Yep. In your example, the book you’d be looking for is the 284th volume of the Federal Supplement, page 165. There you’d find the case of Jones v. Lipshitz, if that cite is correct.
The general format for citations is Firstparty v. Secondparty, volume# Reporter page# (court, year). But there’s a lot of freaky permutations. The year, by the way, is the year of the decision, not necessarily the year in which the case was tried.
Supreme Court cases are published in the United States Reporter (U.S.), circuit courts in the Federal Reporter (F.), and district courts in the Federal Supplement (F. Supp.). There are also regional reporters, among them Southern, Atlantic, Pacific, and Northwestern (So., A., P., and N.W. respectively).
Often you’ll see a cite like “F.3d”. West (the company that publishes the reporters) prints the volumes in series, from volume 1 to volume 999, then they start another series. So, yeah, there are over two thousand total volumes of cases in the Federal series. The cite “F.3d” tells you to go to the third series.
I don’t know where you’re going with that second number, but there are some state rules that govern these citations. Some states require that, when you submit briefs to courts in that state, you include a citation to the state reporter as well as the regional reporter. Me, I stick to the big regionals when I can and follow the state rules when I must.
One final thing: what you’d get upon looking up that cite is the opinion of the court, as written by the judge, not a transcript of the trial or anything. There’s always a summary of the facts of the case, though.
I’m in the thick of learning this stuff, so it’s pretty fresh in my mind…still, I’m not infallible. If I made any mistakes, feel free to call me on them.