records-law
CourtListener / RECAP
A free archive of US case law, court documents gathered from PACER through the RECAP project, and oral-argument audio. Its REST search API works without a key (a token raises rate limits), and our search queries it directly. The first stop for tracking down American court records at no cost.
Why it’s useful & how it works
CourtListener is the largest free source of US case law and federal court documents: its RECAP archive collects filings that would otherwise require paid PACER access and makes them freely available once any user retrieves them. You can search across opinions, dockets, and oral-argument audio by keyword, citation, court, judge, or date. Echo queries its API directly, so results from millions of opinions and federal court records surface alongside your other searches.
What’s inside
Over 10 million court opinions from federal and state courts, alongside tens of millions of PACER docket entries and legal documents gathered through the RECAP crowdsourcing project.
API access
https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/search/?q= (token for limits)
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 1.1 s
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 909 ms
- API, direct
- Responded HTTP 200 1.3 s
- API, through a proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 807 ms
Did a real search return anything?
Returned results · 116887 results for the sample query · median 1.9 s · stable across runs
Sample query: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. DOJ
Benchmark coverage
Found 3 of 3 test items (100%) in the Cultural heritage cluster. Median response 1.8 s.
By how well known the item is: 1/1 well-known, 2/2 mid .
One item it found: Electronic Privacy Information Center v. DOJ
Reachability measured 2026-08-22. Search checked 2026-08-22. Benchmark run 2026-08-22.
Access
Programmatic API access (a key may be required, see the API tag).