Courtlistener Mcp Server

io.github.cyanheadsPublished by GitHub account cyanheadsv0.9.0Updated Nov 1, 2026

Search US court opinions, federal dockets, judges, citations, and oral arguments via CourtListener.

VerifiedStreamable HTTPWeb executableWeb Search & ScrapingKnowledge & Memory

Overview

AI-generated overview

Searches and retrieves US court opinions, federal dockets, judges, citations, oral arguments and judicial disclosures from CourtListener.

What you can do
  • Search and read opinions: full-text search across 9M+ opinions, fetch cluster text and variants, trace citing/cited-by networks, resolve citations
  • Search and read federal dockets: RECAP docket search, paged entries, selected filing text, parties and attorneys of record
  • Look up judges and courts: judge search and full biographical profiles, court ID discovery by jurisdiction and status
  • Search oral arguments: recording metadata, panel judges, MP3 links and transcripts
  • Search judicial financial disclosures: filings by judge and year, with line items decoded to dollar ranges
  • Reference material and a legal research prompt for planning a topic
When to use it
Useful for legal research, case-law and precedent tracing, checking federal court filings, or background on judges and their financial disclosures. Worth adding when an assistant needs structured access to US court data rather than general web search.
Requirements
A CourtListener API token in COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN, generated from the account settings. Runs either against the hosted HTTP endpoint or locally via npx (Node.js) or Docker. Published free-tier limits are 5 requests/minute, 50/hour and 125/day, and the server queues requests to stay within them.
Before you install
The API token is a credential and must be supplied to the server; the hosted endpoint is a third-party service, so queries and retrieved case data pass through it. Rate limits are low on the free tier and calls can fail or wait when exhausted. RECAP docket coverage is partial and crowd-sourced, and citation or disclosure results can be incomplete, so verify before relying on them.

Installation

In SourceWeft

  1. Open Courtlistener Mcp Server in the dashboard and add it to a workspace.
  2. Enable the server for the chats that should use its tools.

Web executable via Streamable HTTP. Remote servers run from the web runtime once configured in a workspace.

Use with an agent

Paste this prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another agent — or into SourceWeft chat. The agent reads this server's install guide, shows you its publisher, endpoint and sign-in, and adds it to your client once you agree. Keys never go into a command.

Read https://sourceweft.com/mcp/io.github.cyanheads%2Fcourtlistener-mcp-server/install.md and connect the MCP server it describes to my client. Before changing any config, show me its publisher, endpoint and sign-in method and wait for my OK. Never put an API key in a command or in a file I would commit; ask me where it should come from.

Read the install guide the agent follows

Other MCP clients

Add this to your client's mcpServers config.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "courtlistener": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://courtlistener.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

README

@cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server

Search and retrieve US court opinions, federal dockets, judge records, citation networks, and oral arguments from CourtListener's 9M+ opinion corpus via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.

14 Tools • 2 Resources • 1 Prompt

Overview

US case law and federal court records from CourtListener's 9M+ opinion corpus and its RECAP mirror of PACER. Search opinions and dockets, trace citation networks, resolve citations, look up judges and courts, and read oral argument transcripts and judicial financial disclosures.

Tools

ToolDescription
courtlistener_search_opinionsFull-text search across 9M+ court opinions with field syntax, court, date, and status filters
courtlistener_get_opinionFetch an opinion cluster's metadata and variant text (majority, concurrence, dissent), with source-completion status
courtlistener_get_citationsTrace a cluster's citation network: opinions it cites (citing) or that cite it (cited_by)
courtlistener_lookup_citationResolve every citation in a text (e.g. "410 U.S. 113") to cluster IDs and case metadata
courtlistener_search_docketsSearch RECAP federal dockets by case name, party, attorney, court, and filing date
courtlistener_get_docketFetch a federal docket's paged entries or selected filings' extracted text
courtlistener_get_partiesFetch the parties and attorneys of record on a RECAP docket
courtlistener_search_judgesSearch judges by name, appointing president, court, and political affiliation
courtlistener_get_judgeFetch a judge's positions, education, political affiliations, and ABA ratings
courtlistener_lookup_courtsList courts by jurisdiction type, active/inactive status, and scraper coverage
courtlistener_search_oral_argumentsSearch appellate oral argument recordings by case name, transcript text, court, and argument date
courtlistener_get_oral_argumentFetch one oral argument's panel, duration, MP3 link, and speech-to-text transcript
courtlistener_search_financial_disclosuresSearch judicial financial disclosure filings by judge and year
courtlistener_get_financial_disclosureFetch one disclosure's line items with coded values decoded to dollar ranges

