PACER Court Records Intelligence MCP

Search 1B+ Federal Court Records — Free, No Auth Required

The PACER Court Records Intelligence MCP is an Apify actor that exposes CourtListener's comprehensive federal court database via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It gives AI assistants — Claude, GPT-4, and any MCP-compatible agent — direct, structured access to over one billion federal court records including every opinion ever published by the US federal courts, live docket data from PACER, citation networks, and judge analytics.

Unlike PACER's cumbersome, paid web interface ($0.10/page, minimum $30 setup), this actor provides free, programmatic access to the same underlying data through CourtListener's free REST API — structured, clean, and ready for AI consumption.

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What This Solves

The problem with PACER: Federal court data is trapped behind a per-page fee system that makes programmatic access expensive and painful. Attorneys pay $0.10 per page for records that should be public. Downloading a docket with 500 entries costs $50. There is no official search API.

The CourtListener solution: The Free Law Project's CourtListener indexes all public federal court records — opinions, dockets, oral arguments, and citation networks — and provides a free REST API with no authentication required for read-only access. This actor wraps that API with an MCP interface, making it natively accessible to any AI assistant.

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Who This Is For

Litigation Attorneys and Paralegals

• Monitor all new opinions in your practice area (patent, antitrust, securities)
• Track opposing counsel's litigation history across all federal courts
• Identify favorable circuits for your legal theory using precedent analysis
• Alert on new cases involving your client's patents or trademarks

M&A Due Diligence Teams

• Screen acquisition targets for undisclosed federal litigation exposure
• Search by company name across all federal district courts simultaneously
• Identify pending patent litigation that could affect deal value
• Review executive history for personal federal court involvement

Legal Operations and GC Offices

• Monitor litigation trends in your industry vertical
• Track regulatory enforcement actions (SEC, DOJ, FTC) in real time
• Identify outside counsel conflicts by searching for firm appearances
• Build litigation risk dashboards from structured case data

Competitive Intelligence Analysts

• Map competitors' patent litigation strategy across the Federal Circuit
• Identify trade secret and IP disputes before they become public news
• Track antitrust investigations and enforcement trends
• Analyze regulatory posture by reviewing agency litigation patterns

Legal Tech Builders

• Power legal research tools with structured opinion data
• Build citation analysis engines using CourtListener's citation network
• Create judge analytics tools (win rates, ruling patterns by topic)
• Automate docket monitoring and alerting systems

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Data Source

CourtListener REST API v3 — operated by the Free Law Project (https://www.courtlistener.com/)

CourtListener is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that:

• Indexes 1B+ federal court documents including all published and unpublished opinions
• Covers 100% of federal circuit and district courts plus SCOTUS
• Updates daily with new PACER filings
• Provides free read-only API access — no authentication, no fees, no rate limit for reasonable use
• Offers a citation network linking every opinion to every other opinion it cites

The underlying PACER data is public record. CourtListener simply makes it accessible.

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MCP Tools

1. search_opinions

Search federal court opinions by keyword, court, and date range.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	No	Full-text keyword search (e.g. "patent exhaustion", "personal jurisdiction minimum contacts")
court	string	No	Court code filter (see get_court_list). Examples: scotus, ca2, cafc, nysd
date_filed_min	string	No	Return opinions filed on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
date_filed_max	string	No	Return opinions filed on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
limit	integer	No	Max results (default 20, max 100)

Output fields per opinion:

Field	Description
case_name	Full case name (e.g. "Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.")
docket_number	Court docket number
court	Court code (e.g. cafc, nysd)
date_filed	Date opinion was filed (YYYY-MM-DD)
status	Published or Unpublished
citation_count	Number of times this opinion has been cited
author_str	Authoring judge
url	CourtListener canonical URL
absolute_url	Direct link to the opinion page
source	Always "courtlistener.com"

Example query (via MCP call):

{
  "name": "search_opinions",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "doctrine of equivalents patent infringement",
    "court": "cafc",
    "date_filed_min": "2023-01-01",
    "limit": 20
  }
}

Example response:

[
  {
    "_meta": {
      "total_matching": 847,
      "returned": 20,
      "query": "doctrine of equivalents patent infringement",
      "court": "cafc"
    }
  },
  {
    "case_name": "Myco Industries v. BlephEx LLC",
    "docket_number": "2022-1758",
    "court": "cafc",
    "date_filed": "2023-09-14",
    "status": "Published",
    "citation_count": 12,
    "author_str": "Stoll, J.",
    "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v3/opinions/7543210/",
    "absolute_url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7543210/myco-industries-v-blephex/",
    "source": "courtlistener.com"
  }
]

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2. search_dockets

Search active and historical federal case dockets across all federal courts.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	No	Keyword search across case names and docket text
court	string	No	Court code (e.g. nysd, cacd, dcd)
nature_of_suit	string	No	Filter by nature of suit (patent, antitrust, securities, employment, bankruptcy)
limit	integer	No	Max results (default 20, max 100)

Output fields per docket:

Field	Description
case_name	Full case name
docket_number	Court docket number
court	Court code
date_filed	Case filing date
date_terminated	Case termination date (blank if active)
nature_of_suit	Nature of suit code and description
cause	Cause of action (e.g. "35 U.S.C. § 271 Patent Infringement")
assigned_to_str	Presiding judge
url	CourtListener docket URL
source	Always "courtlistener.com"

Example query:

{
  "name": "search_dockets",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "Tesla Autopilot",
    "nature_of_suit": "patent",
    "limit": 10
  }
}

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3. get_court_list

Return the complete list of supported federal court codes and their full names. Use this to discover valid codes for the court parameter.

