How to File a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in Federal Court

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

What is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus?

A petition for writ of habeas corpus is a written, verified application asking a federal district court to order the official holding you to justify your detention. Under 28 U.S.C. §2242 it must allege the facts of your confinement, name the person who has custody, and be signed and verified. A federal prisoner attacking a conviction files a §2255 motion instead.

Key takeaways on filing a habeas petition

• Petition or motion is not a style choice. A person in state custody petitions under §2254; a person challenging how a federal sentence is being carried out petitions under §2241; a federal prisoner attacking the conviction or sentence itself files a motion under §2255 in the sentencing court, as a further step in the criminal case.
• The respondent rule decides jurisdiction. For a core §2241 challenge to present physical confinement, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), holds “the default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held” and the writ is “issuable only in the district of confinement.”
• A §2255 motion names no respondent at all. The advisory committee note to Rule 2 of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings states that “there is no requirement that the movant name a respondent,” and identifies the United States Attorney for the district of the judgment as the party who opposes.
• The fee is different for each vehicle. 28 U.S.C. §1914(a) sets a $5 fee “on application for a writ of habeas corpus.” The advisory committee note to Rule 3 of the §2255 Rules states there is no filing fee for a §2255 motion.
• Verification is a legal requirement, not a formality. §2242 requires the application be “in writing signed and verified,” and 28 U.S.C. §1746 supplies the unsworn-declaration language that satisfies it without a notary.
• The mailbox rule is in the Rules. Rule 3(d) makes an inmate’s filing timely “if deposited in the institution’s internal mailing system on or before the last day for filing” — but only if the inmate uses the institution’s legal-mail system where one exists.

What is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus?

A habeas petition is a pleading that opens a civil case against the official who is holding you, asking the court to test whether that detention is lawful. It is not a brief, and it is not an appeal. Its statutory job is defined by 28 U.S.C. §2242, which is short enough to quote in full effect: an “[a]pplication for a writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf,” and “[i]t shall allege the facts concerning the applicant’s commitment or detention, the name of the person who has custody over him and by virtue of what claim or authority, if known.”

Three obligations are buried in that sentence, and each one produces dismissals when it is missed. The petition must be written. It must be verified — sworn, or declared true under penalty of perjury. And it must name the custodian. §2242 also permits someone else to sign on the petitioner’s behalf, which is the statutory basis for a family member filing as “next friend” when the person in custody cannot file for himself.

28 U.S.C. §2241 supplies the power. It provides that writs “may be granted by the Supreme Court, any justice thereof, the district courts and any circuit judge within their respective jurisdictions,” and that the writ “shall not extend to a prisoner unless” one of five conditions is met — most commonly that “[h]e is in custody under or by color of the authority of the United States” or that “[h]e is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”

The phrase “within their respective jurisdictions” in §2241(a) is doing enormous work. It is the reason a petition filed in the wrong district gets dismissed for want of jurisdiction rather than transferred as a matter of course, and it is where the respondent rule below comes from.

Which document do I file — a petition or a motion?

This is the first question, and getting it wrong wastes months. There are three vehicles and they are not interchangeable.

A person in custody under a state-court judgment who wants a federal court to review that conviction files a petition under 28 U.S.C. §2254. The one-year clock is in §2244(d)(1), which applies “to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court.” How the two statutes differ in exhaustion, deference, and tolling is the subject of our 28 U.S.C. § 2254 page.

A federal prisoner attacking the conviction or the sentence itself — the plea was invalid, counsel was ineffective, the sentence exceeded the maximum — files a motion under 28 U.S.C. §2255 in the court that imposed the sentence. Not a petition. Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings and its advisory committee note are explicit that “the person seeking relief from federal custody files a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct sentence, rather than a petition for habeas corpus,” because a §2255 motion “is a further step in the movant’s criminal case and not a separate civil action.”

