courtlistener-mcp-server

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  <h1>@cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server</h1>
  <p><b>Search and retrieve US court opinions, federal dockets, judge records, citation networks, and oral arguments from CourtListener's 9M+ opinion corpus via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.</b>
  <div>14 Tools</div>
  </p>
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[![Install in Claude Desktop](https://img.shields.io/badge/Install_in-Claude_Desktop-D97757?style=for-the-badge&logo=anthropic&logoColor=white)](https://github.com/cyanheads/courtlistener-mcp-server/releases/latest/download/courtlistener-mcp-server.mcpb) [![Install in Cursor](https://cursor.com/deeplink/mcp-install-dark.svg)](https://cursor.com/en/install-mcp?name=courtlistener-mcp-server&config=eyJjb21tYW5kIjoibnB4IiwiYXJncyI6WyIteSIsIkBjeWFuaGVhZHMvY291cnRsaXN0ZW5lci1tY3Atc2VydmVyIl19) [![Install in VS Code](https://img.shields.io/badge/VS_Code-Install_Server-0098FF?style=for-the-badge&logo=visualstudiocode&logoColor=white)](https://vscode.dev/redirect?url=vscode:mcp/install?%7B%22name%22%3A%22courtlistener-mcp-server%22%2C%22command%22%3A%22npx%22%2C%22args%22%3A%5B%22-y%22%2C%22%40cyanheads%2Fcourtlistener-mcp-server%22%5D%7D)

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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://courtlistener.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://courtlistener.caseyjhand.com/mcp)

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---

## Tools

14 tools spanning the full CourtListener dataset — opinion search and retrieval, citation network traversal, federal docket lookup, party and attorney lookup, judge biography, judicial financial disclosure search and detail, court discovery, and oral argument search and detail:

| Tool | Description |
|:---|:---|
| `courtlistener_search_opinions` | Full-text search across 9M+ written court opinions with field-level filtering, date ranges, status, and sort |
| `courtlistener_get_opinion` | Fetch full text and metadata for an opinion cluster — returns all opinion variants (majority, concurrence, dissent) |
| `courtlistener_get_citations` | Retrieve the citation network for an opinion: opinions cited by it (`citing`) or that cite it (`cited_by`) |
| `courtlistener_lookup_citation` | Resolve a legal citation string (e.g., "410 U.S. 113") to a cluster ID and case metadata |
| `courtlistener_search_dockets` | Search RECAP federal court dockets by party name, attorney, court, and date |
| `courtlistener_get_docket` | Fetch docket metadata and entry list for a single federal case |
| `courtlistener_get_parties` | Fetch all parties and attorneys of record for a RECAP federal docket by docket ID |
| `courtlistener_search_judges` | Search judge records by name, appointing president, court, and political affiliation |
| `courtlistener_get_judge` | Fetch full biographical profile, appointment history, and education for a single judge |
| `courtlistener_lookup_courts` | List courts filtered by jurisdiction type and active-scraper status |
| `courtlistener_search_oral_arguments` | Search appellate oral argument audio recordings by case name, court, and date argued |
| `courtlistener_get_oral_argument` | Fetch full detail for a single oral argument — panel, duration, MP3 link, and speech-to-text transcript |
| `courtlistener_search_financial_disclosures` | Search federal judicial financial disclosure filings by judge and year — category counts, itemized gifts, and source PDF |
| `courtlistener_get_financial_disclosure` | Fetch one disclosure's parsed line items — investments, debts, positions, income, gifts — with coded values decoded to dollar ranges; selectable by category |

### `courtlistener_search_opinions`

Search the 9M+ opinion corpus. Returns opinion cluster summaries with matched text excerpts.

- Free-text queries with field syntax: `caseName:`, `court_id:`, `judge:`, `docketNumber:`, `cites:(id)`, boolean `AND / OR / NOT`
- Filter by court ID, date range, publication status (Published / Unpublished / In-chambers, etc.)
- Sort by relevance score, filing date (asc/desc), or citation count
- Cursor-based pagination; up to 20 results per call
- Results include `cluster_id` (for `courtlistener_get_opinion`) and `docket_id` (for `courtlistener_get_docket`) for chaining
- Each cluster carries its `opinions[]` variants — per-variant opinion ID, type, author, outbound cites, and a CourtListener-hosted `local_path` copy of the source document
- `snippet` is the matched excerpt from the first variant that carries one; CourtListener does not mark which variant the search matched

---

### `courtlistener_get_opinion`

Fetch full text and metadata for an opinion cluster.