Resources

ResourceDescription
courtlistener://reference/courtsJurisdiction codes, common court IDs, search type codes, rate limits, and the maintenance window
skill://courtlistener-guide/SKILL.mdResearch guide for identifier chains, text completion, citation treatment, and coverage limits

The jurisdiction codes are also listed on the jurisdiction parameter of courtlistener_lookup_courts, for clients that don't surface resources.

Prompts

PromptDescription
courtlistener_research_topicGenerate a structured legal research plan for a topic or question

Capability reference

Result-page sizes accept positive integers and bound outgoing requests: 20 for searches/citations, 10 for parties, and 50 for docket entries. Both response surfaces carry page_sizing (requested, bounded, actual, upstream). Upstream search/disclosure pages have a 20-row minimum, parties/entries use fixed 20-row pages, and citing slices cited IDs before searching. Returned pages are preserved; empty/final pages and page-local filters can produce fewer rows. Continue with the native cursor rather than increasing the requested size.

courtlistener_search_opinions tool

  • q is required and takes CourtListener field syntax (caseName:"roe v wade", court_id:scotus, judge:"Alito") and AND / OR / NOT; filter by court, filed_after / filed_before, and status, and sort with order_by (score desc default, dateFiled desc, dateFiled asc, citeCount desc); 20 results per page, continued with next_cursor
  • Each result carries cluster_id (for courtlistener_get_opinion and courtlistener_get_citations), docket_id, cite_count, a snippet, and opinions[] variants with opinion ID, type, author_id, and local_path; totalCount and effectiveQuery report the match
  • Omit status for CourtListener's Published default, or select one publication status, including In-chambers and Relating-to.

courtlistener_get_opinion tool

  • cluster_id is required; after an outline response, sections: ["opinion_<id>", ...] pulls specific variants, and a name the cluster doesn't have fails as unknown_section
  • Cluster metadata (case name, court_id, citations, cite_count, precedential_status, syllabus, posture, docket_id) plus each variant's html_text, plain_text, cites[], download_url, and type_label, the same label courtlistener_search_opinions reports
  • Small responses use kind: "full". Oversized variants or metadata return a bounded outline, then typed page responses through retrieval.next_cursor; repeat the original ID and selection with cursor until null.
  • Supplied plain_text is preserved; markup-only variants gain readable text with paragraphs, tables, lists, footnotes, and decoded entities. html_text retains raw source and renders as fenced text. Search/citation snippets use the same readable normalization.
  • variants_completion reports whether the bounded source walk finished and its remaining upstream variant cursor. docket_enrichment distinguishes not_linked, resolved, source_fields_absent, and lookup_failed with a sanitized failure category; cancellation propagates.
  • Primary continuation remains stable when optional docket enrichment changes. Oversized enrichment has its own enrichment_retrieval.next_cursor, passed as enrichment_cursor with the same cluster and selection. Keep enrichment chunks only while source_id is unchanged; a changed source restarts that stream. A metadata-only partial response can have a null primary cursor while enrichment continues. Legacy v1 cursors retain their original enrichment-sensitive behavior.

courtlistener_get_citations tool

  • cluster_id is required; direction is cited_by (default, opinions that cite this one) or citing (opinions it cites); optional court and filed_after filters; up to 20 results per page, continued with cursor
  • Rows carry cluster_id, court_id, date_filed, cite_count, and snippet; for citing, totals count the unfiltered cited-opinion list, and a filtered page can come back empty while next_cursor is still set. source_variants_completion and total_is_partial qualify observed_total; incomplete variants make this a lower bound and omit the exact totalCount trailer.
  • For citing, cursor is a nonnegative safe decimal integer offset (01, +1, 1.0, and 1. all mean 1); malformed offsets fail as invalid_cursor before any request. An offset at or past the end returns an empty page with the source name and unfiltered distinct-opinion total, without searching. cited_by cursors stay opaque.

