CourtListener Scraper: 16 Fields, Opinions & Dockets

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How to search US case law and dockets without PACER fees

Search CourtListener, the Free Law Project's database of US federal and state court records, by keyword or quoted phrase. Get back 16 structured fields per record: case name, full case name, court and court ID, filing and argument dates, docket number, judge, reporter citations, citation count, precedential status, nature of suit, cluster and docket IDs, and a direct CourtListener URL.

No API key is required. A free CourtListener token is optional and only raises your rate limit. Up to 10,000 records per run, paginated automatically.

✅ No API key required · ✅ 16 fields per record · ✅ Opinions and dockets · ✅ Court and date-range filters · ✅ MCP-ready for AI agents

Search US case law by topic

The core run. resultType defaults to opinions.

{
 "query": "patent infringement",
 "maxResults": 50
}

Quoted phrases work as you would expect: "\"inevitable disclosure\"" searches the phrase, not the words.

Restrict a search to one court

court takes a CourtListener court slug, scotus, ca9, cafc, ded, and so on.

{
 "query": "patent infringement",
 "resultType": "opinions",
 "court": "ca9",
 "maxResults": 100
}

Pull dockets instead of opinions

resultType: "dockets" searches RECAP docket records rather than written opinions, the right choice when you care about what was filed, not what was decided.

{
 "query": "securities class action",
 "resultType": "dockets",
 "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
 "maxResults": 200
}

Monitor recent filings on a topic

Set a tight dateFrom, save it as a task, and schedule it. Deduplicate downstream on cluster_id or docket_id.

{
 "query": "artificial intelligence copyright",
 "resultType": "opinions",
 "dateFrom": "2026-07-01",
 "dateTo": "2026-08-01",
 "maxResults": 500
}

Raise your rate limit with a free token

CourtListener issues free API tokens. Supplying one lifts the anonymous rate limit, worth doing before a large backfill.

{
 "query": "trade secret misappropriation",
 "maxResults": 5000,
 "apiToken": "YOUR_COURTLISTENER_TOKEN"
}

The token is optional. Without it the actor still runs, just under the anonymous limit.

What data do you get for each court record

Captured from a live run against query: "patent infringement", court: "ca9":

{
 "case_name": "Cpc Patent Technologies Pty Ltd. v. Apple Inc.",
 "case_name_full": "",
 "court": "Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit",
 "court_id": "ca9",
 "date_filed": "2024-10-24",
 "date_argued": "2024-09-24",
 "docket_number": "23-3449",
 "judge": "",
 "citations": ["119 F.4th 1126"],
 "cite_count": 3,
 "status": "Published",
 "nature_of_suit": "",
 "cluster_id": 10160745,
 "docket_id": 69032034,
 "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10160745/cpc-patent-technologies-pty-ltd-v-apple-inc/",
 "scraped_at": "2026-07-15T04:14:18.606Z"
}

Every record carries these 16 fields:

Field	Description
📛 case_name	Short case name (e.g. Smith v. Jones)
📄 case_name_full	Full official case name; blank when CourtListener has none on file
🏛️ court	Court name
🆔 court_id	CourtListener court slug, use it in the court filter
📅 date_filed	Filing date (YYYY-MM-DD)
🗣️ date_argued	Oral argument date, where applicable
🔢 docket_number	Court docket number
👨‍⚖️ judge	Presiding judge if published; blank when not recorded
📚 citations	Array of reporter citations
🔗 cite_count	How many later opinions cite this one, a rough authority signal
✅ status	Precedential status (e.g. Published)
⚖️ nature_of_suit	Nature of suit if classified; blank when not set
🆔 cluster_id	CourtListener opinion cluster ID, stable, deduplicate on this
🆔 docket_id	CourtListener docket ID
🔗 url	CourtListener record URL
🕒 scraped_at	ISO timestamp when the record was captured

Blank strings are honest, not missing data: CourtListener genuinely has no full case name, judge, or nature-of-suit classification on file for many records, and we surface exactly what the source holds rather than inventing a value. Results are ordered by relevance score, and a final _type: "summary" row reports total_available so you know how much of the result set you pulled.

