Court Records Scraper - PACER Alternative API

Find the public case record

For legal and public-record research: search federal dockets in CourtListener's public RECAP archive or published case-law opinions. Export source identifiers, courts, dates and case links without a PACER account.

Open this Actor in Console · First run · Results · Cost · Full guide

Try this Actor

• First run: Enter your own CourtListener token in the secret API token input, then begin with Dockets mode and review its maximum-results cap. CourtListener recommends authenticated production access; anonymous requests can be denied or challenged. Inspect that record shape before adding a court, keyword or filing-date filter; opinion rows have different available fields.
• Read the results: Open the default Dataset for source records and SUMMARY for search status. The case link and docket or opinion identifier are the route back to the underlying public record.
• Keep in mind: CourtListener is a public archive, not complete PACER coverage. Docket allegations are not judicial findings, and fields or document availability vary with the selected record type and source coverage.

Result preview

The dataset view highlights these columns:

• Record type · type
• Case name · caseName
• Court · court
• Docket number · docketNumber
• Docket ID · docketId
• Opinion cluster ID · clusterId

Use the original source links and the field definitions below when interpreting the results. CSV works well for flat columns; JSON preserves nested values.

Usage and pricing

Base result rate on the FREE tier: $3 per 1,000 results. The Pricing tab shows your plan's result rate and any Actor Start charge. Set a small result limit for the first run; the requested limit is not a guarantee of that many results.

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Full guide

Pull US court records without a PACER account: federal dockets AND case-law opinions in one Actor, exported straight to CSV or JSON.

What it does

This court records scraper searches US federal court dockets and published case-law opinions through the official CourtListener / RECAP public API and returns clean, normalized records. It provides a CourtListener-backed public-record workflow without a PACER account. RECAP is not complete PACER coverage, and this Actor has its own listed result charges. Run it in two modes from a single Actor: dockets mode pulls RECAP federal case records (parties, judges, law firms, causes), and opinions mode pulls case law with reporter citations and precedential status. Filter by keyword, court, and date window, then export to CSV, JSON, or Excel, or wire it into your own pipeline via the Apify API. Because it covers both federal dockets and court opinions, it doubles as a litigation data scraper, a court opinions scraper, and a court docket monitoring tool.

Who it's for

• Legal tech and litigation intelligence teams building case databases and analytics
• Law firms running due diligence and conflict / party checks
• Journalists and investigative reporters tracking court activity
• Academic and legal researchers assembling case-law and citation datasets
• Compliance, risk, and litigation-finance analysts monitoring new filings

What you get / Output

Every record is normalized to consistent fields. Availability of some fields depends on the mode (dockets vs. opinions) and what the source publishes for a given case.

Field	Description
type	Record type (docket or opinion)
caseName	Full case / matter name
court	Court name
courtId	CourtListener court identifier (e.g. scotus, cand, nysd)
docketNumber	Docket number for the case
dateFiled	Date the case or opinion was filed
dateTerminated	Date the case was terminated (dockets)
dateArgued	Date the case was argued (where available)
judge	Assigned or authoring judge
cause	Legal cause of action
natureOfSuit	Nature of suit classification
jurisdictionType	Jurisdiction type
citation	Reporter citation(s) for opinions
status	Precedential / case status
attorneys	Counsel of record (where available)
firm	Law firm(s) associated with the case (where available)
url	Source link to the record on CourtListener

Input / How to query

Configure a run with these inputs:

• searchType - choose the mode: dockets (RECAP federal cases with parties, judges, firms, causes) or opinions (published case law with citations and precedential status).
• keyword - full-text query, e.g. a company name, data breach, or patent infringement. Leave empty to browse the newest records with filters only.
• court - restrict to one CourtListener court by ID, e.g. scotus (Supreme Court), cand (N.D. Cal.), nysd (S.D.N.Y.), dcd (D.D.C.). Leave empty for all courts.
• filedSince - only records filed on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD). Ideal for weekly monitoring.
• filedUntil - only records filed on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
• orderBy - sort results, e.g. dateFiled desc (newest first) or dateFiled asc (oldest first).
• maxResults - upper bound on records returned per run.
• apiToken - your own CourtListener token, entered as a secret input without an Authorization or Token prefix. Get it from your CourtListener API-token profile. Authenticated requests remain subject to your source account limits and permissions.
• maxRunSeconds - wall-clock collection budget (default240), also limited by the platform timeout. A larger result request may need multiple API requests. The Actor retains records already saved and reports partial coverage when a deadline or later source error stops collection. A source failure or deadline before any usable record makes the run fail; it is not reported as an empty search.

For an unfiltered run with no keyword, court, filedSince, or filedUntil, the Actor sets filedUntil to the current UTC day. This keeps erroneous future-dated source records out of the default results. Explicit queries and date filters remain unchanged, and returned source dates are never rewritten. SUMMARY.filedUntil records the effective bound; filedUntilWasDefaulted identifies when it was added automatically.

Example use cases

• Track lawsuits against a company - set searchType=dockets, keyword="Acme Corp", orderBy=dateFiled desc to surface the newest federal cases naming that party.
• Weekly new-filings monitor - schedule a run with filedSince set to the past week and a court (e.g. nysd) to capture fresh litigation in a jurisdiction you care about.
• Build a case-law dataset - set searchType=opinions to export published opinions with their reporter citations and precedential status for research.
• Due-diligence conflict check - run keyword searches on parties and counsel across all courts, then export to CSV for review before onboarding a client or closing a deal.
• Topic-based litigation intelligence - search data breach or patent infringement to feed a compliance or risk dashboard with structured docket metadata.

Recurring use / scheduling

This Actor is built for court docket monitoring on a schedule. Use Apify Schedules to run it daily or weekly with a rolling filedSince date so each run captures only newly filed cases and opinions. Point runs at the same named dataset to accumulate a growing corpus over time, or keep runs separate and dedupe downstream on url or docketNumber, which are stable identifiers for each record. Pair scheduling with Apify integrations (webhooks, Zapier, Make, Slack, or email) to get alerts whenever new records match your keyword or court.

FAQ

How do I get court case data without paying PACER fees?

This Actor searches records already available in CourtListener's RECAP archive without making paid PACER retrieval requests. It needs no PACER account. CourtListener authentication, account limits and access terms still apply, separately from this Actor's Apify pricing.

How can I scrape federal court dockets from CourtListener?

Set searchType=dockets, add a keyword and optional court / date filters, then run. You get normalized docket records with case name, docket number, court, judge, cause, nature of suit, and counsel where available.

What is the best free alternative to the PACER API?

CourtListener's RECAP archive provides public docket records that this Actor can export as CSV or JSON. It is not complete PACER coverage. No PACER account is needed; CourtListener API access and account limits are separate from the Actor charges shown on Apify's Pricing tab.

How do I download court opinions and case law as CSV or JSON?

Set searchType=opinions and run, then export the dataset from Apify as CSV, JSON, or Excel, or fetch it via the API. Opinion records include reporter citations and precedential status.

How can I track lawsuits filed against a specific company?

Use searchType=dockets with the company name as your keyword and orderBy=dateFiled desc. Schedule it weekly with a rolling filedSince to catch each new case as it is filed.

How do I monitor new federal court filings by court or date?

Combine the court filter (e.g. cand, nysd) with filedSince / filedUntil, sorted dateFiled desc, and schedule the run so each execution returns only the latest filings in that court and window.

What court data fields can I export?

Records include case name, court and court ID, docket number, filing / argued / terminated dates, judge, cause, nature of suit, jurisdiction type, citation, status, attorneys, firm, and a source URL - see the output table above.

Is scraping public court records legal?

