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Search Results

Full-text search across millions of court cases.

SearchResult

interface SearchResult {
  id?: number;
  case_name?: string;
  caseName?: string;
  court?: string;
  court_id?: string;
  date_filed?: string;
  dateFiled?: string;
  citation?: string[];
  citation_count?: number;
  cluster_id?: number;
  court_citation_string?: string;
  caseNameShort?: string;
  docketNumber?: string;
  suitNature?: string;
  cause?: string;
  nature_of_suit?: string;
  status?: string;
  jurisdiction?: string;
  region?: string;
  division?: string;
  subtype?: string;
  terminating_date_filed?: string;
  date_terminated?: string;
  date_last_filing?: string;
  assigned_to_str?: string;
  referred_to_str?: string;
  slug?: string;
  absolute_url?: string;
}

Key Properties

Property Type Description
id number? Unique case identifier
case_name string? Full case name
court_id string? Court identifier
date_filed string? Filing date (ISO 8601)
citation string[]? Case citations
citation_count number? Times cited
docketNumber string? Docket number
status string? Case status

Field naming

The API returns both snake_case (case_name) and camelCase (caseName) variants for compatibility.

Endpoints

GET /api/rest/v4/search/?q={query}

Parameters:

Parameter Type Description
q string Search query (required)
court string Filter by court ID
date_filed_after string Minimum filing date
date_filed_before string Maximum filing date
page number Page number
page_size number Results per page (max 100)

Examples

import type { SearchResult, PaginatedResponse } from '@types/lawforge__courtlistener';

async function search(query: string): Promise<SearchResult[]> {
  const url = new URL('https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/search/');
  url.searchParams.set('q', query);

  const res = await fetch(url);
  const data: PaginatedResponse<SearchResult> = await res.json();
  return data.results;
}

const cases = await search('first amendment');

interface SearchOptions {
  query: string;
  court?: string;
  afterDate?: string;
  limit?: number;
}

async function searchFiltered(opts: SearchOptions): Promise<SearchResult[]> {
  const url = new URL('https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/search/');
  url.searchParams.set('q', opts.query);

  if (opts.court) url.searchParams.set('court', opts.court);
  if (opts.afterDate) url.searchParams.set('date_filed_after', opts.afterDate);
  if (opts.limit) url.searchParams.set('page_size', String(opts.limit));

  const res = await fetch(url);
  const data: PaginatedResponse<SearchResult> = await res.json();
  return data.results;
}

// Supreme Court cases from 2020 onwards
const cases = await searchFiltered({
  query: 'constitutional',
  court: 'scotus',
  afterDate: '2020-01-01',
  limit: 25
});

Citation Analysis

function getMostCited(results: SearchResult[]): SearchResult | undefined {
  return results.reduce((max, curr) =>
    (curr.citation_count ?? 0) > (max?.citation_count ?? 0) ? curr : max
  , results[0]);
}

const cases = await search('landmark decision');
const mostCited = getMostCited(cases);

console.log(`${mostCited?.case_name}: ${mostCited?.citation_count} citations`);