.
2. You can click on the “Playlists” button and access recordings for panel sessions organized by month.
3. You can browse the homepage to find past recordings, including exploring the "Live" tab option which includes past livestreams, and "Videos" tab option which includes recordings that the Court has posted manually.
4. You can search for specific oral argument recordings by clicking on the “Search” bar next to "About" on the channel's homepage. In the "Search" bar, you can type in a docket number, a hearing date, a case name, or names of the Justices on the panel for the hearing you wish to see. The most accurate way to search for a specific recording is to type in the case's full docket number, which includes the full year, hyphens, "P" or "J" for the case type, and the four-digit suffix with any leading zeroes.  For example, you could type 2023-P-0098 for a panel case or 2023-J-0123 for a single justice case.
5. If you don't have enough information about a case you wish to see on the YouTube channel, please try searching the court's public docket page at https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/ for relevant case information. The docket page allows you to search for a case by party, docket number, attorney, and by lower court judge. The menu button at the upper left of the page will show you all the search options. Once you have more information about the case you wish to see, please return to the YouTube channel and search for the argument's recording.

• Please subscribe to the channel by clicking the "Subscribe" button on the Appeals Court’s YouTube channel heading. By subscribing to the YouTube channel, you can easily find new livestreams and recordings in your YouTube subscription list. As a subscriber, you can also turn on notifications from the channel if you want to receive email and/or desktop updates about activity on the channel.
• You may activate the YouTube-generated subtitles, or closed captions feature, of an archived oral argument. To activate the YouTube-generated subtitles, go to the video you wish to see on the Appeals Court's YouTube channel. Click on the "CC" button next to the settings (gear) icon on the video.
• As an alternative to showing the automated captions within the video window, you can have them appear alongside the video by clicking the "Show transcript" button, which is available in the video description pane below the video. You may need to click on the "…more" button to expand the description pane fully to find the "Show transcript" button.
• In searching the Appeals Court YouTube channel for an argument in a case, please remember that not all appeals before the Court receive oral argument. Many hearings before a single justice, while public and recorded internally by the Court, are not livestreamed or archived on the YouTube channel. In addition, please be advised the YouTube channel was first created in April of 2020, and arguments prior to that month are not available there. To find out how to obtain other recordings of Appeals Court proceedings, please visit https://www.mass.gov/guides/purchase-or-request-a-copy-of-an-appeals-court-case-record-or-oral-argument-recording.