CourtListener Case Law Scraper

This CourtListener scraper searches millions of US court opinions, federal dockets, judges and courts and returns clean, structured rows. Search by keyword, then filter by court and date. Each result includes the case name, citation, judge, docket number, filing date, a text snippet and a direct link to the case and the opinion document.

Lawyers, paralegals, legal researchers and journalists use it to build case lists, follow a topic over time and feed legal databases without copying results out of the website by hand.

What can you do with this case law scraper?

• Search US court opinions by keyword
• Find federal court dockets by company or party name
• Get case citations and citation counts
• Find opinions from a single court, such as the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court
• Search cases filed between two dates
• Look up judges and their appointment history
• List every US court with its citation abbreviation and website
• Find attorneys and parties on a federal docket
• Download opinion PDF links
• Export case law search results to CSV or Excel

Four search modes

Mode	What you get
Case Law Opinions	Published and unpublished court opinions, with citations and citation counts
RECAP Federal Filings/Dockets	Federal dockets with parties, attorneys, assigned judge and nature of suit
Judges	Judges with birth details, political affiliation, ABA rating, school, appointer and confirmation dates
Courts (full list)	About 3,300 courts with jurisdiction, citation string and official website

What data can you extract from CourtListener?

Field	What it holds
caseName, caseNameFull	Short and full case name
court, courtId, jurisdictionType	Court and its CourtListener ID
dateFiled, dateArgued	Key dates
docketNumber, docketId, clusterId	Case identifiers
citation, citeCount	Legal citation and how often it is cited
judge, referredTo	Judge and referred judge
attorney, parties, cause, suitNature	People and legal basis (dockets)
precedentialStatus	Published or unpublished
snippet	Text excerpt from the opinion
downloadUrl, caseUrl	Opinion document and case page links

Judge results add name, dob, politicalAffiliation, abaRating, school, currentCourt, appointer, dateConfirmed and personUrl. Court results add fullName, shortName, citationString, jurisdiction, startDate, endDate and courtWebsite.

How to scrape court opinions

1. Choose a Search Type: opinions, dockets, judges or courts.
2. Type a Search Query, such as patent infringement or Apple v. Samsung. Courts mode does not need a query.
3. Optionally add a Court ID (scotus, ca9, cand) and a filing date range.
4. Pick a sort order: relevance, newest, oldest or most cited.
5. Click Start and export the results as CSV, Excel or from the Apify console.

Input example

{
  "query": "fair use",
  "searchType": "o",
  "court": "ca9",
  "filedAfter": "2020-01-01",
  "orderBy": "citeCount desc",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Output example

{
  "recordType": "opinion",
  "caseName": "Serova v. Sony Music Entertainment",
  "court": "California Supreme Court",
  "courtId": "cal",
  "dateFiled": "2022-08-18",
  "docketNumber": "S260736",
  "citeCount": 0,
  "precedentialStatus": "Published",
  "downloadUrl": "http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S260736.PDF",
  "clusterId": 7857881,
  "docketId": 64902763,
  "caseUrl": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7857881/serova-v-sony-music-entertainment/"
}

Example: build a list of the most cited fair use opinions

Set the search type to opinions, type fair use, choose the court you care about and sort by most cited. The first rows are the opinions other courts rely on most, each with its citation, citation count and a link to the document. Add a filing date to focus on recent law, then schedule the same search monthly to see which new decisions start getting cited.

How much does it cost to scrape CourtListener?

You pay per result: $55 per 1,000 results plus a tiny start fee. The free plan returns up to 10 results per run. Court listings, opinions, dockets and judges all count as one result each.

Who uses court data?

• Law firms monitor new decisions on a legal topic for their practice area.
• Legal researchers collect citation data for studies.
• Journalists follow lawsuits against a company or agency.
• Legal tech teams fill their own databases with case metadata.

FAQ

Do I need a CourtListener account? No. The Actor works without any login.

Does it include the full text of opinions? Results include a text snippet and links to the opinion document. Use the links for the full text.

Where do I find a court ID? Run the Actor in Courts mode. Every court comes back with its courtId.

Are all fields always filled? No. Some cases have no citation yet, and some dockets list no attorney. Empty fields come back as null.

Can I monitor a topic every week? Yes. Schedule the Actor with a filing-date filter and sort by newest.

Automate and connect

Schedule the Actor from the Apify console to refresh the data daily or weekly. Send finished datasets to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n, or trigger a webhook when a run ends, so your reports and alerts update without manual work.

Legal note

This Actor collects information that is publicly visible on the website. Check the source site's terms and your local rules before using the data.

Support

Missing a field or found a bug? Open an issue from the Actor page.