CourtListener

Overview

CourtListener is a free legal research service for searching U.S. federal and state opinions, dockets, and court records. It suits researchers who need broad public access or developers who want to work with legal data; its main trade-off is that alert and API allowances are limited on the free tier.

Founded in 2010 and based in Oakland, California, CourtListener is built on open-source technology. Its archive spans opinions, oral arguments, judges, judicial financial records, and federal filings. The RECAP Archive includes nearly every federal case, hundreds of millions of docket entries, and tens of millions of legal documents—a substantial resource for following federal litigation as well as finding case law.

Key features

Research and monitoring

Case-law and docket search, citation tools, and coverage across federal and state courts make CourtListener a useful starting point for legal research. Alerts can monitor topics, people, companies, citations, and other searches. The free tier’s five docket alerts and five daily RECAP search alerts may be restrictive for users tracking many active matters, though unlimited daily opinion search alerts leave room for broader case-law monitoring.

Data access and support

Free Law Project provides REST APIs, bulk data files, webhooks, database replication, and an MCP server. That gives developers several routes to use CourtListener data, while the API quotas vary by membership tier. The MCP server connects CourtListener data and APIs to Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants; it is a way to access the service’s data, not a replacement for checking legal sources carefully.

Help documentation addresses data coverage, developer documentation, content removal, memberships and donations, and direct contact support. Free Law Project’s vulnerability disclosure policy covers CourtListener’s website, API, alerts, and RECAP extensions, with coordinated disclosure requested for up to 90 days. The policy says DNSSEC is not currently planned.

Pricing

CourtListener has a free plan and paid membership tiers. The free tier costs nothing and includes five docket alerts, unlimited daily opinion search alerts, five daily RECAP search alerts, five Pray & Pay requests, and API limits of 5 requests per minute, 50 per hour, and 125 per day. It is the sensible starting point for occasional research, but its docket, RECAP, and API caps can constrain sustained monitoring or automated use.

Tier 1 is $10,100 a month, billed $10/mo or $100/yr. It raises docket alerts and real-time opinion search alerts to unlimited, allows 10 daily and five real-time RECAP search alerts, 15 Pray & Pay requests, and API limits of 10/minute, 75/hour, and 300/day. It best fits users who need continuous opinion alerts and more modestly expanded RECAP access.

Tier 2 is $25,250 a month, billed $25/mo or $250/yr. It keeps unlimited docket and real-time opinion alerts, raises RECAP allowances to 25 daily and 10 real-time searches, and provides API limits of 15/minute, 150/hour, and 600/day, plus $38 shop credits. Tier 3 is $50,500 a month, billed $50/mo or $500/yr; it allows 50 daily and 25 real-time RECAP searches, API limits of 20/minute, 250/hour, and 1,000/day, and $75 shop credits. These tiers suit heavier research and integration needs, with Tier 3 offering substantially more daily throughput.

Tier 4 is $1,001,000 a month, billed $100/mo or $1000/yr. It includes 100 daily and 50 real-time RECAP searches, API limits of 25/minute, 300/hour, and 1,400/day, and $150 shop credits. It is aimed at the highest stated usage, though its API quota remains capped. EDU memberships are complimentary for faculty, students, and researchers with a valid .edu email address; qualifying U.S.-based nonprofit legal services organizations can receive free LSO memberships.

Platforms

CourtListener is available on the web. Its developer offerings include APIs, data files, webhooks, database replication, and an MCP server for integrating with other tools.

Who it's for

CourtListener serves lawyers, journalists, academics, the public, researchers, and organizations. It is particularly compelling for people who need searchable U.S. court material without a paid subscription, or who want to build workflows around public legal data. Users who require more alerts or API throughput should compare the membership tiers with their expected workload; those seeking legal coverage beyond U.S. federal and state courts should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

• Pros: The free plan combines case-law and docket search with citation tools, research alerts, and access to a large federal filings archive.
• Pros: Multiple developer access options and an MCP server make the data useful beyond the website itself.
• Pros: Complimentary EDU and qualifying nonprofit LSO memberships extend higher-tier access to specified research and legal-services groups.
• Cons: The free tier caps docket alerts, daily RECAP searches, Pray & Pay requests, and API calls, so intensive monitoring may require a paid tier.
• Cons: Even Tier 4 sets a daily API ceiling, which may not suit high-volume applications.
• Cons: Its stated court coverage is U.S. federal and state courts, limiting its fit for research centered elsewhere.

Alternatives

For an extension- and iOS-accessible companion focused on RECAP, consider RECAP, also from Free Law Project. For Canadian legal information, CanLII offers free web access, with Search+ requiring a free myCanLII account and subject to a daily usage limit. Fastcase is a better fit for readers seeking a paid appellate plan with 50-state and federal law, nationwide statutes and regulations, and no contract; its Appellate plan is $65 a month.

Legal Information Institute is another free web source for public legal information and collections. For a paid research option with a free trial and API access, LegitQuest may be worth comparing. Midpage offers a trial with full coverage, manual and agentic research tools, an AI citator, plugins, and limited AI research usage. Readers seeking case tracking from a major legal publisher can consider Thomson Reuters Case Tracking; Bloomberg Law is a paid option described as providing unlimited access to content and tools.

Browse more options in Legal Research Software.

Verdict

CourtListener is an excellent fit for researchers and developers who want broad, free access to U.S. opinions and an unusually deep federal filings archive. Its search, alerts, and developer tools make it more than a document repository, but the free-tier caps are a meaningful constraint for intensive monitoring or API use. Choose it for open access and data breadth; look elsewhere if you need non-U.S. coverage or usage that exceeds its tier limits.