Federal Court Locator Scraper

Federal Court Locator Scraper

Scrape the complete federal court directory, up to a million courts per run. Every record includes the court's name, jurisdiction, PACER code, and contact details. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The federal court system's official directory is scattered across multiple websites and PDFs, making bulk lookups slow. This Actor reads the public Court Listener API, which mirrors the full federal court locator, and returns every matching court in one flat schema. Filter by jurisdiction, active status, or court name substring.

Who uses it	What they scrape Federal Court Locator for
Legal researchers	Build a complete index of federal courts by jurisdiction for case law analysis.
Law firm operations teams	Pull active court contact details and PACER codes for e-filing workflows.
Legal tech developers	Seed a court database with structured federal court locator data.
Journalists covering the judiciary	Map which federal district or bankruptcy courts are active in a region.

What it does

This Actor collects federal court records from the Court Listener directory and returns each one as a flat row with jurisdiction codes, PACER identifiers, and contact fields.

• 🏛 Jurisdiction filter: narrow results to District, Bankruptcy, Appellate, or Special courts.
• ✅ Active courts only: skip historical or closed courts and keep only currently in-use entries.
• 🔍 Name search: supply a substring to match against the full court name, case-insensitive.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Federal Court Locator data

📋 Build a federal court directory.

A legal tech startup runs the Actor with jurisdiction set to 'all' and active courts only to populate a searchable court locator for their app.

🗂 Prepare e-filing routing tables.

A law firm operations manager pulls all active Federal District courts to map PACER codes to internal case management workflows.

📊 Audit judicial district coverage.

A researcher collects every Federal Bankruptcy court to analyze geographic coverage and identify gaps in a dataset.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
PACER-ready	Every court row includes the PACER court code and jurisdiction abbreviation.
One fixed schema	All courts return the same flat fields, no matter the jurisdiction.
Bulk collection	Collect up to a million courts in a single run for large-scale indexing.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Federal Court Locator the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Federal Court Locator Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Federal Court Locator changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a jurisdiction code, an optional court name substring, and a toggle for active courts only. Filters run as each record is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "jurisdiction": "FD"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "jurisdiction": "FD"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.011 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.10
1,000 results	$11.00
10,000 results	$110.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Federal Court Locator Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Federal Court Locator through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/pacer-court-locator-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your jurisdiction filter. If it is set to a narrow code like FD, try 'all' to see if courts exist. Also verify the court name substring is not too restrictive.

The Actor returned fewer courts than my maxItems setting.

The Actor stops when it has collected all matching courts. If your filters are narrow, the total available may be less than your maximum.

I see a court I know is closed in my results.

Make sure the 'Active courts only' toggle is enabled. When it is off, historical and closed courts are included.

The PACER code field is empty for some courts.

Not every court in the directory has a PACER code. Special and historical courts may lack one. This is expected.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is the Federal Court Locator?	It is the official directory of United States federal courts, including district, bankruptcy, appellate, and special courts. This Actor scrapes a public mirror of that directory.
Does this Actor require a PACER account?	No. It reads from the Court Listener public API, which mirrors the federal court directory. No PACER login or API key is needed.
What jurisdiction codes can I filter by?	You can filter by F (Federal/SCOTUS), FD (Federal District), FB (Federal Bankruptcy), FBP (Federal Bankruptcy Panel), FS (Federal Special), FSP, or all.
How many courts can I collect in one run?	You set the maximum with the 'Maximum courts' input, up to 1,000,000 per run. The Actor stops when it hits that limit or runs out of matching courts.
Can I search for a specific court by name?	Yes. Use the optional court name filter to supply a substring. The match is case-insensitive and checks the full court name.
What does the 'Active courts only' toggle do?	When enabled, the Actor returns only courts marked as currently in use. Historical or closed courts are excluded.
What data fields does each court record include?	Each row includes the court's full name, jurisdiction abbreviation, PACER court code, and contact details. The exact field list is shown in a sample record on the Actor's page.
Is this Actor suitable for building a court locator website?	Yes. The flat, consistent schema and bulk collection make it straightforward to seed a searchable federal court directory.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Free Law Project. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.