# UK Court Judgments Watchdog (`hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog`) Actor

Watch England & Wales court and tribunal judgments the moment they publish — by company/person name, by court, or by date range. Uses Find Case Law, The National Archives' free, keyless official feed. No login, no scraping.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog.md
- **Developed by:** [Halil Erdogan](https://apify.com/hllerdgn80) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 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

## UK Court Judgments Watchdog

Get alerted the moment a new England & Wales court or tribunal judgment naming a
company, a person, or a legal keyword you care about is published — before it
shows up in any news search or law-firm newsletter.

### Where the data comes from

[Find Case Law](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk) is The National
Archives' official public register of England & Wales court and tribunal
judgments, published under the [Open Justice
Licence](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/open-justice-licence). It
exposes a free, keyless Atom feed built for exactly this kind of monitoring —
search, court filter, date range and pagination are all first-class query
parameters. No login, no scraping, no API key, no terms-of-service workaround.

Coverage includes the High Court (all divisions), the Court of Appeal, the
Employment Appeal Tribunal, the Upper Tribunal, the First-tier Tribunal (Tax
and General Regulatory Chamber), the Privy Council and the Supreme Court.
Judgments typically appear within days of being handed down — often faster
than they are picked up by general news search.

### Who this is for

- **Law firms and litigation funders** tracking new judgments against a named
  defendant, competitor, or in a practice area.
- **Journalists and researchers** watching for newsworthy rulings (employment
  disputes, consumer claims, regulatory appeals) the moment they are published.
- **Credit, risk and compliance teams** who want an early signal when a
  counterparty is named in High Court commercial or insolvency litigation.
- **Recruiters and HR/employment consultants** watching Employment Appeal
  Tribunal decisions for a sector or employer.

### How to use it

1. Enter a **search term** — a company name, a person's name, or a keyword
   (e.g. `"unfair dismissal"`). At least a search term or a court code is
   required.
2. Optionally narrow to one **court** with its code (see table below), and/or
   a **date range** (`YYYY-MM-DD`) to catch only recent judgments.
3. Optionally add a **watch label** to tell several saved searches apart when
   comparing runs or datasets.
4. Run it — each judgment found becomes one row in the dataset, with the case
   name, neutral citation, court, publication date, and links to the judgment
   page and PDF.
5. Schedule the Actor (e.g. daily) with a narrow date range (`dateFrom` = a
   few days ago) to get a rolling watch instead of scraping the same history
   every time.

#### Common court codes

| Code | Court |
|---|---|
| `ewhc` | High Court (all divisions) |
| `ewhc/comm` | High Court — Commercial Court |
| `ewhc/ch` | High Court — Chancery Division |
| `ewhc/kb` | High Court — King's Bench Division |
| `ewhc/admin` | High Court — Administrative Court |
| `ewhc/fam` | High Court — Family Division |
| `ewhc/tcc` | High Court — Technology and Construction Court |
| `ewhc/ipec` | High Court — Intellectual Property Enterprise Court |
| `ewca/civ` | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| `ewca/crim` | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| `eat` | Employment Appeal Tribunal |
| `ukut/iac` | Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) |
| `ukut/aac` | Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) |
| `ukut/tcc` | Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) |
| `ukut/lc` | Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) |
| `ukftt/tc` | First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) |
| `ukftt/grc` | First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) |
| `uksc` | Supreme Court |
| `ukpc` | Privy Council |

Leave the court field empty to search across all of them.

### Output example

```json
{
  "watch_label": "Morrisons litigation",
  "status": "ok",
  "case_name": "KP McConnell v WM Morrisons Supermarkets Ltd",
  "citation": "[2026] EAT 149",
  "court": "Employment Appeal Tribunal",
  "date_published": "2026-09-25",
  "date_updated": "2026-09-25",
  "judgment_url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/eat/2026/149",
  "pdf_url": "https://assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/.../....pdf",
  "fclid": "t6nj4v3m",
  "fetched_at": "2026-09-28T10:15:00+00:00",
  "error": null
}
```

If your input combination is invalid, or Find Case Law cannot be reached, a
single row is returned with `status` set to `invalid_input`, `http_error`,
`network_error` or `parse_error` and the reason in `error` — you are never
charged for that row.

### FAQ

**Is this legal / does it breach any terms of use?** Find Case Law is
published by The National Archives specifically for reuse, under the Open
Justice Licence, and its Atom feed is designed for exactly this kind of
programmatic search and monitoring. This Actor only reads that public feed —
it does not log in anywhere, bypass a paywall, or scrape a site that
disallows automated access.

**Does it cover Scotland or Northern Ireland?** No — Find Case Law covers
England & Wales courts and UK-wide tribunals sitting there. Scottish and
Northern Irish judgments are published on separate registers.

**How far back does it go?** Coverage is strongest from 2001 onward for the
higher courts, and grows every day as new judgments are handed down; older
judgments are added on an ongoing basis by The National Archives.

**Can I run this on a schedule?** Yes — combine a fixed `query`/`court` with a
rolling `dateFrom` (e.g. "3 days ago") on an Apify schedule to get a daily or
weekly alert of anything new, instead of re-fetching full history each time.

### Related Actors

If you also need UK company-level context alongside a judgment (registered
office, filing history, PSCs), pair this with **Companies House Watchlist** or
**Corporate KYC Intelligence** from the same developer.

# Actor input Schema

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

Free text searched across the judgment text and metadata, e.g. a company name ('Wm Morrisons Supermarkets'), a person's name, or a legal keyword ('unfair dismissal', 'breach of contract').

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

Restrict to one court/tribunal, e.g. 'ewhc' (High Court, all divisions), 'ewhc/comm' (Commercial Court), 'ewca/civ' (Court of Appeal Civil), 'eat' (Employment Appeal Tribunal), 'ukut/iac' (Upper Tribunal Immigration). See README for the full list. Leave empty to search all courts.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only judgments first published on or after this date.

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only judgments first published on or before this date.

## `watchLabel` (type: `string`):

Just a tag copied onto every output row (e.g. 'Acme Ltd litigation') so several scheduled watches can be told apart in one dataset or across runs.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Stops paging through Find Case Law once this many rows have been collected.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "Wm Morrisons Supermarkets",
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "query": "Wm Morrisons Supermarkets"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog").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 = { "query": "Wm Morrisons Supermarkets" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog").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 '{
  "query": "Wm Morrisons Supermarkets"
}' |
apify call hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,hllerdgn80/uk-court-judgments-watchdog"
        }
    }
}
```

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/NEwlJlIWF3FrQvtvy/builds/176UBa5KFVCHQml2R/openapi.json