courtlistener_lookup_citation tool

  • citation takes one citation or a passage of up to 64,000 characters, and every citation in it resolves; max_court_lookups (default 4, max 20, 0 to skip) caps the docket requests spent on court names
  • One matches[] entry per citation, with status (200 one case, 300 several candidates, 400 unrecognized reporter, 404 no match, 429 past the per-request citation cap) and status_label; each of its clusters[] carries cluster_id, docket_id, court_id, and court_resolution (resolved, no_docket, lookup_failed, over_budget, only the last worth retrying with a larger budget)
  • Unresolved citations come back as entries, not errors; only text with no parseable citation fails, as not_found. CourtListener meters this endpoint per citation submitted, separately from the per-request limits

courtlistener_search_dockets tool

  • q is required and matches case name, docket number, party, and attorney names; party_name (ANDed with q), court, and filed_after / filed_before narrow it; 20 results per page, continued with next_cursor
  • Each docket carries docket_id, parties, attorneys, firms, suit_nature, assigned_to / referred_to, and up to 3 sample_documents with is_available and a RECAP filepath_local URL; every response adds a coverage_note on RECAP's partial PACER coverage

courtlistener_get_docket tool

  • docket_id is required; entries come 20 per page (CourtListener ignores entries_page_size), walked with entries_page and top-level next_cursor. Without a document selection, returns docket metadata and entries[]; total_entries is null when upstream supplies no numeric total.
  • document_ids selects documents from the requested entries page. Selected responses carry kind, selected_documents, source/storage links, and raw plain_text; large records use retrieval.next_cursor, passed as cursor with the same docket ID, entries page, and selection. Listing-only fields are optional in selected responses.
  • text_status is available, unavailable, not_extracted, or unknown; extracted text can exist independently of is_available. IDs absent from the page fail as document_not_on_page; an entry without a matching docket relation fails as document_ownership_unverified. Selection adds no document-detail requests or page walks.

courtlistener_get_parties tool

  • docket_id is required; cursor takes the opaque next_cursor token, not a page number; outgoing page_size is bounded to 10 and CourtListener may not honor it
  • Each party carries name, its docket-scoped role, and attorneys[] with name, contact_raw, role_code / role (codes 5–9 mean no longer of record), and date_action; total_parties uses the upstream total when supplied, otherwise counts a single-page result or stays null
  • attorney_resolution reports resolved, exhausted, or capped lookups, unresolved IDs, and the remaining upstream roster cursor. Resolution stops after five roster pages or when the local request budget blocks a later page; already fetched records are retained. Per-attorney resolution distinguishes a resolved record with empty source fields from not_found after exhaustion and not_fetched after the cap. Upstream roster/variant cursors describe completeness; these tools do not accept them as new retrieval inputs.

courtlistener_search_judges tool

  • q is required; filter by appointer (the president's last name), court, and political_affiliation (d, r, i, l, g, u); 20 results per page, continued with next_cursor
  • Results carry person_id (for courtlistener_get_judge), political_affiliation and aba_rating as labels rather than codes, and a current_position: the one with no termination date, or the latest-starting when several or none qualify

courtlistener_get_judge tool

  • person_id is required; positions are fetched up to a page bound, and truncated with positionsShown reports when a long record ran past it
  • Positions (judicial, plus non-judicial roles described by job_title and organization_name), education, political affiliations, ABA ratings, and fjc_id; coded fields keep the raw code beside a label (position_type_label, termination_reason_label, degree_label)
  • Dates carry the precision CourtListener recorded in dob_granularity, dod_granularity, date_start_granularity, and date_termination_granularity (year, month, or day)

courtlistener_lookup_courts tool

  • Filter by jurisdiction (one of 22 CourtListener codes such as F, FD, FB, S, SA; the full table is in courtlistener://reference/courts), status (active default, inactive, or any), and has_opinion_scraper; live records come 20 per page, walked with page
  • courts[] carry id (the court ID every other tool filters on), citation_string, jurisdiction, and scraper flags; all_matching_court_ids lists every match from a bundled snapshot at no request cost, and is empty when more than 1,000 match, so check all_matching_court_ids_complete

courtlistener_search_oral_arguments tool

  • q is required and matches case name and transcript text; filter by court and argued_after / argued_before; 20 results per page, continued with next_cursor
  • Results carry audio_id (for courtlistener_get_oral_argument), panel_ids (for courtlistener_get_judge), duration_seconds, snippet, and two MP3 links: download_url at the originating court and local_path, CourtListener's durable copy

courtlistener_get_oral_argument tool

  • id (an audio_id from a search) is required; sections: ["transcript"] selects the transcript. Selected responses obey the same byte limits.
  • Returns panel_ids, duration_seconds, download_url, docket_id, has_transcript, and transcript; oversized text or metadata uses outline and cursor-driven page responses. The argument date is not on this record; take it from the search result or the docket.

courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures tool

  • Filter by judge_id (a person_id) and year; 20 filings per page, continued with cursor. year filters only the fetched page, because CourtListener has no server-side year filter, so keep paging when a page comes back empty with next_cursor set
  • Each filing carries disclosure_id, report_type, has_been_extracted, is_amended, pdf_url, per-category counts (investments, gifts, debts, positions, reimbursements, agreements, non-investment and spouse income), and itemized gifts

courtlistener_get_financial_disclosure tool

  • disclosure_id is required; categories selects from investments, debts, positions, reimbursements, non_investment_incomes, spouse_incomes, agreements, and gifts (omit for all)
  • Returns filing metadata, counts, and the requested line-item rows, with coded value and income columns decoded to dollar ranges (N → $250,001 - $500,000); oversized selections use outline and cursor-driven page responses, including when a single row exceeds the budget.

Opinion, audio, disclosure, and selected docket-document retrieval bound each serialized response surface (structuredContent and complete content[]) to 24,000 UTF-8 bytes. Repeat the original identity and selection with cursor: retrieval.next_cursor; docket selections also repeat entries_page. Catalog pages lead automatically to data pages. retrieval.ranges uses JSON Pointer paths and absolute exclusive ranges (rows, code_points, or sections); merge typed rows by absolute index, and concatenate text_chunks by their code-point ranges. Partial rows retain their source identity; omitted text is recoverable through its original field path. Metadata can also be paged. Structured strings remain unescaped; presentation escaping happens after slicing. A changed normalized source returns stale_cursor; restart without cursor. Source-completion cursors remain distinct from these retrieval cursors.

courtlistener://reference/courts resource

  • Markdown reference: the 22 jurisdiction codes (rendered from the set courtlistener_lookup_courts validates against), common court IDs, search type codes, the published free-tier rate limits, and the weekly maintenance window (Thursdays 21:00–23:59 PT)
  • Static content, cacheable publicly for 24 hours

skill://courtlistener-guide/SKILL.md resource

  • Identifier chains and research gates for case law, RECAP filings, judges, disclosures, and oral arguments
  • Also included in plugin installs, npm, Docker, and the desktop bundle as courtlistener-guide

courtlistener_research_topic prompt

  • Arguments: topic required; jurisdiction optional (a court ID such as scotus or ca9); depth optional, overview (default, 3–5 key cases) or deep (adds citation-network traversal and judge lookup)
  • Returns one user message laying out the research workflow and a findings template: key cases, precedent trajectory, research gaps

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

CourtListener-specific:

  • CourtListener REST API v4: search, opinions and clusters, dockets and entries, parties and attorneys, people and positions, courts, audio, financial disclosures, and citation lookup
  • One request queue for the whole process, paced to COURTLISTENER_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE and COURTLISTENER_RATE_LIMIT_PER_HOUR, so a burst waits instead of failing; a 429 pauses the queue for every waiting call, and a Retry-After is honored within a 45-second wait budget
  • Request cost per call: one for most tools; two for courtlistener_get_docket; two or more for courtlistener_get_parties and courtlistener_get_judge (one per extra page of a long roster or career); three for courtlistener_get_opinion and courtlistener_get_citations (plus one per extra page of opinion variants); and for courtlistener_lookup_citation, the lookup plus up to max_court_lookups docket requests
  • Input that can't succeed (an empty q, a malformed date, a citation over 64,000 characters, an unknown oral argument section) is rejected before a request is spent

Agent-friendly output:

