CourtListener Public Opinion Watch Scraper

What you get: one row per new public court opinion matching your query: court, case name, docket number, filing date and the CourtListener link. Rows already seen are skipped on later runs.

Sample output from a real run (2026-10-18, the JSON below, query antitrust, 1 row, USD 0.008 + USD 0.00005 actor start):

court	caseName	docketNumber	dateFiled	eventType
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit	Lisa Debar v. FirstEnergy Corp	25-2006	2026-10-14	new_public_court_result

Open Input (leave defaults → Start)

Paid first run ≈ USD 0.008 per opinion row (+ USD 0.00005 actor start; 1 query, 1 opinion). Keep the first run bounded; this does not change the Actor's Store pricing. Open Console Input (deep link above) and run this JSON.

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "knownStableIds": [],
  "daysBack": 7,
  "limit": 1,
  "firstRunMode": "emit_all",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false,
  "maxChargeUsd": 0.05
}

Store Quickstart

Run the bounded paid first-run JSON above first; keep report/export options off unless needed.

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "knownStableIds": [],
  "daysBack": 7,
  "limit": 1,
  "firstRunMode": "emit_all",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "dryRun": false,
  "maxChargeUsd": 0.05
}

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
}

Use with Apify MCP

Exact actor: taroyamada/courtlistener-public-docket-opinion-watch-scraper

Sample input JSON:

{
  "queries": [
    "antitrust"
  ],
  "knownStableIds": [],
  "daysBack": 30,
  "limit": 30,
  "firstRunMode": "emit_all",
  "delivery": "dataset",
  "maxChargeUsd": 1
}

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.

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