CourtListener

What CourtListener does

CourtListener is a free, nonprofit legal research platform operated under the sponsorship of Free Law Project, a 501(c)(3) organization based in Berkeley, California. The platform aggregates and provides searchable access to more than 8.2 million precedential court opinions across all 471 U.S. federal and state court jurisdictions, alongside complementary collections covering oral arguments (2,417 days of audio), judges biographical data, and judicial and executive branch financial disclosures. It also operates the RECAP Archive, which leverages a browser extension to make PACER federal court documents freely accessible. The intended user base spans lawyers and legal professionals, academic researchers, journalists, and the general public, all of whom access the service directly via the web without authentication for basic use.

The platform is built on an open-source technology stack of Python, PostgreSQL, and Elasticsearch, with Juriscraper providing automated collection of court opinions across jurisdictions. It exposes comprehensive v4 REST APIs covering case law, PACER data, oral arguments, judges, and financial disclosures, supporting high-volume programmatic access (23.6 million API calls in a recent ten-day window). An email-based alert system notifies users when new opinions are filed in courts they are tracking. The integration with Anthropic's Claude Cowork product positions CourtListener as a primary data source for AI-powered legal research workflows.

CourtListener's business model is freemium in the structural sense that all features are free to end users with no paid tiers. Revenue is generated indirectly through voluntary donations, Free Law Project memberships, and a recently introduced Bulk Data Service offering data consulting for organizations needing programmatic bulk access. The go-to-market motion is community-led, with no formal sales force; user acquisition is driven by organic search, word-of-mouth referrals, and integration partnerships. The organization operates with a small team of 1-10 employees and relies on its nonprofit status, open-source community, and donor base to sustain ongoing operations.

Name

CourtListener

Legal name

CourtListener

Website

https://courtlistener.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

CourtListener is a free, nonprofit legal research platform providing searchable access to 8.2 million+ court opinions across 471 U.S. jurisdictions, serving lawyers, academics, journalists, and the public through its website, REST APIs, and the RECAP PACER archive.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Legal Research Software

NAICS

Legal Services (5411)

SIC

Services-Legal Services (8111)

akta.pro primary industry

Legal Reference (Statutes, Case Law, Practice Guides) (EDAGAGAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Court Services & Operations (Clerks, Records, Jury, Interpreters) (BPAIAFAH)

Keywords

• Legal research platform
• Case law database
• Court records search
• PACER document archive
• Open source legal data

Headquarters

HQ city

Berkeley

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Donations and Membership: CourtListener is sponsored by the non-profit Free Law Project. The platform is free to all users. Revenue is generated through voluntary donations, membership programs (FLP membership), and potentially data consulting services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

CourtListener is a free, open-source legal research platform operated by the non-profit Free Law Project that aggregates 8.2 million+ legal opinions from 471 U.S. federal and state court jurisdictions. It provides search, citation lookup, email alerts, oral argument recordings, judges data, judicial financial disclosures, and free PACER document access via the RECAP browser extension, complemented by public REST APIs for programmatic and bulk data access.

Product overview

CourtListener is a single unified free legal research platform operated by the non-profit Free Law Project. The platform centers on CourtListener as its primary product—a free legal search engine and alert system—supplemented by interconnected data collections including the RECAP Archive (PACER federal court records), Oral Arguments Archive, Judges Database, and Financial Disclosures. All collections offer dedicated search functionality, REST APIs, and alert capabilities. The platform serves 471 jurisdictions with over 8.2 million precedential opinions and supports high-volume usage (23.6+ million API calls in a recent 10-day period).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• CourtListener

Quantifiable outcome

• 23.6M+ API calls in 10 days, demonstrating high-volume developer and programmatic usage
• +1 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• AnthropiccoreTechnology or IntegrationAnthropic has integrated CourtListener into its Claude Cowork AI product for legal workflows. This integration allows Claude to access and analyze legal opinions from CourtListener's database of 8.2 million+ cases as part of AI-powered legal research workflows. The partnership positions CourtListener as a key data provider for AI legal assistants.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Bloomberg Law: Integrated legal research and business intelligence platform from Bloomberg. Overlaps with CourtListener in case law and court coverage but combines it with dockets, news, and company data for an enterprise audience.
• Westlaw: Thomson Reuters' flagship legal research platform — the dominant commercial case law and analytics product. Provides overlapping case law content to CourtListener but as part of a much broader legal information suite targeting law firms and enterprises.
• LexisNexis Legal: Major commercial legal research and analytics platform from RELX. Comparable in providing case law and legal research across jurisdictions, but as an enterprise subscription product with proprietary analytics and AI tools.

Direct peers

• vLex: Global legal research platform with extensive U.S. and international case law coverage and Vincent AI. Comparable to CourtListener in providing broad jurisdictional case law, but as a paid commercial product with advanced AI analytics.
• Fastcase: Legal research platform offering case law, statutes, and analytics to U.S. lawyers, included with many state bar memberships. Closely comparable to CourtListener in core product (case law search) but operates on a freemium SaaS model rather than free, donation-supported.
• HeinOnline: Comprehensive legal research database with deep historical coverage of U.S. case law, statutes, and law journals. Directly comparable to CourtListener in core case law mission, but operates as a paid academic/law-firm subscription product.
• Casetext: AI-powered legal research platform, acquired by Thomson Reuters and now part of CoCounsel. Directly comparable to CourtListener in providing case law search and analysis to lawyers, but with a commercial, AI-first product rather than a free open-source model.
• Ravel Law: Legal analytics and case law search platform acquired by LexisNexis. Comparable to CourtListener in providing case law with added visualization and analytics, but operates as a paid analytics layer on top of legal data.

Emerging players

• Justia: Free legal information portal offering case law, statutes, and lawyer directories. Shares CourtListener's mission of free public access to legal information but focuses more on consumer-facing content and lawyer marketing.

Others

• Public.Resource.Org: Non-profit dedicated to making public domain government materials freely available, including legal records. Shares CourtListener's open-access, public-interest mission and has collaborated on bulk access to court materials, but is broader in scope beyond case law.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/freelawproject/courtlistener
• Xx.com/courtlistener

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CourtListener