/courtlistener/dockets/search

POST /api/courtlistener/dockets/search

Price: 1 credit

Search RECAP/PACER dockets by full-text query, court, party, attorney, nature of suit and date

How to use it

Search federal court dockets from the RECAP archive (a free mirror of PACER) on CourtListener. Combine a full-text query with filters for court, case name, docket number, party name, attorney name, assigned or referred judge, nature of suit, cause of action, filing date range, document number, document-entry date range, and availability of free documents. Each result is a docket with case name, court, docket number, parties, attorneys, law firms, judges, nature of suit and matching docket documents.

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• q string nullable — Full-text query over docket and document text
• court string nullable — Court id(s) to filter by, space-separated (examples: "cand", "nysd txnd")
• case_name string nullable — Filter by case name
• docket_number string nullable — Filter by docket number
• party_name string nullable — Filter by party name
• attorney_name string nullable — Filter by attorney name
• assigned_to string nullable — Filter by assigned judge name
• referred_to string nullable — Filter by referred judge name
• nature_of_suit string nullable — Filter by nature of suit
• cause string nullable — Filter by cause of action
• filed_after string nullable — Only dockets filed on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• filed_before string nullable — Only dockets filed on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• document_number string nullable — Filter by a document number within the docket (examples: "1", "3")
• entry_date_filed_after string nullable — Only dockets with a document entry filed on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• entry_date_filed_before string nullable — Only dockets with a document entry filed on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• available_only boolean nullable — Only cases with documents available for free download when true
• order_by string — Result ordering (default: "score desc"; one of: "score desc", "dateFiled desc", "dateFiled asc")
• count integer required — Number of dockets to return (min: 1)

Response

• @type string (default: "CourtlistenerDocket")
• docket_id integer required
• case_name string nullable
• case_name_full string nullable
• docket_number string nullable
• court string nullable
• court_id string nullable
• court_citation_string string nullable
• assigned_to string nullable
• assigned_to_id integer nullable
• referred_to string nullable
• referred_to_id integer nullable
• suit_nature string nullable
• cause string nullable
• jurisdiction_type string nullable
• jury_demand string nullable
• chapter string nullable
• trustee_str string nullable
• pacer_case_id string nullable
• parties array (default: [])
• party_ids array (default: [])
• attorneys array (default: [])
• attorney_ids array (default: [])
• firms array (default: [])
• firm_ids array (default: [])
• recap_documents array (default: [])
  • @type string (default: "CourtlistenerRecapDocument")
  • id integer required
  • docket_entry_id integer nullable
  • document_number string nullable
  • attachment_number integer nullable
  • document_type string nullable
  • description string nullable
  • short_description string nullable
  • entry_number integer nullable
  • pacer_doc_id string nullable
  • page_count integer nullable
  • is_available boolean (default: false)
  • filepath_local string nullable
  • snippet string nullable
  • cites array (default: [])
  • entry_filed_at integer nullable
  • web_url string nullable
• filed_at integer nullable
• argued_at integer nullable
• terminated_at integer nullable
• created_at integer nullable
• web_url string nullable
• score number nullable

Errors

• 422 — The request body did not validate Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.
• 412 — The entity was not found, or a precondition failed Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.
• 429 — Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.
• 500 — Something broke on our side Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.
• 529 — Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response headers

• X-Error — Error message text (present only on error)
• X-Request-ID — Unique request identifier
• X-Execution-Time — Execution time in seconds
• X-Result-Count — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
• X-Total-Available-Results — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
• X-Warning — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
• X-Retry-After — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.