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⚖️ CourtListener Federal Docket Scraper — Federal court dockets and PACER docs — free RECAP data via CourtListener

Scrape federal court dockets — district courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court — via CourtListener's RECAP archive. Search by case name, party, judge, court, or date filed. Get full docket sheets, party lists, attorneys, judge assignments, and links to free RECAP-archived PDFs of motions, orders, and opinions.

One actor. One token. Real-time regulator-direct data delivered in structured JSON.

Why This Actor Beats PACER ($0.10/page), Westlaw, Bloomberg Law

• PACER costs $0.10 per page — we don't: PACER charges $0.10 per page retrieved with a $3-per-document cap. A single complex docket can run $50+ in PACER fees. We read CourtListener's free RECAP mirror at a flat per-entry rate.
• No Westlaw seat needed: Westlaw and Bloomberg Law start at $200+/user/month. CourtListener is free and open. Our actor packages the API into structured pay-per-result delivery.
• Party + judge + attorney structured: Every docket entry includes party names, role (plaintiff, defendant, intervenor), counsel of record, and presiding judge. Useful for litigation analytics and law-firm sales prospecting.
• Full-text search across millions of filings: Search the body text of opinions and motions, not just metadata.

What You Get

Every record returned by this actor is structured JSON with the following fields populated wherever the source filing provides them:

• Case name, docket number, court (district, circuit, SCOTUS)
• Date filed, date terminated, nature of suit code, cause of action
• Presiding judge name, magistrate judge name
• Parties — name, role (plaintiff/defendant/intervenor), entity flag
• Counsel of record — attorney name, law firm, contact info, bar admission
• Docket entries — date, sequence number, description, document type
• Document URLs (free RECAP PDFs where available)
• Related cases and consolidated dockets
• Appellate history (appeal-to court, mandate date)
• Jury demand and damages-claimed flags (when present)

The full output schema is stable across runs — safe to load into Snowflake, BigQuery, Postgres, or your data warehouse without re-mapping each refresh.

Use Cases

• Litigation analysts — Track high-stakes federal litigation in your sector — patent suits, class actions, M&A challenges.
• Law firms — Sales prospecting: identify companies sued in your practice area before they retain counsel.
• Journalists — Build a feed of newly-filed lawsuits against big tech, big pharma, and Fortune 500 defendants.
• Academic researchers — Empirical legal-studies datasets — case duration, judge effects, outcome prediction.
• Litigation funders — Source potential commercial litigation investments.
• Compliance teams — Monitor litigation exposure against your portfolio companies.
• Activist investors — Spot regulatory and class-action overhang on target companies.

Quick Start

Install the Apify Python client, set your token, and call the actor:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("nexgendata/courtlistener-federal-docket-scraper").call(run_input={
"maxItems":100,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
print(item)

You can also trigger via cURL:

curl-X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~courtlistener-federal-docket-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"\
-H"Content-Type: application/json"\
-d'{"maxItems": 100}'

Schedule it on Apify's built-in scheduler for daily, hourly, or every-5-minute refreshes — no infra required.

Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing on Apify. Primary event: Docket entry at $0.05 per record. An Actor Start fee of $0.00005 applies per run (charged per GB of memory, minimum 1). No subscription, no seat licence, no procurement cycle — pay only for the rows you receive.

For high-volume use cases (100K+ records/month), contact us at NexGenData for volume discounts.

Sister Actors in the NexGenData Fleet

NexGenData publishes the deepest SEC/regulatory actor catalog on Apify. Pair this actor with:

Browse the full 200+ actor catalog at https://apify.com/nexgendata?fpr=2ayu9b.

FAQ

Q: Is this PACER or CourtListener?

A: CourtListener's RECAP archive — a free mirror of PACER documents donated by users. Some documents are RECAP-archived; many aren't. For RECAP-archived PDFs you get the document for free. For others, you'd still need PACER.

Q: Is this legal?

A: Yes. CourtListener and RECAP are run by the Free Law Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The data is public-record federal court filings.

Q: How fresh is the data?

A: CourtListener typically mirrors PACER within hours. We read on demand.

Q: Can I search by judge?

A: Yes — pass judge_name to filter every case before Judge Easterbrook, Judge Boasberg, etc.

Q: What about state courts?

A: This actor covers federal only. State court coverage is more fragmented — separate actors handle individual state systems.

Q: Does this include sealed cases?

A: No. Sealed dockets are not on CourtListener or PACER public access.

About NexGenData

NexGenData publishes 200+ buyer-intent Apify actors covering SEC filings, federal regulatory data (EPA, FTC, CFPB, FEC, IRS 990, FAA), private-market intelligence (Form D, IPO, 13F, 13D/G), stock screeners across 30+ exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, TSX, ASX, HKEX, KOSPI, SGX, B3, BSE), B2B lead generation, and competitive intelligence. All actors are pay-per-result with no seat licences and no minimum commitments.

Browse the full catalog and start a free run at https://apify.com/nexgendata?fpr=2ayu9b.

Built by independent regulatory-data engineers. Reach out via the Apify message form for custom data integrations.