Court Records Scraper

Search and extract federal court records from CourtListener. Find court opinions, dockets, and case parties. No API key needed.

⚖️ What does Court Records Scraper do?

Court Records Scraper searches millions of federal court records via the CourtListener database (the largest open collection of U.S. legal data). Three modes:

🔹 Opinions — Search court opinions and judicial rulings by keyword, court, and date 🔹 Dockets — Search case dockets with filing details, parties, attorneys, and law firms 🔹 Parties — Extract party-level data from cases (names, attorneys, firms)

❓ Why use Court Records Scraper?

🔹 No API key needed — Uses CourtListener's public REST API, no registration required 🔹 Millions of records — Access opinions from 400+ courts, PACER dockets via RECAP archive 🔹 Rich data — Judges, attorneys, law firms, parties, citation counts, and case documents 🔹 Fast and cheap — Pure HTTP API calls, no browser needed 🔹 Multiple courts — Supreme Court (SCOTUS), Circuit Courts, District Courts, and more

💡 Use cases

🔹 Legal research — Search case law by topic, court, or date range 🔹 Due diligence — Check if companies or individuals are involved in litigation 🔹 Competitive intelligence — Monitor competitors' patent and antitrust cases 🔹 Compliance — Track regulatory enforcement actions and SEC cases 🔹 Journalism — Investigate public court filings and legal trends 🔹 Law firm research — Find which firms handle specific types of cases

📊 Sample output

Opinion data

Field	Example
caseName	Automotive Parts Antitrust Litig.
court	Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
docketNumber	20-2260
dateFiled	2022-05-12
judge	Judge Kollar-Kotelly
citeCount	5
status	Published

Docket data

Field	Example
caseName	Apple Inc. Smartphone Antitrust Litigation
court	District Court, D. New Jersey
docketNumber	2:24-md-03113
cause	15:2 Antitrust Litigation
suitNature	410 Anti-Trust
assignedTo	Julien Xavier Neals
parties	Apple Inc., United States of America

💰 How much does it cost to scrape court records?

Event	Price
Start (per run)	$0.005
Record scraped	$0.002

Free plan estimate: ~100 court records per month on the Apify Free plan.

🔢 How to search court records

1. Go to the Court Records Scraper page on Apify
2. Select mode (opinions, dockets, or parties)
3. Enter your search query (company name, legal topic, or keyword)
4. Optionally filter by court, date range, or status
5. Click "Start" and download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel

📥 Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	string	opinions, dockets, or parties
query	string	Search query (company name, legal topic, keyword)
court	string	Court ID filter (e.g. scotus, ca9, nysd)
dateFrom	string	Filed after date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateTo	string	Filed before date (YYYY-MM-DD)
status	string	Publication status (published, unpublished)
maxResults	number	Maximum records to return (default: 50)

📤 Output fields

Opinion output

type, caseId, caseName, court, courtId, docketNumber, dateFiled, dateArgued, judge, status, citeCount, snippet, url, downloadUrl, searchQuery, scrapedAt

Docket output

type, docketId, caseName, court, courtId, docketNumber, dateFiled, dateTerminated, cause, suitNature, jurisdictionType, juryDemand, assignedTo, referredTo, attorneys, parties, firms, url, searchQuery, scrapedAt

Party output

type, partyName, caseName, court, courtId, docketNumber, dateFiled, cause, suitNature, attorney, firm, docketUrl, searchQuery, scrapedAt

💡 Tips

🔹 Court IDs — Common courts: scotus (Supreme Court), ca1-ca11 (Circuit Courts), cadc (D.C. Circuit), cafc (Federal Circuit), nysd (S.D. New York), dcd (D.C. District). 🔹 Boolean search — Use AND, OR, NOT in your query: "patent infringement" AND apple NOT samsung. 🔹 Exact phrases — Use quotes for exact phrases: "securities fraud". 🔹 Citation tracking — The citeCount field shows how many other opinions cite this one, indicating its legal significance. 🔹 PACER data — Docket results include RECAP archive data from PACER, providing free access to documents that normally cost $0.10/page.

🔗 Integrations

Export court records to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, or any webhook. Connect via the Apify API for automated court monitoring. Schedule daily runs to track ongoing litigation.