A federal prisoner challenging how the sentence is being executed — sentence computation, good-time or First Step Act credit, prior-custody credit, disciplinary sanctions affecting release date, a detainer, or the fact of confinement itself rather than its validity — files a petition under §2241 in the district of confinement. Whether §2241 is ever available to attack a conviction, and what Jones v. Hendrix did to the saving clause in §2255(e), belongs to our 28 U.S.C. § 2241 page.

A useful practical rule: if you are quarreling with the judgment, it is a §2255 motion; if you are quarreling with the Bureau of Prisons, it is a §2241 petition. What §2255 itself covers, subsection by subsection, is on our what is a 2255 motion page, and the restrictions AEDPA layered on top of it in 1996 are on our AEDPA page.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The mislabeled filings we see most often are §2241 petitions raising claims that belong in a §2255 motion, filed in the district of confinement because that is where the person lives. That filing usually gets dismissed rather than transferred, and the §2255 clock keeps running while it sits. Before anything is drafted, we write down two facts on a single line: what exactly is being challenged, and what document is the vehicle for challenging it. When those two do not match, nothing else on the page matters.

Who is the correct respondent, and why does it decide jurisdiction?

Name the person who has physical custody of you, right now. This is the rule almost no competitor page states, and it accounts for a large share of pro se dismissals.

For a §2241 petition: the respondent is the warden of the facility where you are held. Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), states it as a default rule of long standing: “in habeas challenges to present physical confinement — ‘core challenges’ — the default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held, not the Attorney General or some other remote supervisory official.” (opinion) The Court added that the “legal reality of control” test “only comes into play when there is no immediate physical custodian with respect to the challenged ‘custody.'”

Naming the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the Attorney General, or “the United States” in a core §2241 petition is a defect. Some courts correct it; others dismiss.

For a §2254 petition: Rule 2(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases provides that “[i]f the petitioner is currently in custody under a state-court judgment, the petition must name as respondent the state officer who has custody.” Where the petitioner is not yet in custody under the contested judgment but may be subject to future custody under it, the rule requires naming both “the officer who has current custody and the attorney general of the state” involved.

For a §2255 motion: there is no respondent. The advisory committee note to Rule 2 of the §2255 Rules is direct: “Under these rules the application for relief is in the form of a motion rather than a petition . . . . Therefore, there is no requirement that the movant name a respondent. This is consistent with 28 U.S.C. §2255. The United States Attorney for the district in which the judgment under attack was entered is the proper party to oppose the motion.” The caption is the criminal caption — United States v. [your name] — with the criminal docket number, because the motion is a continuation of that case.

The note goes further and warns against exactly the fix people improvise. A movant attacking a federal judgment that will subject him to future custody “need not alter the nature of the motion by trying to include the government officer who presently has official custody of him as a psuedo-respondent, or third-party plaintiff, or other fabrication.”

Where do I file?

The court depends on the vehicle, and for §2241 it depends on where your body is.

§2241 — the district of confinement. Padilla holds that for petitions “designed to relieve an individual from oppressive confinement,” the writ is “issuable only in the district of confinement.” That is the district where the institution sits, not where you were convicted, not where your family lives, and not where the BOP’s headquarters is. One narrow protection exists: Padilla confirms that where the government moves a petitioner after she has properly filed naming her immediate custodian, “the District Court retains jurisdiction and may direct the writ to any respondent within its jurisdiction who has legal authority to effectuate the prisoner’s release.” Filing first is what preserves that.

§2255 — the sentencing court. Rule 3(b) of the §2255 Rules requires the clerk to “file the motion and enter it on the criminal docket of the case in which the challenged judgment was entered.” The mechanics of that filing are covered on our how to file a 2255 motion page.

§2254 — the district of custody or, in a multi-district state, the district of conviction. §2241(d) provides that where a state has two or more federal judicial districts, the application “may be filed in the district court for the district wherein such person is in custody or in the district court for the district within which the State court was held which convicted and sentenced him,” and “each of such district courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction.”

There is also a rule of restraint worth knowing about. Under §2242, an application addressed to the Supreme Court, a justice, or a circuit judge “shall state the reasons for not making application to the district court of the district in which the applicant is held.” Original habeas in a court of appeals or the Supreme Court is not a shortcut; the statute makes you explain why you skipped the district court.

