CourtListener Public Opinion Watch Scraper

Law firms, litigation analysts, compliance teams, and competitive intelligence teams use this actor to turn public CourtListener opinion search results into a clean no-key dataset for Regulatory Trigger Pack. Provide focused source inputs, keep the first run small, and expand only after the output shape is useful. Each emitted row includes source context, timestamps, and fields designed for monitoring, QA, research, or workflow handoff.

Store Quickstart

Start with public opinion search and one query. This Public Seed does not require a user API key and does not fetch PACER, RECAP, sealed, paid, or token-only docket data.

Recommended first run:

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "daysBack": 30,
  "limit": 30,
  "firstRunMode": "emit_all",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false
}

Input examples

Public opinion search

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "daysBack": 30,
  "limit": 30,
  "firstRunMode": "emit_all",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false
}

Baseline seed

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "daysBack": 30,
  "limit": 100,
  "firstRunMode": "seed_only",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false
}

Sample output

{
  "meta": {
    "actorName": "courtlistener-public-docket-opinion-watch-scraper",
    "actorTitle": "CourtListener Public Docket & Opinion Watch Scraper",
    "bundle": "Regulatory Trigger Pack",
    "fetchedAt": "2026-05-06T00:00:00.000Z",
    "totalRows": 1
  },
  "rows": [
    {
      "actorName": "courtlistener-public-docket-opinion-watch-scraper",
      "rowType": "courtlistener_opinion_search_result",
      "eventType": "new_public_court_result",
      "caseName": "Example Litigation",
      "court": "Court of Appeals",
      "docketNumber": "24-1000",
      "dateFiled": "2026-05-04",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/example",
      "fetchedAt": "2026-05-06T00:00:00.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "warnings": []
}

Output fields

• rowType
• eventType
• caseName
• court
• docketNumber
• dateFiled
• stableId
• sourceUrl
• warnings

Rows also include source URLs, fetch timestamps, warnings when a source is partial, and stable IDs when the workflow supports recurring change detection.

Pricing and no-change runs

$0.001 actor start and $0.020 per emitted trigger row. Baseline seed and unchanged runs suppress dataset rows.

The default dataset is the billable surface. Dry runs, validation-only runs, missing-key warnings, and unchanged recurring polls should not write payable default-dataset rows.

Compliance guardrails

• Uses the official CourtListener API.
• Paid court-file retrieval, automated external fetch requests, and restricted material are outside scope.
• No legal advice or provider-approval language.
• Do not use provider emblems or wording that implies approval by an upstream data provider.

See also

• sec-form-d-offering-notices-scraper
• uspto-trademark-status-office-action-scraper