💻 API usage

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/court-records-scraper').call({
    mode: 'dockets',
    query: 'patent infringement',
    court: 'cafc',
    maxResults: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/court-records-scraper').call(run_input={
    'mode': 'opinions',
    'query': 'antitrust technology',
    'dateFrom': '2024-01-01',
    'maxResults': 100,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~court-records-scraper/runs" \
  -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"mode": "dockets", "query": "securities fraud", "maxResults": 50}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

Court Records Scraper is available as a tool for AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/court-records-scraper"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/court-records-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts

• "Search federal court records for cases involving 'Google'"
• "Find recent patent infringement cases"

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

⚖️ Legality

Court Records Scraper accesses publicly available data through CourtListener's official REST API. CourtListener is a project of the Free Law Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All court records are public under the First Amendment and common law right of access to court proceedings.

Is it legal to scrape federal court records?

Yes. Federal court records are public under the First Amendment and the common law right of access to court proceedings. CourtListener, the data source used by this actor, is operated by the Free Law Project — a 501(c)(3) non-profit — and is designed for public programmatic access. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn further confirmed that collecting publicly accessible information does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. No authentication or PACER account is required to access the data this actor retrieves.

How do I find if a company is involved in a lawsuit?

Use Court Records Scraper in "dockets" mode with the company name as your search query. The actor will return all matching federal docket records, including case names, courts, filing dates, causes of action, and parties. You can filter by court (e.g., nysd for Southern District of New York) or date range to focus your research. For corporate due diligence, running searches on the company name, key executives, and parent entities gives the most complete picture. Combine with Company Funding Tracker for a full financial and legal profile of a target company.

What is the difference between court opinions and dockets?

A court opinion is the written ruling a judge issues to decide a case — it contains the legal reasoning and is what gets cited as precedent. A court docket is the administrative record of everything that happened in a case: all filings, motions, parties, attorneys, and dates. For legal research and finding how courts have ruled on a topic, search opinions. For due diligence on litigation status, finding parties and their attorneys, or tracking active cases, search dockets. The actor supports both modes, plus a "parties" mode for extracting party-level data across many cases.

How do I monitor competitors' patent or antitrust litigation?

Set up a scheduled run in "dockets" mode with a boolean search query like "patent infringement" AND [company name], targeting the Federal Circuit (cafc) or the district court handling tech patent cases (dcd, nysd, ndca). Schedule the run daily or weekly via the Apify scheduler and connect it to a Slack or email webhook to receive alerts when new case filings match your query. The dateFiled field makes it easy to filter for only newly-filed cases since your last check.

❓ FAQ

Q: Do I need an API key? A: No. CourtListener's search API works without authentication. No registration needed.

Q: What courts are covered? A: Over 400 courts including the Supreme Court, all Circuit Courts of Appeals, and most federal District Courts. Coverage spans from founding-era cases to present day.

Q: Can I find state court records? A: CourtListener primarily covers federal courts and some state supreme courts. For comprehensive state court coverage, check individual state court websites.

Q: How current is the data? A: CourtListener updates continuously. New opinions are typically available within hours of publication. RECAP docket data depends on community contributions.

Q: Can I get full opinion text? A: The scraper returns a snippet. For full text, use the downloadUrl field to access the PDF, or the url field to view on CourtListener.

Q: My search returns no results — what should I try? A: Try broader search terms and remove date/court filters. CourtListener's search works best with specific legal terms or party names. Also check your court ID spelling (e.g., scotus, ca9, nysd).

Q: Some dockets are missing party or attorney information — is this normal? A: Yes. Docket completeness depends on RECAP archive contributions. Not all PACER dockets have been uploaded to CourtListener, so some cases may have limited data.

🔗 Other business and government data scrapers

🔹 Company Funding Tracker — Track startup funding from SEC EDGAR filings 🔹 Financial Statements Scraper — Extract financial data from SEC EDGAR 🔹 SEC EDGAR Scraper — Search all SEC filing types (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, etc.) 🔹 USA Spending Scraper — Track federal government contracts and spending 🔹 Regulations.gov Scraper — Search federal regulations and public comments