What are the required contents under Rule 2?

Grounds and facts. Not legal argument, and not a narrative.

Rule 2(c) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases and Rule 2(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings impose the same five requirements. The pleading must:

1. specify all the grounds for relief available to the petitioner or movant;
2. state the facts supporting each ground;
3. state the relief requested;
4. be printed, typewritten, or legibly handwritten; and
5. be signed under penalty of perjury by the petitioner or by a person authorized to sign for him (the §2254 rule cross-references 28 U.S.C. §2242 for who may sign).

Two of those five deserve emphasis. “Specify all the grounds” is a warning: grounds omitted from the initial pleading are difficult to add later, and if the case is dismissed and refiled, the second filing runs into the second-or-successive gate. And “state the facts supporting each ground” is the requirement most petitions fail. The 2004 committee note records that the Advisory Committee deliberately changed the text from “briefly summarize the facts” to “state the facts,” because the older language “may actually mislead the petitioner.” A ground that says “ineffective assistance of counsel” with no facts is not a pleaded ground. A ground that says counsel was told on a specific date about a specific witness at a specific address and never contacted her is. Which claims are worth pleading in the first place is the subject of our grounds for a 2255 motion page.

Rule 2(d) of the §2255 Rules adds a separate-judgments rule: “A moving party who seeks relief from more than one judgment must file a separate motion covering each judgment.”

Which form do I use?

Use the official Administrative Office form for your vehicle, or the local form your district prescribes. All three are on the AO’s forms and rules pages, and the clerk must supply them free of charge.

• AO 241 — Petition for Relief From a Conviction or Sentence By a Person in State Custody, under 28 U.S.C. §2254.
• AO 242 — Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Under 28 U.S.C. §2241.
• AO Form 243 — Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct a Sentence By a Person in Federal Custody, under 28 U.S.C. §2255.

Rule 2(c) of the §2255 Rules requires the motion to “substantially follow either the form appended to these rules or a form prescribed by a local district-court rule,” and provides that “[t]he clerk must make forms available to moving parties without charge.” The 2004 committee note explains that the current rule expresses no preference between the national form and a local one, and notes that some courts ask a party who used the national form to supplement with the local version.

“Substantially follow” is the operative phrase. The form is a container, not a cage: if the form’s boxes are too small for the facts, attach continuation pages and reference them. What the form does well is force the pleading to answer the jurisdictional and timeliness questions the judge will screen for first.

One more protection worth knowing. Rule 3(b) of the §2255 Rules requires the clerk to file the motion “even though it may otherwise fail to comply with Rule 2.” The 2004 committee note explains why this rule was added: because AEDPA imposed a one-year limitation, “a court’s dismissal of a defective motion may pose a significant penalty for a moving party who may not be able to file a corrected motion within the one-year limitation period.” A clerk cannot refuse your filing for being on the wrong form.

What does it cost, and what if I cannot pay?

A habeas petition costs $5. 28 U.S.C. §1914(a) provides that the clerk shall require parties instituting any civil action to pay a filing fee “except that on application for a writ of habeas corpus the filing fee shall be $5.” That five-dollar figure has been in the statute for decades and is one of the lowest filing fees in the federal system.

A §2255 motion costs nothing. The advisory committee note to Rule 3 of the §2255 Rules states it flatly: “There is no filing fee required of a movant under these rules.” The reasoning is the same one that runs through the whole §2255 scheme — the motion is a further step in an existing criminal case, not a new civil action, and “as in other motions filed in a criminal action, there is no requirement of a filing fee.”

If you cannot pay the $5, 28 U.S.C. §1915 allows a court to authorize the proceeding “without prepayment of fees or security therefor, by a person who submits an affidavit that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner possesses that the person is unable to pay such fees.” The affidavit must also “state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant’s belief that the person is entitled to redress.”

Rule 3(a) of the §2254 Rules ties the two together: an original and two copies of the petition must be filed with the clerk, accompanied by either “the applicable filing fee” or “a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, the affidavit required by 28 U.S.C. §1915, and a certificate from the warden or other appropriate officer of the place of confinement showing the amount of money or securities that the petitioner has in any account in the institution.”

