Case Law Scraper

Search and retrieve US court opinions from CourtListener — the largest open-access legal database with over 4 million court opinions from federal and state courts dating back to the founding era.

No API key required for basic use. A free CourtListener API token provides higher rate limits.

What This Actor Does

• Search cases by keyword (boolean search supported: AND, OR, NOT)
• Filter by court (Supreme Court, Circuit Courts, District Courts, State Courts)
• Filter by jurisdiction type (Federal, State, Committee, Territory)
• Filter by decision date range
• Filter by publication status (Published, Unpublished, etc.)
• Fetch cases by jurisdiction slug (e.g., all California cases)
• Lookup specific cases by cluster ID
• Returns: case name, citations, court, judge, date, opinion snippets, download URLs, and more

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	searchCases (default), getCasesByJurisdiction, or getCaseDetail
apiToken	string	Optional CourtListener API token for higher rate limits
searchQuery	string	Keywords to search (supports AND/OR/NOT)
court	select	Filter by court ID (e.g., scotus, ca9, ca2)
jurisdiction	select	Filter by jurisdiction type: F=Federal, S=State
decisionDateMin	string	Filter cases decided on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
decisionDateMax	string	Filter cases decided on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
status	select	Publication status filter
caseIds	array	Cluster IDs for getCaseDetail mode
jurisdictionSlug	string	Jurisdiction slug for getCasesByJurisdiction (e.g., cal, ny)
maxItems	integer	Max records to return (1–1000, default 50)

Example Inputs

Search freedom of speech cases:

{
  "mode": "searchCases",
  "searchQuery": "freedom of speech",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Search SCOTUS cases since 2010:

{
  "mode": "searchCases",
  "searchQuery": "first amendment",
  "court": "scotus",
  "decisionDateMin": "2010-01-01",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Get all California Supreme Court cases:

{
  "mode": "getCasesByJurisdiction",
  "jurisdictionSlug": "cal",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Fetch specific cases by cluster ID:

{
  "mode": "getCaseDetail",
  "caseIds": ["4637556", "9501490"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Output

Each record contains:

Field	Description
clusterId	CourtListener cluster ID
caseName	Short case name (e.g., "Roe v. Wade")
caseNameFull	Full formal case name
caseUrl	Link to case on CourtListener
sourceUrl	Same as caseUrl
decisionDate	Date decision was filed (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateArgued	Date case was argued (if available)
docketNumber	Court docket number
docketId	CourtListener docket ID
citations	Array of citation objects with cite field
neutralCite	Neutral citation (if available)
court	Court ID (e.g., ca2, scotus)
courtName	Full court name
courtCitationString	Citation abbreviation (e.g., 2d Cir.)
jurisdictionType	F=Federal, S=State, C=Committee, T=Territory
jurisdictionTypeName	Human-readable jurisdiction type
status	Publication status (Published/Unpublished/etc.)
judge	Authoring/panel judges
attorney	Attorney names
citeCount	Number of times this case has been cited
opinionSnippet	Text excerpt from the opinion
opinionDownloadUrls	URLs to download full opinion PDFs
opinionIds	Related opinion IDs
syllabus	Case syllabus (if available)
source	Data source code
scdbId	Supreme Court Database ID (SCOTUS cases)
recordType	Always "case"
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp

Sample Output Record

{
  "clusterId": 4637556,
  "caseName": "Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump",
  "caseNameFull": "KNIGHT FIRST AMENDMENT INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY v. DONALD J. TRUMP",
  "caseUrl": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4637556/knight-first-amendment/",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4637556/knight-first-amendment/",
  "decisionDate": "2019-07-09",
  "docketNumber": "18-1691-cv",
  "citations": [{"cite": "928 F.3d 226"}],
  "court": "ca2",
  "courtName": "Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit",
  "courtCitationString": "2d Cir.",
  "jurisdictionType": "F",
  "jurisdictionTypeName": "Federal",
  "status": "Published",
  "judge": "Parker, Hall, Droney",
  "citeCount": 88,
  "opinionSnippet": "President Donald J. Trump appeals from a judgment concluding...",
  "opinionDownloadUrls": ["http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/..."],
  "recordType": "case",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-30T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Data Source

Data is sourced from CourtListener (courtlistener.com), operated by the Free Law Project. It is the largest free and open-source legal research platform, containing opinions from:

• US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) — opinions back to 1754
• All 13 US Circuit Courts of Appeals
• US District Courts
• State Supreme Courts and Appellate Courts
• Specialized federal courts (Tax Court, Bankruptcy, etc.)

Court IDs Reference

ID	Court
scotus	US Supreme Court
ca1–ca11	Circuit Courts of Appeals (1st–11th)
cadc	D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
cafc	Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
dcd	US District Court, D.C.
ca2	2nd Circuit (NY, CT, VT)
ca9	9th Circuit (CA, OR, WA, AK, HI, AZ, NV, ID, MT)

API Token

Register for a free CourtListener account at https://www.courtlistener.com/register/ to get an API token. The token provides:

• Higher rate limits (100+ requests/hour vs 100/day unauthenticated)
• Faster access to large result sets

FAQs

Q: Does this require an API key? No, the actor works without authentication. Providing a free API token increases rate limits.

Q: How do I get full case text? Full opinion text requires an API token and the case must be in CourtListener's database with full text indexed. The opinionSnippet field provides a preview. Use opinionDownloadUrls to access the full PDF.

Q: What date format should I use? Use YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g., 2000-01-15).

Q: What is a cluster ID? CourtListener groups related opinions (e.g., majority, dissent) into a "cluster." The clusterId is the unique identifier for a case cluster.

Q: Can I search using boolean operators? Yes. Use AND, OR, NOT in your search query. Example: "free speech" AND "first amendment" NOT obscenity

Q: What states are available? All US federal and state jurisdictions with published opinions on CourtListener.