courtlistener-mcp-server

Full-text search across 9M+ written US court opinions with field-level filtering. Returns opinion cluster summaries with case metadata, citations, and matched text snippets. 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. Rate limit: 5 req/min, 50/hr, 125/day on the free tier.

Fetch the full text and metadata for a single opinion cluster by cluster ID. A cluster groups all opinions filed in a case — majority, concurrence, dissent, and per curiam. Returns the cluster metadata (case name, court, citations, dates) plus every opinion variant with HTML and plain text. When the combined opinion text is too large to inline, the response lists each variant as a retrievable section (opinion_<id>) while keeping the cheap cluster metadata — re-call with sections:[...] to pull specific variants in full. Obtain cluster IDs from courtlistener_search_opinions, courtlistener_lookup_citation, or docket results.

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 (125 req/day) supports shallow traversal — following 1–2 hops of a single case is practical; deep multi-hop analysis burns through the daily budget quickly.

Resolve a formatted legal citation string (e.g., "410 U.S. 113", "93 S. Ct. 705") to a cluster ID and case metadata. Enables workflows that start from a known citation rather than a search query. Supports standard US reporter formats. Requires authentication — uses the CourtListener /citation-lookup/ endpoint.

Search RECAP federal court dockets with party name, attorney, court, and date filters. RECAP is a crowd-sourced mirror of PACER (the federal court filing system) — coverage varies by court and date. Returns docket metadata with up to 3 sample document entries per docket. Use courtlistener_lookup_courts to find court IDs.

Fetch full docket metadata and entry list for a single federal case by docket ID. Returns all available docket entries with document availability status. Documents with is_available=true have a RECAP-stored copy; others require a PACER account. Obtain docket IDs from courtlistener_search_dockets or from opinion results.

Fetch all parties and 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. Requires two upstream calls per page (parties + attorney batch); keep page_size low to stay within the free-tier rate limit (5 req/min, 125/day). Obtain docket IDs from courtlistener_search_dockets or courtlistener_get_docket.

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.

Fetch full biographical profile for a single judge: appointment history across all courts, education, political affiliations, and ABA ratings. Obtain person IDs from courtlistener_search_judges results.

List courts with optional filtering by jurisdiction type and scraper status. Primarily used to discover court IDs for use in search and filter parameters across all other courtlistener tools. Returns court IDs, full names, citation strings, and scraper status.

Search appellate oral argument audio recordings — the largest public collection of oral argument audio. Returns recording metadata with download URLs, panel judge IDs, and transcript snippets where available. Download URLs are direct MP3 links. Panel judge IDs can be passed to courtlistener_get_judge for biographical context.

Fetch the full detail record for a single oral argument audio recording by its ID (the audio_id from courtlistener_search_oral_arguments). Returns the case name, panel judge IDs, duration, MP3 download URL, linked docket, and the speech-to-text transcript when transcription has completed. A long transcript overflows to a section outline; re-call with sections:["transcript"] to retrieve it in full. The argument date is not on this record — it comes from the search result or the linked docket.

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. 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.

Fetch a single judicial financial disclosure by ID with its parsed line-item rows — investments, debts, positions, reimbursements, non-investment and spouse income, agreements, and gifts. This is the itemized companion to courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures (which returns only category counts). Pass categories:[...] to select specific categories; omit for all. Coded value/income columns are decoded to readable dollar ranges. When the full itemization is too large to inline, the response lists each category as a retrievable section by byte size while keeping the filing metadata and counts — re-call with categories:[...] to pull specific categories in full. Obtain disclosure IDs from courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures (the disclosure_id field).