Two cautions about §1915. First, obtaining the institutional trust-fund certificate takes time inside a BOP facility, and it must be requested well before the deadline — the petition should not wait on it. Second, §1915’s partial-payment machinery in subsection (b), under which a prisoner still “shall be required to pay the full amount of a filing fee” in installments, was written for prisoner civil-rights litigation, and courts have generally not applied it to habeas. What §1915 does guarantee in every case is subsection (a)(4): “In no event shall a prisoner be prohibited from bringing a civil action or appealing a civil or criminal judgment for the reason that the prisoner has no assets and no means by which to pay the initial partial filing fee.”

Verification and the §1746 declaration

Verification is what turns the petition’s factual allegations into evidence the court can act on, and it is a statutory requirement under §2242 — “in writing signed and verified.”

You do not need a notary. 28 U.S.C. §1746 provides that wherever a matter is required to be proved by a sworn affidavit, it “may, with like force and effect, be supported . . . by the unsworn declaration . . . which is subscribed by him, as true under penalty of perjury, and dated.” For a declaration executed inside the United States, the statutory form is:

“I declare (or certify, verify, or state) under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date). (Signature)”

That exact language, dated and signed, satisfies the verification requirement. The 1982 advisory committee note to Rule 2 of the §2255 Rules confirms the point and explains why it matters here specifically: §1746 is “intended to encompass prisoner litigation,” and “the statutory alternative is especially appropriate in such cases because a notary might not be readily available.” The §2254 and §2255 forms were revised accordingly.

Practical consequence: a declaration you sign yourself, correctly worded, is as good as a notarized affidavit — and a petition or motion signed without the penalty-of-perjury language is defective in a way that is trivially fixable but routinely fatal to a filing made at the deadline.

The inmate filing rule

Rule 3(d) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings, and the identical Rule 3(d) of the §2254 Rules, provide that “[a] paper filed by an inmate confined in an institution is timely if deposited in the institution’s internal mailing system on or before the last day for filing.”

There are two conditions, and both are traps.

You must use the legal-mail system if the institution has one. The rule says so: “If an institution has a system designed for legal mail, the inmate must use that system to receive the benefit of this rule.” Ordinary outgoing mail does not qualify where a legal-mail system exists.

You must prove the deposit date. Rule 3(d) provides that “[t]imely filing may be shown by a declaration in compliance with 28 U.S.C. §1746 or by a notarized statement, either of which must set forth the date of deposit and state that first-class postage has been prepaid.” A declaration that omits the postage statement, or the date, does not carry the rule’s benefit.

Attach that declaration to the filing itself rather than producing it after a timeliness objection. The full mechanics of the rule and how courts apply it are covered on our prisoner mailbox rule page.

What does the court do in the first days after filing?

The judge screens it before the government is ever heard from, and the screening standard is generous to the pleading but unforgiving of a pleading with no facts.

Preliminary review. Rule 4 of the §2255 Rules requires the clerk to “promptly forward the motion to the judge who conducted the trial and imposed sentence” — the judge from the underlying criminal case, not a new judge — and that judge “must promptly examine it.” Then the operative sentence: “If it plainly appears from the motion, any attached exhibits, and the record of prior proceedings that the moving party is not entitled to relief, the judge must dismiss the motion and direct the clerk to notify the moving party. If the motion is not dismissed, the judge must order the United States attorney to file an answer, motion, or other response within a fixed time.”

Rule 4 of the §2254 Rules works the same way, with one addition: “In every case, the clerk must serve a copy of the petition and any order on the respondent and on the attorney general or other appropriate officer of the state involved.”

