# Federal Court Monitor — Dockets, Filings & Opinions (`brick_joey_yto/federal-court-monitor`) Actor

Monitor federal court cases and filings via the free CourtListener/RECAP archive — new filings feed, case search, full docket history and opinions. No login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/brick\_joey\_yto/federal-court-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [William Billings](https://apify.com/brick_joey_yto) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, News, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$1.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Federal Court Monitor

Track **federal court cases, filings and opinions** across every US district, appellate and bankruptcy court — powered by the free CourtListener/RECAP archive (Free Law Project). No PACER account, no login, no API key required.

Built for **litigation monitoring**: watch a party, law firm, judge or case number and pull only the *new* filings since your last run.

### Modes

| Mode | What it returns |
|---|---|
| **Search cases** | Federal cases matching a party name, keywords, court or docket number — with judge, nature of suit, dates, parties, attorneys |
| **Monitor new filings** | A flattened feed of newly filed documents — one row per filing with description, document number, page count and PDF download link |
| **Full docket history** | Case metadata + every filed entry for a specific docket number + court |
| **Search opinions** | Full-text search over court opinions/judgments |

### Example inputs

**Watch a company's litigation** — schedule daily, get only new filings:

```json
{ "mode": "filings", "query": "Tesla Inc", "filedAfter": "2026-09-01" }
```

**All cases against a party in one court**:

```json
{ "mode": "cases", "query": "Acme Corp", "court": "deld", "maxResults": 200 }
```

**Pull a full docket**:

```json
{ "mode": "docket", "docketNumber": "1:24-cv-00446", "court": "txed" }
```

**Opinions on a legal topic**:

```json
{ "mode": "opinions", "query": "class action certification", "filedAfter": "2026-01-01" }
```

### Output fields

- **Cases**: `caseName`, `docketNumber`, `courtId`, `dateFiled`, `dateTerminated`, `assignedTo` (judge), `parties`, `attorneys`, `suitNature`, `cause`, `pacerCaseId`, `url`
- **Filings/docket entries**: `dateFiled`, `documentNumber`, `description`, `shortDescription`, `pageCount`, `downloadUrl` (PDF on CourtListener storage, when available), `isAvailable`, plus case context
- **Opinions**: `caseName`, `court`, `dateFiled`, `judge`, `citations`, `snippet`, `url`

### Common court IDs

`scotus` · `ca1`–`ca11`, `cafc`, `cadc` (circuits) · `nysd`, `nyed`, `cand`, `cacd`, `txed`, `ded`, `deld`, `fld` (districts) · bankruptcy courts like `nyebke`. Leave empty to search all courts.

### Who uses this

- **Litigation monitoring** — get alerted when a competitor, client or portfolio company is sued or files
- **Legal research** — case law and opinion search across all federal courts
- **Litigation finance / journalists** — track case progress via the filings feed
- **Compliance / KYC** — check counterparties for federal litigation history

### Scheduling

The `filedAfter` filter makes this ideal for scheduled runs: set an Apify schedule (e.g. daily) with `filedAfter` = yesterday, and each run emits only new filings.

### Honest notes

- Data comes from the RECAP archive (crowdsourced PACER documents). Coverage is deep — hundreds of millions of docket entries — but not literally every PACER document is in RECAP. `isAvailable: false` means the filing is indexed but the PDF isn't in the free archive.
- Truly real-time PACER fetching requires a paid PACER account; this actor covers what the free archive has, which for active federal litigation is extensive and near-real-time.
- Rate limits: CourtListener throttles anonymous API use — keep `maxResults` reasonable or attach an Apify proxy for heavy monitoring.

### Pricing

Pay per result — **$1.00 per 1,000 rows**, scaling down to **$0.40 per 1,000** at volume tiers. No per-run fee. Free Apify plan covers ~5,000 rows/month.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

What to scrape

## `query` (type: `string`):

Party name, case name, law firm or keywords — e.g. 'Apple Inc', 'Sullivan & Cromwell', 'antitrust'

## `court` (type: `string`):

CourtListener court ID — e.g. 'cand' (N.D. Cal.), 'nysd' (S.D.N.Y.), 'txed' (E.D. Tex.), 'scotus', 'ca9'. Leave empty for all federal courts.

## `docketNumber` (type: `string`):

Filter or fetch a specific docket — e.g. '1:24-cv-00446'. Required for 'docket' mode.

## `filedAfter` (type: `string`):

Only filings/cases filed after this date (YYYY-MM-DD) — use for scheduled monitoring runs

## `filedBefore` (type: `string`):

Only filings/cases filed before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)

## `orderBy` (type: `string`):

Sort order

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum rows to return (filings mode counts documents, not cases)

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional — not needed normally; useful if you hit CourtListener rate limits

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "cases",
  "orderBy": "relevance",
  "maxResults": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing the scraped court records

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "mode": "cases",
    "query": "",
    "court": "",
    "docketNumber": "",
    "filedAfter": "",
    "filedBefore": ""
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("brick_joey_yto/federal-court-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "mode": "cases",
    "query": "",
    "court": "",
    "docketNumber": "",
    "filedAfter": "",
    "filedBefore": "",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("brick_joey_yto/federal-court-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "mode": "cases",
  "query": "",
  "court": "",
  "docketNumber": "",
  "filedAfter": "",
  "filedBefore": ""
}' |
apify call brick_joey_yto/federal-court-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,brick_joey_yto/federal-court-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/cjrNW5AdZoG1WjCga/builds/UfciGyqsECbsnQfkg/openapi.json