No parameters required.

Returns: Array of {"code": "...", "name": "..."} objects covering SCOTUS, all 13 circuit courts of appeals, and 18 major district courts.

Supported courts include:

Code	Court
scotus	Supreme Court of the United States
ca1 – ca11	First through Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals
cadc	D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
cafc	Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (patents, international trade)
dcd	D.D.C. (D.C. District Court)
nysd	S.D.N.Y. (Southern District of New York)
cand	N.D. Cal. (Northern District of California)
cacd	C.D. Cal. (Central District of California)
txsd	S.D. Tex. (Southern District of Texas)
ilnd	N.D. Ill. (Northern District of Illinois)
...	18 major district courts total

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Quick Start

Option 1: Batch Mode (Apify Dataset Output)

Run the actor with standard Apify input and get results pushed to an Apify dataset. Perfect for one-off research tasks, integrating with Apify workflows, or downloading to CSV/JSON.

Input:

{
  "query": "patent infringement Apple",
  "court": "cafc",
  "mode": "opinions",
  "limit": 50
}

Run via Apify console → Results appear in the actor's dataset, downloadable as JSON/CSV/XLSX.

Option 2: MCP Server Mode (Live AI Integration)

Enable serveMcp: true in the input to start an HTTP server on port 4321. Connect Claude Desktop or any MCP client to get real-time access.

Input:

{
  "serveMcp": true
}

Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pacer-intelligence": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/actor-mcp-bridge", "your-actor-run-url:4321"]
    }
  }
}

Once connected, Claude can answer questions like:

• "Find all Federal Circuit opinions on patent exhaustion from the last 2 years"
• "What federal lawsuits has Qualcomm been involved in regarding 5G patents?"
• "Search for antitrust cases involving Google in the Northern District of California"
• "Show me the most-cited patent infringement opinions in the 9th Circuit"

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Input Schema Reference

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	"patent infringement"	Full-text keyword search
court	string	""	Court code filter (blank = all courts)
mode	string	"opinions"	Search mode: opinions, dockets, or courts
dateFiledMin	string	""	Earliest filing date filter (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateFiledMax	string	""	Latest filing date filter (YYYY-MM-DD)
natureOfSuit	string	""	Nature of suit filter (dockets mode only)
limit	integer	20	Max results (1–100)
serveMcp	boolean	false	Enable MCP server mode on port 4321

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Use Case Playbooks

Patent Litigation Due Diligence

Search all Federal Circuit opinions mentioning "InterDigital" from 2020-2025
→ Map their patent portfolio litigation strategy
→ Identify which patents survive post-grant review
→ Assess settlement patterns from docket termination dates

M&A Target Screening

Search all federal dockets for "Acme Corp" across all district courts
→ Identify pending litigation the target hasn't disclosed
→ Quantify litigation exposure for deal modeling
→ Flag any DOJ/FTC/SEC enforcement actions

Regulatory Enforcement Monitoring

Search dockets with query="SEC enforcement" and nature_of_suit="securities"
→ Track monthly enforcement volume by district
→ Identify enforcement trends (crypto, AI, ESG fraud)
→ Alert when enforcement hits specific company names

Judge Research for Forum Selection

Search opinions by court="nysd" with query="class certification securities fraud"
→ Analyze how specific judges rule on class cert motions
→ Identify favorable forums for your legal theory
→ Compare denial rates across circuits

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Pricing Context: Why Not Just Use PACER?

	PACER	This Actor
Cost	$0.10/page (~$0.10–$3.00 per docket)	Free
API	None	MCP + REST
Search	Per-court, limited query	Full-text across all courts
AI integration	None	Native MCP
Bulk download	Manual, expensive	Automated
Historical coverage	1990s–present	Same (via CourtListener)

PACER charges attorneys millions of dollars annually to access public court records. CourtListener — and this actor — make the same data freely available.

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Data Freshness and Limitations

• Opinions: Updated daily. CourtListener ingests new opinions within 24–48 hours of publication.
• Dockets: Updated via PACER's bulk data program. Some docket entries may lag 24–72 hours.
• Coverage: All federal circuit and district courts. Does not include state courts.
• Full text: Opinion text available for download via CourtListener's API (not returned in this actor for size reasons — use the URL field to access full text).
• Rate limits: CourtListener asks for reasonable use. This actor respects their terms; for high-volume use consider CourtListener's RECAP Archive bulk download.

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Technical Notes

• Data source: CourtListener REST API v3 (https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v3/)
• Authentication: None required
• Rate limits: Reasonable use policy; actor includes User-Agent header per CourtListener's guidelines
• MCP port: 4321 (GET /mcp/tools, POST /mcp/call)
• Docker base: apify/actor-python:3.11
• Dependencies: apify>=2.0.0, httpx>=0.24.0
• Error handling: All tool failures return {"_meta": {"error": "...", "fallback_tried": true}}

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Support and Feedback

This actor is built by the SECC platform team. Issues, feature requests, and court coverage expansion requests are welcome via the Apify actor page.

CourtListener is operated by the Free Law Project — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Consider supporting their work at https://free.law/donate/.