  • Chaining IDs: cluster_id, docket_id, person_id, audio_id, and disclosure_id appear wherever they feed a follow-up call, with field descriptions naming the tool that takes each
  • Typed rate-limit errors: reason: "rate_limited" with retryAfter in seconds, whether CourtListener returned the 429 or the queue gave up before sending, in which case the message says no request was spent
  • Bounded retrieval: opinion, audio, disclosure, and selected docket-document responses preserve small full records and stream oversized selections through an outline and resumable typed pages without truncating source text
  • Coverage caveats inline: RECAP coverage_note, court_resolution on citation lookups, truncated on position history, and notices when a page-local filter empties a page that has more pages behind it

Getting started

Connect to the hosted instance, no install:

sh
claude mcp add --transport http courtlistener-mcp-server https://courtlistener.caseyjhand.com/mcp

Or run it locally:

sh
claude mcp add courtlistener-mcp-server -e COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=your-api-token -- npx -y @cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server

For other clients, add this to the MCP config file:

json
{  "mcpServers": {    "courtlistener-mcp-server": {      "command": "npx",      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server"],      "env": {        "COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token"      }    }  }}

Generate a token in your CourtListener account settings. Published free-tier limits are 5 requests per minute, 50 per hour, and 125 per day; limits vary by token tier, and Free Law Project membership raises them. For Docker or a source build, see Running the server.

Configuration

VariableDescriptionDefault
COURTLISTENER_API_TOKENRequired. API token from your CourtListener account settings.—
COURTLISTENER_BASE_URLAPI base URL override.https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4
COURTLISTENER_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTERequests the server starts per rolling minute. Past it, requests queue; one that can't start within about 45 s fails with the reset time. Raise it to match a higher token tier.5
COURTLISTENER_RATE_LIMIT_PER_HOURRequests the server starts per rolling hour.50
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPETransport: stdio or http.stdio
MCP_HTTP_PORTHTTP server port.3010
MCP_SESSION_MODEHTTP session mode: stateless, stateful, or auto. The server declares stateless; setting this overrides it.stateless
MCP_AUTH_MODEAuthentication: none, jwt, or oauth.none
MCP_LOG_LEVELLog level (debug, info, warning, error, etc.).info
LOGS_DIRDirectory for log files (Node.js only).<project-root>/logs
STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPEStorage backend: in-memory, filesystem, supabase, cloudflare-kv/r2/d1.in-memory
OTEL_ENABLEDEnable OpenTelemetry.false
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINTBase endpoint for traces and metrics; appends /v1/traces and /v1/metrics. Without an endpoint, neither exports.—
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_ENDPOINTExplicit endpoint for redacted OTLP logs; the base endpoint does not enable log export.—
LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOADSLog failed-call inputs and results with key-based redaction.false
LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOAD_MAX_BYTESSize cap for each logged failed-call payload.16384

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

Requires Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).

  • Clone and install:

    sh
    git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server.gitcd courtlistener-mcp-server && bun installcp .env.example .env   # set COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN

  • Build and run:

    sh
    # One-time buildbun run rebuild
# Run the built serverbun run start:stdio# orbun run start:http

  • Run checks and tests:

    sh
    bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, securitybun run test       # Vitest test suitebun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

sh
docker run --rm -e COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=your-token -p 3010:3010 ghcr.io/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server:latest

The image defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/courtlistener-mcp-server. For stdio, use docker run -i --rm -e MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio -e COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=your-token ghcr.io/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server:latest. To build locally, run docker build -t courtlistener-mcp-server .; OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

DirectoryPurpose
src/index.tscreateApp() entry point: registers tools, resources, and prompts, and inits the service.
src/configServer-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.
src/mcp-server/toolsTool definitions (*.tool.ts). 14 tools across opinions, citations, dockets, parties, judges, courts, oral arguments, and financial disclosures.
src/mcp-server/resourcesResource definitions (*.resource.ts). Court reference resource.
src/mcp-server/promptsPrompt definitions (*.prompt.ts). Legal research prompt.
src/services/courtlistenerCourtListener API client (request pacing, retry, error classification), code tables, and the bundled court snapshot (bun run courts:snapshot regenerates it).
tests/Unit and integration tests mirroring src/.
skills/Published research guidance for agents calling the server.

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

  • Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic
  • Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage
  • Register new tools, resources, and prompts by importing them in src/index.ts and adding them to the createApp({ tools, resources, prompts }) arrays
  • Wrap CourtListener API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

sh
bun run devcheckbun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.