This Actor reads public court data from CourtListener's official API. Court records in these sources are public. As with any data use, follow CourtListener's terms and apply your own judgment for your jurisdiction and use case.

How do I search both federal dockets and case-law opinions in one tool?

That is this Actor's core advantage: flip the searchType input between dockets and opinions to search RECAP federal dockets or published case law from the same Actor - no second tool needed.

How can I set up alerts for new litigation matching a keyword?

Schedule the Actor with your keyword and a rolling filedSince, then connect an Apify integration (webhook, Slack, email, Zapier, or Make) so you are notified whenever a new matching record appears.

Source access and failed requests

CourtListener recommends authentication before production use and Token authentication for programmatic access. This Actor already supports that method through the secret apiToken input. No token is included in examples, output rows or public defaults; the publisher's account credentials are not shared with Store users.

Check SUMMARY.sourceErrorCode and SUMMARY.sourceAccess for the HTTP status, authentication mode, content type, bounded page title, and whether a human-verification page was detected. Error HTML is not retained or emitted as a case record.

• HUMAN_VERIFICATION: the source sent a verification page. The Actor stops without solving it. A valid API token is the supported authentication path, but this response can still require CourtListener's help.
• AUTHENTICATION_REJECTED / HTTP401: review your own token and source account access.
• ACCESS_DENIED / HTTP403: the source denied the request; permissions or access policy may apply.
• METHOD_REJECTED / HTTP405: the official GET search request was rejected. The Actor does not silently switch request methods.
• RATE_LIMITED / HTTP429: wait for the source allowance to recover. Authenticated accounts also have limits. A valid required retry delay is not shortened to fit the run budget.

An access failure before any usable record fails the run. If earlier pages were saved, those rows remain available with partial coverage. An access failure never establishes that a search has no matching cases. Persistent authenticated access problems should be reviewed with CourtListener support; this documentation update does not establish recovery or clear an Apify maintenance notice.

Data source & notes

• Source: CourtListener by the Free Law Project, via its official public API (including the RECAP federal docket archive).
• Coverage: US federal court dockets (RECAP) and published court opinions / case law. Field availability varies by mode and by what the source publishes for each record - for example, attorneys, firm, and some dates may be absent on individual cases.
• Access: No PACER account is needed. Use your own secret CourtListener API token for production access. Anonymous access can be denied or challenged, and tokens remain subject to source permissions and rate limits. A token is not proven to resolve a particular human-verification page. This Actor does not solve challenges or provide a shared publisher credential.
• Use responsibly: Data reflects what is publicly available on CourtListener at run time. Verify critical facts against primary court sources for legal decisions, and follow the source's terms of use.
• Actor: maydit/us-court-cases-scraper (id cjLNkDqsBxobJ02Hb).

Related actors

Part of a set of US public-records tools that work well together:

• SEC EDGAR Filings Scraper - company filings to pair with litigation research
• Federal Register Scraper - the regulatory backdrop to many federal cases

See the full collection at apify.com/maydit.

Found this useful?

If this actor saved you time, a short review on the Apify Store genuinely helps. Reviews are how the next person decides whether a tool is worth trying.

Something broken, missing a field, or a source you want covered? Open an issue on the Issues tab and it will get looked at - that is the fastest route to getting it changed.

Run spending limits

The run stops at its spending limit. SUMMARY.datasetItemsSaved reports the number of rows actually saved, and SUMMARY.stoppedOnChargeLimit identifies this stop. A final batch may be saved only in part; increase the spending limit to collect more results.

Help with your run

Open the Issues tab on this Actor with the run URL, the input field that caused trouble and what you expected to receive. Remove API keys and private information before posting.

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Understand your run

Open Run report in the run’s Output tab for saved-record counts, reported source issues and limits, and suggested next steps. Use CSV export to take the saved results into a spreadsheet. The existing JSON results and detailed machine-readable summary remain available.

The report reflects this run’s recorded coverage. A successful run or a saved result does not establish that every possible source record was collected.