US Court Oral Argument Recordings Index API

US Court Oral Argument Recordings Index is a NexGenData tool on Apify that returns appellate oral-argument recordings with judges and audio links from CourtListener.

🔑 First: get your free CourtListener API token (about a minute)

This actor needs your own free CourtListener API token: CourtListener answers every search without one with an error (since Oct 27, 2026).

1. Create a free account at https://www.courtlistener.com/register/ (confirm the email CourtListener sends you, if it asks).
2. Copy your token from https://www.courtlistener.com/profile/api/ while signed in.
3. Paste it into the CourtListener API token field, the first field in the input form, and start the run.

No token: Apify won't start the run (the field is required), so nothing runs and nothing is charged. A token CourtListener rejects also stops the run before anything is searched; no result rows are charged (only the platform actor-start fee). Free CourtListener tokens allow 5 requests a minute, 50 an hour and 125 a day; your token stays in your own account.

🔧 Input reference

Field	Type	Default	What it does
courtListenerToken	string (secret)	—	Required free CourtListener token (5 req/min, 50/hour, 125/day on the default tier); without it Apify won't start the run, so nothing is charged. A rejected token stops the run before anything is searched or charged beyond the start fee.
searchType	string	"oa"	p=judges, oa=oral arguments, o=opinions, r=recap dockets. Required — an empty input returns 0 records and is not charged.
query	string	""	Full-text search.
court	string		Court ID filter (e.g. scotus, cafc).
maxResults	integer	20	Max records.

An index of US court oral-argument recordings — case, court and argument dates.

Factual public records — assembled for research and monitoring.

📊 Sample Output

caseName	court	court_citation_string	court_id	dateArgued	docketNumber
Hurley v. McElhoe	Appellate Court of Illinois	Ill. App. Ct.	illappct	2026-09-24	5-25-1003
In re Marriage of Carroll	Appellate Court of Illinois	Ill. App. Ct.	illappct	2026-09-24	5-25-0603
In re Marriage of Kreps	Appellate Court of Illinois	Ill. App. Ct.	illappct	2026-09-24	5-26-0438
People v. Hampton	Appellate Court of Illinois	Ill. App. Ct.	illappct	2026-09-24	5-25-0548
Sun Industries, Inc. v. Burnett	Appellate Court of Illinois	Ill. App. Ct.	illappct	2026-09-24	5-25-0941
Cemen Tech, Inc. v. G.W. Van Keppel Company	Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit	8th Cir.	ca8	2026-09-24	26-1632

Real rows from run EJCpStSAukH3D96rJ on build 0.0.13 (2026-09-24), unedited apart from masked emails/phones and shortened long text; fields the source does not publish are empty.

⚙️ Sample inputs

This is the Store example input — the same input Apify's automated check runs — so it is proven to return rows on the current build. Paste it into the input form, or send it through the API, CLI or a schedule:

{
  "searchType": "oa",
  "query": "",
  "maxResults": 20
}

🧾 JSON sample record

One real record from run EJCpStSAukH3D96rJ (emails/phones masked, long text shortened):

{
  "caseName": "Hurley v. McElhoe",
  "case_name_full": "",
  "court": "Appellate Court of Illinois",
  "court_citation_string": "Ill. App. Ct.",
  "court_id": "illappct",
  "dateArgued": "2026-09-24",
  "dateReargued": null,
  "dateReargumentDenied": null,
  "docketNumber": "5-25-1003",
  "docket_id": 74848858,
  "download_url": "https://ilcourtsaudio.blob.core.windows.net/antilles-resources/resources/e36b6df0-7869-4f39-a365-a5758323bb88/5-25-1003%20Hurley%20v.%20McElhoe.mp3",
  "duration": 1906,
  "file_size_mp3": 11441033,
  "id": 106608,
  "judge": "",
  "local_path": "mp3/2026/09/24/hurley_v._mcelhoe_cl.mp3",
  "meta": {
    "timestamp": "2026-09-24T22:10:18.003211Z",
    "date_created": "2026-09-24T21:39:16.113810Z",
    "score": {
      "bm25": 13466304000000
    }
  },
  "pacer_case_id": "",
  "panel_ids": [],
  "sha1": "e9fae116f321285890259da71445817c034fd594",
  "snippet": "I guess I could call the case. That would be helpful. 5-25-1003. We are on the record for Hurley v. McElhoe. And we have Ms. Rank. Rank. I'm not pronouncing it correctly. I apologize. Good morning, Your Honors. May it please the Court, counsel. My name is Jensen Wren, and I'm here on behalf of Appellant Mary Hurley. At the heart of the dispute before the Court this morning is a marital settlement agreement that the parties entered into in June of 1997. Now in determining whether and how to split",
  "source": "C",
  "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/106608/hurley-v-mcelhoe/"
}

💰 Pricing

Event	Price (USD)	When it is charged
Actor Start (apify-actor-start)	$5e-05	Charged when the Actor starts running. Number of events charged depends on Actor memory (one event per GB, minimum one event).
Oral argument record (apify-default-dataset-item)	$0.05	Charged once per federal oral-argument record returned (caseName, court, dateArgued, docketNumber, audio metadata).

Pay-per-event: you pay only for what the run delivers. A run that delivers nothing bills no result events (only the actor-start event, when the actor defines one). Example: a run that delivers 100 results costs 100 × $0.05 = $5.00 plus the start fee.

🔗 Related Actors

More from the NexGenData US government, courts & regulators family:

• US Court Opinions & Case Law Search API
• CourtListener Federal Docket Scraper — RECAP API
• US Federal & State Judges Database API
• CVE Vulnerability Monitor — NVD, CISA KEV & EPSS
• EPA ECHO Enforcement Scraper — Violations API
• EPA TRI Toxic Release Facilities — Records API

46 more in this family on the NexGenData Store page.

📊 What you get

Clean JSON, one record per recording (full output has 23 fields):

• caseName — Case Name
• case_name_full — Case name full
• court — Court
• court_citation_string — Court citation string
• court_id — Court id
• dateArgued — Date Argued
• dateReargued — Date Reargued
• dateReargumentDenied — Date Reargument Denied
• docketNumber — Docket Number
• docket_id — Docket id

Pricing: $0.050 per recording (Pay-Per-Event) — about 20 recordings per $1. Plus a $0.00005 actor-start event per GB of run memory.

🤖 Use with AI agents

Point Claude, the OpenAI Agents SDK, an n8n flow or any MCP-aware client at it and pull official records on demand.

Agentic payments (x402): Supports agentic payment via x402 — agents can call this actor with USDC, no API key required.

🔗 Related regulatory actors

US courts & enforcement records — one schema:

Court Opinions · Federal Dockets · Federal Judges · RECAP/PACER · Court Records Search · Federal Litigation Records · FTC Enforcement · Enforcement RAG

Agent front door — Legal MCP: Legal MCP

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Public official records and enforcement data, assembled for research and monitoring.

🤖 Use with AI agents

Structured JSON for LLM and agent pipelines (Claude, the OpenAI Agents SDK, n8n or any MCP-aware client).

Sample agent prompt:

Find recent US federal appeals court oral argument recordings about qualified immunity (I have a CourtListener API token).