Statutory timing for a §2241 petition. 28 U.S.C. §2243 sets deadlines that look nothing like ordinary civil practice. A judge entertaining an application “shall forthwith award the writ or issue an order directing the respondent to show cause why the writ should not be granted, unless it appears from the application that the applicant or person detained is not entitled thereto.” The writ or order “shall be directed to the person having custody of the person detained” — the respondent rule again, now on the court’s side of the ledger. “It shall be returned within three days unless for good cause additional time, not exceeding twenty days, is allowed.” The custodian must “make a return certifying the true cause of the detention.” A hearing is then set “not more than five days after the return unless for good cause additional time is allowed.” The petitioner “may, under oath, deny any of the facts set forth in the return or allege any other material facts,” and the court “shall summarily hear and determine the facts, and dispose of the matter as law and justice require.”

Those three-day and five-day periods are routinely extended for good cause, and they are not what a §2241 case actually looks like on the calendar. But they are the statutory baseline, and they are worth citing when a case has been sitting.

Second or successive filings. If this is not your first application, §2244(b)(3)(A) requires that “[b]efore a second or successive application permitted by this section is filed in the district court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application.” A three-judge panel decides, the standard is a prima facie showing, and the court of appeals must rule “not later than 30 days after the filing of the motion.” Filing a successive petition in the district court without that authorization results in dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

One recent decision needs its limits stated, because it is being misread. Bowe v. United States, 607 U.S. 13 (2026), held that only §§2244(b)(3)(A)–(D) are cross-referenced in §2255(h), so the certiorari bar in §2244(b)(3)(E) does not apply to federal prisoners and the Supreme Court may review a court of appeals’ denial of authorization. Bowe did not remove the second-or-successive restrictions and did not lift the §2255(h) gate. It addressed appellate review of the denial, and nothing more. The gate itself is covered on our second or successive 2255 page.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: Rule 4 is the reason we treat the first pleading as the whole case rather than as an opening position. The judge reads it against the record of the criminal proceeding before the government responds, and a summary dismissal at that stage produces a record with nothing in it — no answer, no reply, no hearing. So the initial filing carries the facts, the exhibits, and the timeliness showing on its face. Saving material for the reply assumes there will be a reply — and if the judge does dismiss at that stage, appealing requires a certificate of appealability.

Filing mechanics at a glance

The table below is the whole procedural comparison in one place: which statute, which court, which respondent, which form, what fee, and where the clock comes from.

Table: Habeas filing mechanics by vehicle

	§2241 petition	§2254 petition	§2255 motion
Who uses it	Anyone in federal custody challenging the execution of a sentence or the fact of confinement	A person in custody under a state-court judgment	A federal prisoner attacking the conviction or sentence itself
Statute	28 U.S.C. §2241	28 U.S.C. §2254	28 U.S.C. §2255
Document filed	Petition (a new civil action)	Petition (a new civil action)	Motion in the existing criminal case
Correct court	District of confinement — Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004)	District of custody, or in a multi-district state the district of conviction — §2241(d)	The court that imposed the sentence — §2255(a); Rule 3(b)
Correct respondent	The warden of the facility holding the petitioner — Padilla	The state officer who has custody; add the state attorney general if custody is only future — Rule 2(a), §2254 Rules	None. Rule 2 advisory note: “no requirement that the movant name a respondent”; the U.S. Attorney opposes
Official form	AO 242	AO 241	AO Form 243
Filing fee	$5 — §1914(a); IFP under §1915	$5 — §1914(a); IFP under §1915	None — Rule 3 advisory note, §2255 Rules
One-year clock	No AEDPA limitation period by its terms; §2244(d)(1) reaches only state-judgment custody	§2244(d)(1), with statutory tolling under §2244(d)(2)	§2255(f) — four triggers, latest controls; no statutory-tolling analogue
Verification	Required — §2242; §1746 declaration suffices	Required — Rule 2(c)(5), §2254 Rules	Required — Rule 2(b)(5), §2255 Rules
First judicial step	Show-cause order and return under §2243	Rule 4 preliminary review; clerk serves respondent and state AG	Rule 4 preliminary review by the sentencing judge

The defects that cause dismissal

These are the failures that end a case before the merits, in rough order of how often they appear:

• Wrong respondent. Naming the Attorney General or the BOP Director instead of the warden in a core §2241 petition. Padilla.
• Wrong court. Filing a §2241 petition where you were convicted rather than where you are confined, or filing a §2255 motion in the district of confinement rather than the sentencing court.
• Wrong vehicle. A §2241 petition raising claims that attack the judgment; a §2255 motion complaining about sentence computation.
• No verification. A pleading signed but not declared true under penalty of perjury, contrary to §2242 and Rule 2.
• Grounds without facts. “Ineffective assistance of counsel,” “prosecutorial misconduct,” “actual innocence,” stated as labels. Rule 2 requires the facts supporting each ground.
• Grounds left out. Because a later filing runs into §2244(b)(3) or §2255(h).
• Mailbox-rule failures. Using regular mail where a legal-mail system exists, or omitting the date and the prepaid-postage statement from the Rule 3(d) declaration.
• Untimeliness on the face of the pleading, with nothing pleaded about why the filing is timely. If the deadline has passed, the pleading needs to say why it is still viable — see equitable tolling.
• Multiple judgments in one motion, contrary to Rule 2(d) of the §2255 Rules.

If a petition is dismissed on one of these grounds, the dismissal is often “without prejudice,” which sounds better than it is: the limitation clock does not stop while a defective petition is pending, and a corrected refiling can land outside the year.

Where this fits in the post-conviction sequence

A habeas petition is one instrument among several, and it is usually not the first. The direct appeal comes first, and choosing between an appellate issue and a collateral one has consequences — the subject of our 2255 vs direct appeal page. Where habeas fits among the other remedies available after a conviction becomes final is covered on our post conviction relief page.

Two sequencing facts control whether the door is open at all.

Custody is a prerequisite, not a formality. Section 2241(c) provides that “[t]he writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless” one of five custody conditions is satisfied, and §2255(a) opens with “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress.” Custody is read broadly enough to include supervised release and parole, but someone who has fully completed the sentence is outside both statutes entirely and needs a different instrument — see coram nobis. That is a hard jurisdictional line, and it is a reason not to let a collateral filing drift toward the end of a term.

Timing runs in both directions. File too late and the limitation period bars you. File a §2255 motion while the direct appeal is still pending and most district courts will dismiss it as premature, because the conviction is not yet final and the appellate court may moot the claims. Rule 5 of the §2255 Rules and Rule 1 of the §2254 Rules assume a completed direct review. The practical window opens when the judgment becomes final and closes one year later — which is why the 2255 statute of limitations calculation is worth doing before anything is drafted, not after.

Who handles these filings is a separate practical question. Habeas and §2255 practice is a distinct specialty within federal criminal defense — it is record-intensive, it runs on deadlines that do not move, and the pleading standards are stricter than most civil practice. Our post conviction attorney page explains what that representation involves after the appeal is over.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best founded the firm in 2019 and practices federal criminal appeals and post-conviction relief nationwide. She is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida, and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is a 2026 Best Lawyers in America honoree for Appellate Practice and Chambers USA 2026 ranked for white-collar litigation.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, is the firm’s Managing Director and a nationally recognized federal prison expert, author of the Federal Prison Handbook and four other books on the federal system, and Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center. He earned his J.D. at UC Davis School of Law after serving roughly a decade in the federal Bureau of Prisons. Because the routing question on this page frequently turns on whether a complaint is really about the judgment or really about the BOP, that combination is directly relevant to getting the vehicle right the first time. If you are looking specifically for counsel on a habeas matter, our habeas corpus attorney page explains who handles these cases.

The firm runs an intentionally small caseload from offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and represents clients in federal district and circuit courts nationwide. If you are still deciding whether you need counsel for a collateral filing, our federal 2255 motion lawyer page sets out what that work involves.

Talk to us before you file

Filing the wrong document in the wrong court against the wrong respondent costs months, and in a case with a running limitation period it can cost the claim entirely. The routing question is answerable in a single conversation.

Schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100. Have the judgment, the docket sheet, and the name of the facility and its warden available. We practice in federal courts nationwide.

Frequently Asked Questions About Filing a Habeas Petition

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026