How does this work without an API key or PACER

CourtListener is run by the Free Law Project and exposes a public REST API. This actor calls the v4 search endpoint over plain HTTP, no browser, no proxy, no anti-bot to defeat, paginates via the cursor CourtListener returns, and normalises each result into a flat record.

PACER charges roughly $0.10 per page for federal court documents. CourtListener's RECAP archive holds a large share of the same material, contributed by users, at no per-page cost. That is the arbitrage this actor exists to make easy.

Requests retry automatically on 429 and 5xx responses with a capped backoff. A run that matches nothing logs it and charges nothing.

What does court record data cost here

Event	Price	You pay when
Record delivered	$0.001	A court record lands in your dataset

$1.00 per 1,000 records on the FREE plan, falling to $0.60 on GOLD and above. Empty searches and failed requests are never charged.

Common use cases

Legal research pipelines. Build a corpus of primary law on a topic and feed it into your own search or RAG system.

Docket monitoring. Watch a court or a topic for new filings on a schedule.

Litigation intelligence. Track how often a doctrine is cited, and by whom, via cite_count and citations.

Compliance and risk. Surface enforcement and litigation patterns in a regulated category.

Getting started

1. Enter a search query, plain keywords or a quoted phrase.
2. Choose opinions (written decisions) or dockets (RECAP filings).
3. Optionally narrow by court slug and a dateFrom / dateTo range.
4. Set maxResults (up to 10,000).
5. Click Start, then export as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pull it via API or MCP.

Run it on a schedule

1. Run the actor once with the input you want repeated, then click Save as a task.
2. In the Apify Console, go to Schedules → Create new.
3. Name it, set your timezone, and pick a frequency or a cron expression (e.g. 0 6 * * *).
4. Under Actors or tasks to run, add the task you saved.
5. Save. Nothing is charged just for a schedule existing.

Full options are in Apify's Schedules documentation.

FAQ

Do I need a CourtListener API key? No. A free token is optional and only raises your rate limit, which matters on large backfills.

What is the difference between opinions and dockets? Opinions are written court decisions. Dockets are the RECAP filing records for a case. Set resultType accordingly.

How do I find a court ID? Every returned record carries court_id. Run a broad search first, read the court_id values, then re-run filtered.

Why are judge and nature_of_suit sometimes blank? Because CourtListener has no value on file for that record. The field is surfaced as blank rather than filled with a guess.

How many records can I pull in one run? Up to 10,000, paginated automatically via the API cursor.

How do I deduplicate across scheduled runs? Match on cluster_id for opinions or docket_id for dockets.

Is this a substitute for PACER? For much federal material, RECAP covers it at no per-page cost. It is a contributed archive, so coverage is not guaranteed to be complete for every case.

Use from Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP agent

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=themineworks/courtlistener-court-records

Or call it programmatically:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('themineworks/courtlistener-court-records').call({
 query: 'patent infringement',
 court: 'ca9',
 maxResults: 50,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Complete your legal & compliance pipeline

Got the case law. Now widen the picture:

• FDA Recalls Scraper: drug, device, and food enforcement actions.
• FDA 510(k) Scraper: medical device clearances for regulatory context.
• Crossref Scholarly Metadata: academic literature that cites or informs the topic.

Typical flow: courtlistener finds the case law, fda-recalls surfaces the enforcement, crossref adds the academic backing.

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Disclaimer: This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with the Free Law Project. Court records are public documents; nothing here is legal advice.

Questions or need a custom field set? Reach out through the Apify profile.

Related guides

• CourtListener API: How to Search US Court Records and Case Law Programmatically
• Building a Legal & Regulatory Intelligence Pipeline with Court Records, Federal Rules, and Contract Data
• PACER vs CourtListener: Accessing US Court Records Without Paying $0.10 Per Page

Last verified: 2026-08