CourtListener

CourtListener is a free legal research website and data provider offered by Free Law Project. According to the vendor, it aims to cater to the needs of lawyers, journalists, academics, legal researchers, and court professionals. CourtListener provides access to millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts, allowing users to conduct in-depth research, stay updated with new opinions, and analyze cases using raw data. The platform is accessible to individuals and organizations of all sizes, making it a potentially valuable resource for professionals in the legal industry.

Key Features

Opinions Search: Users can search through millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts by case name, topic, or citation. The vendor claims that the platform is constantly updated with new opinions and offers advanced search options and filters to refine searches.

Arguments Search: Users have access to a vast collection of audio recordings of arguments from Supreme Court and Federal Circuit courts. The vendor states that users can find specific arguments by searching case names, judges, docket numbers, and more. Enhanced audio quality, metadata, and album art are also available. Users can create custom podcasts or listen to automatic podcasts.

Judge Search: The platform offers a comprehensive database of thousands of state and federal judges for research purposes. Users can filter judges by various criteria such as name, birth city, birth state, school attended, and appointed by. The vendor claims that users can also find judges based on political affiliation, selection method, and other criteria.

RECAP Archive Search: Users can search through millions of PACER documents and dockets, including scanned PDFs converted to text. The platform grants access to federal case documents and allows users to contribute to the archive by installing RECAP extensions for Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. The vendor also offers a research service and API for organizations and researchers.

Supreme Court Citation Networks: Users can conduct in-depth analysis of lines of precedent in Supreme Court cases. The platform allows users to create citation networks that connect related cases and visualize them graphically. Users can save, edit, comment, and share networks. The vendor claims that interactive network visualizations can be embedded in websites or blogs.

Newsletter: Users can sign up for the Free Law Project newsletter, which provides tips and announcements related to legal research.