courtlistener-mcp-server

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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

Tool	Description
courtlistener_search_opinions	Full-text search across 9M+ court opinions with field syntax, court, date, and status filters
courtlistener_get_opinion	Fetch an opinion cluster's metadata and variant text (majority, concurrence, dissent), with source-completion status
courtlistener_get_citations	Trace a cluster's citation network: opinions it cites (citing) or that cite it (cited_by)
courtlistener_lookup_citation	Resolve every citation in a text (e.g. "410 U.S. 113") to cluster IDs and case metadata
courtlistener_search_dockets	Search RECAP federal dockets by case name, party, attorney, court, and filing date
courtlistener_get_docket	Fetch a federal docket's metadata and paged entry list with document availability
courtlistener_get_parties	Fetch the parties and attorneys of record on a RECAP docket
courtlistener_search_judges	Search judges by name, appointing president, court, and political affiliation
courtlistener_get_judge	Fetch a judge's positions, education, political affiliations, and ABA ratings
courtlistener_lookup_courts	List courts by jurisdiction type, active/inactive status, and scraper coverage
courtlistener_search_oral_arguments	Search appellate oral argument recordings by case name, transcript text, court, and argument date
courtlistener_get_oral_argument	Fetch one oral argument's panel, duration, MP3 link, and speech-to-text transcript
courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures	Search judicial financial disclosure filings by judge and year
courtlistener_get_financial_disclosure	Fetch one disclosure's line items with coded values decoded to dollar ranges

Resources

Resource	Description
courtlistener://reference/courts	Jurisdiction codes, common court IDs, search type codes, rate limits, and the maintenance window

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

Prompts

Prompt	Description
courtlistener_research_topic	Generate 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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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courtlistener_get_docket _tool

• docket_id is required; entries come 20 per page (CourtListener ignores entries_page_size), walked with entries_page
• Returns docket metadata, total_entries, next_cursor (the next entries_page number), and entries[] whose documents[] carry is_available, page_count, and filepath_local; documents with is_available: false need PACER, and fetching them is not exposed
• total_entries is null when CourtListener supplies no numeric total, including on the last page; the rendered total says unknown. It never substitutes the number of entries returned.

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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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, and disclosure retrieval bounds each serialized response surface (structuredContent and complete content[]) to 24,000 UTF-8 bytes. Repeat the original ID and unchanged sections/categories selection with cursor: retrieval.next_cursor. 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.

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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

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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, and disclosure tools preserve small full responses and stream oversized selected records 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

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://courtlistener.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:

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

Self-Hosted / Local

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file. Generate a free API token in your CourtListener account settings.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "courtlistener-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "courtlistener-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "courtlistener-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "-e", "COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=your-api-token",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=... bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
• A CourtListener API token from a free account at courtlistener.com. The published free-tier limits are 5 requests per minute, 50 per hour, and 125 per day; actual limits vary by token tier, and Free Law Project membership raises them.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd courtlistener-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN

Configuration

Variable	Description	Default
COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN	Required. API token from your CourtListener account settings.	—
COURTLISTENER_BASE_URL	API base URL override.	https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4
COURTLISTENER_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE	Requests 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_HOUR	Requests the server starts per rolling hour.	50
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE	Transport: stdio or http.	stdio
MCP_HTTP_PORT	HTTP server port.	3010
MCP_SESSION_MODE	HTTP session mode: stateless, stateful, or auto. The server declares stateless; setting this overrides it.	stateless
MCP_AUTH_MODE	Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth.	none
MCP_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (debug, info, warning, error, etc.).	info
LOGS_DIR	Directory for log files (Node.js only).	<project-root>/logs
STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE	Storage backend: in-memory, filesystem, supabase, cloudflare-kv/r2/d1.	in-memory
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry.	false
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	Base endpoint for traces and metrics; appends /v1/traces and /v1/metrics. Without an endpoint, neither exports.	—
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_ENDPOINT	Explicit endpoint for redacted OTLP logs; the base endpoint does not enable log export.	—
LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOADS	Log failed-call inputs and results with key-based redaction.	false
LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOAD_MAX_BYTES	Size cap for each logged failed-call payload.	16384

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

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http
  

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec
  

Docker

docker build -t courtlistener-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -e COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN=your-token -p 3010:3010 courtlistener-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/courtlistener-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Directory	Purpose
src/index.ts	createApp() entry point: registers tools, resources, and prompts, and inits the service.
src/config	Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.
src/mcp-server/tools	Tool definitions (*.tool.ts). 14 tools across opinions, citations, dockets, parties, judges, courts, oral arguments, and financial disclosures.
src/mcp-server/resources	Resource definitions (*.resource.ts). Court reference resource.
src/mcp-server/prompts	Prompt definitions (*.prompt.ts). Legal research prompt.
src/services/courtlistener	CourtListener 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/.

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:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.