CourtListener Legal Case Scraper

Extract US court opinions, federal dockets, and oral argument audio records from CourtListener.com — the largest free public legal database in the United States with 4M+ court opinions from SCOTUS down to federal district courts.

What You Can Scrape

• Court Opinions — case names, courts, judges, filing dates, citations, cite counts, and opinion text snippets (SCOTUS to district level)
• RECAP Federal Dockets — case filings, parties, attorneys, law firms, jurisdiction types, and document counts
• Oral Arguments — audio metadata including case name, court, argued date, duration, and download URL

Modes

Mode	Description
opinions	Search US court opinions / case law (default)
dockets	Search RECAP federal court dockets
oralArguments	Search oral argument audio recordings

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	Select	One of opinions, dockets, oralArguments
searchQuery	String	Full-text keyword search. Supports AND, OR, NOT, phrases in quotes
court	Select	Filter to a specific court (e.g. scotus, ca9)
dateFiledAfter	String	Filter cases filed after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateFiledBefore	String	Filter cases filed before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
orderBy	Select	score desc, dateFiled desc, dateFiled asc, citeCount desc
status	Select	Opinion status filter: Published, Unpublished, etc.
maxItems	Integer	Max records to return (1–500, default 50)

Output Fields

Opinion Records (recordType: opinions)

Field	Type	Description
caseId	Integer	CourtListener cluster ID
docketId	Integer	Associated docket ID
caseName	String	Short case name (e.g. "Roe v. Wade")
caseNameFull	String	Full formal case name
court	String	Court full name
courtId	String	Court slug ID (e.g. scotus, ca9)
courtCitation	String	Official citation abbreviation (e.g. "9th Cir.")
docketNumber	String	Docket/case number
judge	String	Authoring judge(s)
status	String	Published / Unpublished / etc.
suitNature	String	Nature of suit
dateFiled	String	Date filed (YYYY-MM-DD)
dateArgued	String	Date argued (YYYY-MM-DD)
citations	Array	Citation strings (e.g. ["123 U.S. 456"])
lexisCite	String	LexisNexis citation
neutralCite	String	Neutral citation
citeCount	Integer	Number of times cited by other opinions
snippet	String	Text excerpt from the opinion
attorney	String	Attorney information
caseUrl	String	Full CourtListener.com URL
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 timestamp of scrape

Docket Records (recordType: dockets)

Field	Type	Description
docketId	Integer	CourtListener docket ID
caseName	String	Case name
court	String	Court name
courtId	String	Court slug ID
docketNumber	String	Docket number
assignedTo	String	Assigned judge
referredTo	String	Referred judge
cause	String	Cause of action
suitNature	String	Nature of suit
jurisdictionType	String	Federal question / Diversity / etc.
parties	Array	Party names
attorneys	Array	Attorney names
firms	Array	Law firm names
dateFiled	String	Date case was filed
dateTerminated	String	Date case was terminated
documentCount	Integer	Number of RECAP documents
pacerCaseId	String	PACER case ID
caseUrl	String	CourtListener docket URL
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 timestamp

Oral Argument Records (recordType: oralArguments)

Field	Type	Description
audioId	Integer	Audio recording ID
docketId	Integer	Docket ID
caseName	String	Case name
court	String	Court name
courtId	String	Court slug ID
docketNumber	String	Docket number
judge	String	Panel judge(s)
dateArgued	String	Date argued (YYYY-MM-DD)
durationSeconds	Integer	Recording duration in seconds
downloadUrl	String	Direct MP3 audio download URL
snippet	String	Text excerpt from argument transcript
caseUrl	String	CourtListener audio page URL
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 timestamp

Example Inputs

{
  "mode": "opinions",
  "searchQuery": "criminal defense Fourth Amendment",
  "court": "scotus",
  "orderBy": "citeCount desc",
  "maxItems": 50
}

{
  "mode": "opinions",
  "searchQuery": "contract breach",
  "dateFiledAfter": "2020-01-01",
  "dateFiledBefore": "2024-12-31",
  "status": "Published",
  "maxItems": 100
}

{
  "mode": "dockets",
  "searchQuery": "patent infringement Apple",
  "court": "cafc",
  "maxItems": 30
}

{
  "mode": "oralArguments",
  "searchQuery": "Second Amendment gun rights",
  "court": "scotus",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Supported Courts

Court ID	Court Name
scotus	Supreme Court of the United States
ca1 – ca11	U.S. Courts of Appeals (1st–11th Circuits)
cadc	Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
cafc	Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
cit	Court of International Trade
bap1, bap2, bap6, bap8, bap9, bap10	Bankruptcy Appellate Panels

Many more federal district courts and state courts are available — use any CourtListener court ID slug.

Search Query Syntax

CourtListener supports full-text search with boolean operators:

• murder AND self-defense — both terms
• "fourth amendment" OR "unreasonable search" — phrase or term
• patent NOT copyright — exclude a term
• "habeas corpus" — exact phrase

FAQs

Does this require a CourtListener account or API key?
No. The scraper uses CourtListener's public REST API (v4) which requires no authentication for search operations.

How many records can I fetch?
Up to 500 per run. CourtListener has 4M+ opinions, 123K+ RECAP dockets, and 9K+ oral arguments. Pagination via cursor is handled automatically.

Are opinion full texts included?
The scraper includes opinion text snippets from search results. Full opinion PDFs/text are available at the caseUrl links.

What courts are covered?
All US federal courts: SCOTUS, 13 circuit courts, 94 district courts, bankruptcy courts, and specialty courts. Some state appellate courts are also indexed.

Are oral argument MP3 files accessible?
Yes — the downloadUrl field contains direct MP3 links hosted by the court (e.g. media.ca7.uscourts.gov).

Is this data current?
CourtListener indexes opinions within days of publication. Oral arguments are typically added within a week of being argued.

Technical Notes

• Data source: CourtListener.com public REST API v4
• No browser automation required — pure HTTP via httpx
• No proxy, no cookies, no authentication required
• Cursor-based pagination for large result sets
• Retries on 429/5xx with exponential backoff
• Memory: 1024 MB recommended