search case law and dockets via the courtlistener / recap api
domain: courtlistener.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Register for a free CourtListener account at free.law to obtain an API token; include it as Authorization: Token <token> on all requests.
Search opinions via GET /api/rest/v4/search/ with q (full-text query), type=o (opinions), and optional filters such as court, filed_after, filed_before.
Search PACER dockets via type=r (RECAP) in the same search endpoint; filter by docket_number or party name.
Fetch a specific docket with all its entries via GET /api/rest/v4/dockets/{id}/ and follow the docket_entries array to retrieve individual filing documents.
Download opinion or document text via the download_url or plain_text fields; full PDFs may redirect to PACER and require a PACER account with prepaid balance.
Known gotchas
RECAP only contains PACER documents that have been previously uploaded by RECAP users; coverage is substantial but not complete — treat absence as unknown, not non-existent.
Full-text search relevance ranking is not always intuitive for legal research; supplement keyword queries with known citation lookups via the citations endpoint.
Unauthenticated requests are heavily rate-limited; always authenticate even for read-only public data to avoid 429 errors.
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