CourtListener Scraper — US Case Law & Opinions

Search US case law and court opinions — plus judges, oral arguments and dockets — by keyword, court and date. For every result you get the case name, court, date filed, citations, docket number, judges, precedential status and a direct link — as clean JSON/CSV/Excel.

Powered by CourtListener (a Free Law Project), via its public REST API. Keyless (optional token for higher limits), no anti-bot — built for legal research, case-law monitoring and legal datasets.

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What this Actor does

Choose a search type and give it queries:

• Opinions (case law) — search millions of court opinions. Each result: case name, court & jurisdiction, date filed, citations and citation count, docket number, judges, precedential status, nature of suit and a link.
• Judges / People — find judges and people in the legal system.
• Oral arguments — search argued cases.
• Dockets (RECAP) — search federal docket data.

Filter by court (e.g. scotus, ca9) and date range, and it paginates automatically up to your limit.

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Why use it

• Legal research at scale. Pull every opinion matching a topic, across courts and years, into one structured table.
• Case-law monitoring. Schedule queries for your practice areas (e.g. "data privacy", "qualified immunity") to track new decisions as they land.
• Citation & trend analysis. citeCount and dates let you spot the most influential and the most recent cases.
• Free and open. CourtListener is a non-profit legal database — no paywall, no key required (optional token just raises your rate limit).
• Clean, linkable records. Every row links straight to the full opinion on CourtListener.

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Who it's for

• Lawyers & paralegals researching precedent and monitoring new decisions.
• Legal researchers & academics building case-law datasets.
• Litigation & compliance teams tracking rulings in their areas.
• Legal-tech & AI builders feeding case law into search, summarization or RAG pipelines.

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Quick start

Run it in the console (no code)

1. In Search queries, add one per line:

   data privacy
   patent infringement
   "qualified immunity"
   

2. Pick a Search type (Opinions is the default).

3. (Optional) set a Court (scotus, ca9, cand…) and a date range.

4. Click Start, then export as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Leave queries empty to run a demo.

Run it via API (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run_input = {
    "queries": ["data privacy", "first amendment"],
    "searchType": "o",
    "court": "scotus",
    "dateFiledAfter": "2020-01-01",
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 200,
}

run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/courtlistener-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

for c in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{c['dateFiled']} · {c['court']} · {c['caseName']} ({c['citeCount']} cites)")

Run it via API (JavaScript)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/courtlistener-scraper').call({
    queries: ['patent infringement'],
    searchType: 'o',
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((c) => console.log(`${c.caseName} — ${c.court} (${c.dateFiled})`));

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Input

Field	Type	Description
Search queries	array	One legal search per line. Supports CourtListener search operators. Empty = demo.
Search type	select	Opinions (case law), Judges / People, Oral arguments, Dockets (RECAP).
Court filter	string	CourtListener court ID, e.g. scotus, ca9, cand. Empty = all.
Filed after / before	string	YYYY-MM-DD date bounds.
Max results per query	integer	Paginates automatically. Default 100.
CourtListener API token	string (secret)	Optional — a free token raises your rate limit.
Speed (parallel queries)	integer	Keep modest; CourtListener is a non-profit. Default 3.
Proxy configuration	object	Apify Proxy. On by default.

Common court IDs

scotus (Supreme Court), ca1…ca11 + cadc + cafc (Circuit Courts), cand/nysd/txsd… (District Courts), and many state courts. Leave empty to search all.

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Output

One record per opinion (search type o):

{
  "query": "data privacy",
  "searchType": "o",
  "caseName": "Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform, LLC",
  "caseNameFull": "Atlas Data Privacy Corporation v. We Inform, LLC",
  "court": "Supreme Court of New Jersey",
  "courtId": "nj",
  "jurisdiction": "State Supreme",
  "dateFiled": "2026-08-12",
  "citation": "",
  "neutralCite": "",
  "citeCount": "0",
  "docketNumber": "A-8-25",
  "clusterId": "10945723",
  "judge": "",
  "panelNames": "",
  "status": "Published",
  "suitNature": "",
  "posture": "",
  "attorney": "",
  "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10945723/atlas-data-privacy-corp-v-we-inform-llc/",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-10T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Description
caseName / caseNameFull	Short and full case names.
court / courtId / jurisdiction	Court, its ID and jurisdiction.
dateFiled / dateArgued	Key dates.
citation / neutralCite / citeCount	Reporter citations and how many times the case has been cited.
docketNumber / clusterId	Docket number and CourtListener opinion-cluster ID.
judge / panelNames	Authoring judge and panel.
status	Precedential status (Published, Unpublished…).
suitNature / posture / attorney	Nature of suit, procedural posture, attorneys (when available).
url	Direct link to the full opinion.
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp.

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Tips & notes

• Monitor a practice area. Schedule the Actor with your topics + dateFiledAfter set to "recent" to catch new decisions.
• Use citeCount. Sort by it to surface the most influential cases on a topic.
• Narrow by court. court=scotus or a circuit ID focuses research fast.
• Fields vary by case. Older/state cases may lack a judge, citation or attorney — that's the underlying data, which the Actor passes through as-is.
• Be kind. CourtListener is a non-profit — keep concurrency modest, or add a free API token for higher limits.

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Frequently asked questions

Do I need an API key? No. It uses CourtListener's public REST API. A free token is optional and only raises your rate limit.

How much case law is there? Millions of opinions across federal and state courts, plus dockets, judges and oral arguments.

Can I limit to the Supreme Court or a circuit? Yes — set the Court filter to a court ID like scotus or ca9.

Can I get only recent decisions? Yes — set Filed after (and optionally Filed before) to a date.

Is this good for legal AI / RAG? Yes — clean, linkable, structured case-law records are ideal for legal search, summarization and retrieval pipelines.

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Export & integrate

Results are available as JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML and via the Apify API. Push to Google Sheets, a webhook, Make, Zapier or your database — and schedule runs for ongoing case-law monitoring.

Data from CourtListener, a project of the Free Law Project.