⚖️ CourtListener Federal Docket Scraper — Federal court dockets and PACER docs — free RECAP data via CourtListener

Scrape federal court dockets — district courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court — via CourtListener's RECAP archive. Search by case name, party, judge, court, or date filed. Get full docket sheets, party lists, attorneys, judge assignments, and links to free RECAP-archived PDFs of motions, orders, and opinions.

One actor. One token. Real-time regulator-direct data delivered in structured JSON.

Why This Actor Beats PACER ($0.10/page), Westlaw, Bloomberg Law

• PACER costs $0.10 per page — we don't: PACER charges $0.10 per page retrieved with a $3-per-document cap. A single complex docket can run $50+ in PACER fees. We read CourtListener's free RECAP mirror at a flat per-entry rate.
• No Westlaw seat needed: Westlaw and Bloomberg Law start at $200+/user/month. CourtListener is free and open. Our actor packages the API into structured pay-per-result delivery.
• Party + judge + attorney structured: Every docket entry includes party names, role (plaintiff, defendant, intervenor), counsel of record, and presiding judge. Useful for litigation analytics and law-firm sales prospecting.
• Full-text search across millions of filings: Search the body text of opinions and motions, not just metadata.

Feature	This Actor ⚖️	PACER ($0.10/page)	Westlaw	Bloomberg Law
Pricing model	Pay-per-result (cents per record)	Per-seat license $5K-30K/yr	Per-seat license $10K-25K/yr	Per-seat license $10K-30K/yr
Free tier	Yes (Apify free credits)	No	No	Limited search only
Real-time freshness	Minutes after source publish	End-of-day refresh	Hourly refresh	Hourly refresh
Data source	Direct from regulator	Mixed proprietary + scraped	Mixed proprietary + scraped	Mixed proprietary + scraped
API access	REST + webhooks built in	Add-on; extra licence	Add-on; extra licence	Limited
Bulk historical	Yes — date-range backfill	Limited download caps	Limited download caps	Limited download caps
Setup time	5 minutes (token + run)	Procurement + onboarding	Procurement + onboarding	Procurement + onboarding

What You Get

Every record returned by this actor is structured JSON with the following fields populated wherever the source filing provides them:

• Case name, docket number, court (district, circuit, SCOTUS)
• Date filed, date terminated, nature of suit code, cause of action
• Presiding judge name, magistrate judge name
• Parties — name, role (plaintiff/defendant/intervenor), entity flag
• Counsel of record — attorney name, law firm, contact info, bar admission
• Docket entries — date, sequence number, description, document type
• Document URLs (free RECAP PDFs where available)
• Related cases and consolidated dockets
• Appellate history (appeal-to court, mandate date)
• Jury demand and damages-claimed flags (when present)

The full output schema is stable across runs — safe to load into Snowflake, BigQuery, Postgres, or your data warehouse without re-mapping each refresh.

Use Cases

• Litigation analysts — Track high-stakes federal litigation in your sector — patent suits, class actions, M&A challenges.
• Law firms — Sales prospecting: identify companies sued in your practice area before they retain counsel.
• Journalists — Build a feed of newly-filed lawsuits against big tech, big pharma, and Fortune 500 defendants.
• Academic researchers — Empirical legal-studies datasets — case duration, judge effects, outcome prediction.
• Litigation funders — Source potential commercial litigation investments.
• Compliance teams — Monitor litigation exposure against your portfolio companies.
• Activist investors — Spot regulatory and class-action overhang on target companies.

Quick Start

Install the Apify Python client, set your token, and call the actor:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("nexgendata/courtlistener-federal-docket-scraper").call(run_input={
    "maxItems": 100,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

You can also trigger via cURL:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~courtlistener-federal-docket-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"maxItems": 100}'

Schedule it on Apify's built-in scheduler for daily, hourly, or every-5-minute refreshes — no infra required.

Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing on Apify. Primary event: Docket entry at $0.05 per record. An Actor Start fee of $0.00005 applies per run (charged per GB of memory, minimum 1). No subscription, no seat licence, no procurement cycle — pay only for the rows you receive.

For high-volume use cases (100K+ records/month), contact us at NexGenData for volume discounts.

Sister Actors in the NexGenData Fleet

NexGenData publishes the deepest SEC/regulatory actor catalog on Apify. Pair this actor with:

Use case	Actor
Track FTC enforcement actions	ftc-enforcement-actions-scraper
Monitor CFPB consumer complaints	cfpb-consumer-complaints-scraper
EPA enforcement and compliance violations	epa-echo-enforcement-scraper
Federal Register rule filings	federal-register-rules-scraper
SEC 8-K material events — corporate litigation flags	sec-form-8k-material-events-scraper
USAspending federal awards and grants	usaspending-federal-awards-scraper

Browse the full 200+ actor catalog at https://apify.com/nexgendata?fpr=2ayu9b.

FAQ

Q: Is this PACER or CourtListener?

A: CourtListener's RECAP archive — a free mirror of PACER documents donated by users. Some documents are RECAP-archived; many aren't. For RECAP-archived PDFs you get the document for free. For others, you'd still need PACER.

Q: Is this legal?

A: Yes. CourtListener and RECAP are run by the Free Law Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The data is public-record federal court filings.

Q: How fresh is the data?

A: CourtListener typically mirrors PACER within hours. We read on demand.

Q: Can I search by judge?

A: Yes — pass judge_name to filter every case before Judge Easterbrook, Judge Boasberg, etc.

Q: What about state courts?

A: This actor covers federal only. State court coverage is more fragmented — separate actors handle individual state systems.

Q: Does this include sealed cases?

A: No. Sealed dockets are not on CourtListener or PACER public access.

About NexGenData

NexGenData publishes 200+ buyer-intent Apify actors covering SEC filings, federal regulatory data (EPA, FTC, CFPB, FEC, IRS 990, FAA), private-market intelligence (Form D, IPO, 13F, 13D/G), stock screeners across 30+ exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, TSX, ASX, HKEX, KOSPI, SGX, B3, BSE), B2B lead generation, and competitive intelligence. All actors are pay-per-result with no seat licences and no minimum commitments.

Browse the full catalog and start a free run at https://apify.com/nexgendata?fpr=2ayu9b.

Built by independent regulatory-data engineers. Reach out via the Apify message form for custom data integrations.