Source: README.md at commit 6901b73

Tools

14

courtlistener_search_opinions

Search Court Opinions

Full-text search across 9M+ written US court opinions with field-level filtering. Returns opinion cluster summaries with case metadata, citations, matched text snippets, and the individual opinion variants filed in each case. Supports CourtListener field syntax (caseName:"roe v wade", court_id:scotus, judge:"Alito") and boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). Use courtlistener_lookup_courts to find court IDs. CourtListener publishes free-tier limits of 5 req/min, 50/hr, 125/day; actual limits vary by token tier.

Parametersqrequiredcourtcursorstatusorder_bypage_sizefiled_afterfiled_before

courtlistener_get_opinion

Get Court Opinion

Fetch text and metadata for an opinion cluster by cluster ID. Returns majority, concurrence and dissent variants with raw HTML and readable plain text, variants_completion for source coverage, and docket_enrichment. Oversized selections return outline then page responses; continue retrieval.next_cursor as cursor with the unchanged ID/sections selection until null. Oversized docket backfill has independent enrichment_retrieval coordinates; continue its next_cursor as enrichment_cursor and discard prior enrichment slices when source_id changes. Obtain cluster IDs from courtlistener_search_opinions, courtlistener_lookup_citation, or docket results.

Parameterscursorsectionscluster_idrequiredenrichment_cursor

courtlistener_get_citations

Get Citation Network

Retrieve the citation network for an opinion cluster. Supports two directions: "cited_by" (opinions that cite this one — measures precedential influence) and "citing" (opinions this one cites — reveals the authority chain relied on). This is the primary tool for tracing legal precedent chains. Note: the free tier supports shallow traversal — following 1–2 hops of a single case is practical; deep multi-hop analysis burns through the daily budget quickly.

Parameterscourtcursordirectionpage_sizecluster_idrequiredfiled_after

courtlistener_lookup_citation

Lookup Legal Citation

Resolve legal citations (e.g., "410 U.S. 113", "93 S. Ct. 705") to opinion cluster IDs and case metadata. Enables workflows that start from a known citation rather than a search query. CourtListener extracts every citation it finds in the submitted text, so passing a passage returns one entry per citation, each with its own resolution status — an unresolved or ambiguous citation is reported in the results, not raised as an error. Supports standard US reporter formats. Costs one request against CourtListener's per-citation quota, plus one ordinary request per distinct docket whose court is resolved — max_court_lookups bounds that second half (default 4, set 0 to skip court resolution entirely). CourtListener meters this endpoint by citations submitted rather than by call, so a long passage spends proportionally more of that quota. Requires authentication — uses the CourtListener /citation-lookup/ endpoint.

Parameterscitationrequiredmax_court_lookups

courtlistener_search_dockets

Search Federal Court Dockets

Search RECAP federal court dockets. Query terms match case name, docket number, party, and attorney names; filters narrow by party name, court, and filing date. RECAP is a crowd-sourced mirror of PACER (the federal court filing system) — coverage varies by court and date. Returns docket metadata with the parties, attorneys, and firms of record, plus up to 3 sample document entries per docket. Use courtlistener_lookup_courts to find court IDs.

Parametersqrequiredcourtcursorpage_sizeparty_namefiled_afterfiled_before

courtlistener_get_docket

Get Docket

Fetch docket metadata and one entries page by docket ID. Omit document_ids for the docket listing, or select RECAP document IDs embedded on entries_page to retrieve their extracted text without further upstream requests. Selected text uses bounded full/outline/page responses; continue retrieval.next_cursor as cursor with the same docket_id, entries_page and document_ids. Top-level next_cursor remains entries pagination. File availability and extracted-text status are independent. Obtain docket IDs from courtlistener_search_dockets or opinion results.

Parameterscursordocket_idrequireddocument_idsentries_pageentries_page_size

courtlistener_get_parties

Get Parties

Fetch a page of parties and their attorneys of record for a RECAP federal docket by docket ID. Returns each party's name, role (Plaintiff, Defendant, Petitioner, Respondent, etc.), and their attorneys with contact information, scoped to this docket. Costs one party request plus up to five attorney roster requests. A later roster page blocked by the local request budget returns fetched detail with capped resolution, unresolved IDs, and the remaining roster cursor. Obtain docket IDs from courtlistener_search_dockets or courtlistener_get_docket.