- A cluster groups all opinions filed in a case: majority, concurrence, dissent, per curiam
- Returns `html_text` and `plain_text` for each opinion variant; surfaces `download_url` when local text is absent
- Includes `cites[]` (outbound citation IDs), `cite_count`, syllabus, posture, and docket link
- Single upstream request — safe within the tight free-tier rate limit

---

### `courtlistener_get_citations`

Retrieve the citation network for an opinion cluster in either direction.

- `cited_by` (default): opinions that cite this one — measures precedential influence and downstream adoption
- `citing`: opinions this one cites — reveals the authority chain the court relied on
- Optional court and date filters; cursor-based pagination; up to 20 results per call
- Results include `snippet`, the matched excerpt from the related opinion — a relevance preview for the cluster, not necessarily the text surrounding the citation
- Rate-limit note: the free tier (125 req/day) supports 1–2 hops on a single case; deep multi-hop traversal exhausts the daily budget quickly

---

### `courtlistener_lookup_citation`

Resolve a formatted legal citation string to a cluster ID.

- Accepts standard reporter formats: "410 U.S. 113", "347 U.S. 483", "93 S. Ct. 705"
- Returns cluster ID, case name, court, date filed, all known citation strings, and the canonical form CourtListener uses
- Single upstream POST to `/citation-lookup/`; falls back to search when unauthenticated

---

### `courtlistener_search_dockets`

Search RECAP federal court dockets.

- Query matched against case name, docket number, party names, and attorney names
- `party_name` filter applies in addition to (AND with) the `q` query — more precise than embedding party names in the query
- Returns the docket's `parties`, `attorneys`, and `firms`, plus nature of suit, jurisdiction type, and the referred magistrate judge
- Returns up to 3 sample document entries per docket — a search excerpt, not the full filing list — each with `is_available` status, page count, and a fully-qualified RECAP storage URL when a copy is stored
- `coverage_note` in every response — RECAP is crowd-sourced from PACER; completeness varies by court

---

### `courtlistener_get_docket`

Fetch full docket metadata and entry list for a single federal case.

- Returns all available docket entries with document availability, page count, and RECAP file path
- `entries_page_size` controls how many entries are returned (1–50); large cases have hundreds
- Documents with `is_available: false` require a PACER account or CourtListener RECAP filing — document retrieval is not exposed

---

### `courtlistener_get_parties`

Fetch all parties and attorneys of record for a RECAP federal docket.

- Returns each party's name, docket-scoped role (Plaintiff, Defendant, Petitioner, Respondent, etc.), and the attorneys of record on this docket with contact information
- Attorney roles are decoded to labels (`Lead attorney`, `Terminated`, …) alongside the raw code, with the date a relationship ended
- Attorney names and contact details are resolved from the docket's attorney roster — 2 upstream requests per invocation, plus one for each extra roster page on a docket with a large attorney list
- Paginate large party lists with `page`; `page_size` (max 10) is a request only — CourtListener paginates this endpoint at a fixed size and can return more parties than asked for
- Obtain docket IDs from `courtlistener_search_dockets` or `courtlistener_get_docket`

---

### `courtlistener_search_judges`

Search judge and person records across the federal and state bench.

- Filter by appointing president's last name, court ID, or political affiliation (`d/r/i/l/g/u`)
- Returns `person_id` for chaining to `courtlistener_get_judge`, plus a `current_position` summary — court, position type, appointer, selection method, and start date — selected as the position with no termination date, or the latest-starting one when several or none qualify
- Political affiliations and ABA ratings come back as expanded labels ("Democratic", "Well Qualified"), not the codes the `political_affiliation` filter takes
- Court IDs from `courtlistener_lookup_courts` can be passed directly

---

### `courtlistener_get_judge`

Fetch a judge's full biographical profile.

- Complete appointment