Parameterscursordocket_idrequiredpage_size

courtlistener_search_judges

Search Judges

Search judge/person records by name, appointing president, court, political affiliation, or demographic. Returns biographical data, current position, and appointment summary. Use courtlistener_get_judge for full appointment history and education records.

Parametersqrequiredcourtcursorappointerpage_sizepolitical_affiliation

courtlistener_get_judge

Get Judge Profile

Fetch full biographical profile for a single judge: positions on record — judicial appointments across all courts plus non-judicial roles — education, political affiliations, and ABA ratings. The position list is paginated upstream and walked under a page bound; the response reports whether it was truncated. Obtain person IDs from courtlistener_search_judges results.

Parametersperson_idrequired

courtlistener_lookup_courts

Lookup Courts

List courts with optional filtering by jurisdiction type, active/inactive status, and scraper coverage. Primarily used to discover court IDs for use in search and filter parameters across all other courtlistener tools. Defaults to the active bench — the courts CourtListener still scrapes; pass status:'inactive' for historical courts or status:'any' for every court. A bundled snapshot returns the complete list of matching court IDs without paging whenever the filtered set fits the response budget, which covers the default bench and every jurisdiction filter. Full court records — names, citation strings, scraper status — come live from CourtListener at a fixed 20 rows per page, so pull those only when a court ID alone is not enough.

Parameterspagestatusjurisdictionhas_opinion_scraper

courtlistener_search_oral_arguments

Search Oral Arguments

Search appellate oral argument audio recordings — the largest public collection of oral argument audio. Returns recording metadata with two direct MP3 links per result (download_url at the originating court, local_path for CourtListener's durable copy), panel judge IDs, and transcript snippets where available. Panel judge IDs can be passed to courtlistener_get_judge for biographical context.

Parametersqrequiredcourtcursorpage_sizeargued_afterargued_before

courtlistener_get_oral_argument

Get Oral Argument

Fetch an oral argument recording by audio_id from courtlistener_search_oral_arguments. Returns case metadata, panel IDs, duration, MP3 URL, docket and available transcript. Oversized text or metadata returns outline then page responses; continue retrieval.next_cursor as cursor with the unchanged ID/sections selection until null. The argument date comes from search or the linked docket.

Parametersidrequiredcursorsections

courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures

Search Financial Disclosures

Search federal judicial financial disclosure filings — the annual reports judges file on investments, gifts, debts, outside positions, and income. Filter by judge (person ID from courtlistener_search_judges) and/or filing year; the year filter is applied to the fetched page only (CourtListener has no server-side year filter), so page through with cursor to reach a judge's filings for a year that fall on later pages. Returns per-filing metadata, category counts, itemized gifts, and a link to the source PDF. Line-item investments (often hundreds per filing, with coded values) are summarized as counts; the linked PDF carries the full itemization. Use this for judicial-ethics and recusal research after identifying a judge's person ID.

Parametersyearcursorjudge_idpage_size

courtlistener_get_financial_disclosure

Get Financial Disclosure

Fetch a judicial financial disclosure by disclosure_id from courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures. Returns metadata, counts and typed line items with coded values decoded to dollar ranges. Select categories or omit for all. Oversized selections return outline then page responses; continue retrieval.next_cursor as cursor with the unchanged ID/categories selection until null. Large individual row fields remain recoverable through text_chunks.

Parameterscursorcategoriesdisclosure_idrequired

Version history

5
  1. v0.9.0LatestNov 1, 2026
  2. v0.8.0Oct 18, 2026
  3. v0.7.3Sep 30, 2026
  4. v0.7.2Sep 30, 2026
  5. v0.7.1Sep 16, 2026

Score

100% of the applicable checks met

How complete this listing is, computed from the registry entry, the endpoint and public sources. Not a rating of the server and not a statement that it is safe or working today: reachability is a dated check, and no installs or reviews go into the score.

  • Reached in the last 30 daysRequired25 pts
  • Auth declaredRequired10 pts
  • Tools listedRequired15 pts
  • DescriptionRequired15 pts
  • Logo10 pts
  • Documentation15 pts
  • License10 pts