examplecourt.gov APIexamplecourt.gov ↗
Access court judgments, case metadata, and full ruling text from a national court portal. Search by keyword, date, court, and category across all available cases.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/0732f9fc-ccaf-461f-989e-ee9f37e6fbe2/search_cases?query=murder' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Search for case law judgments using keywords and date range filters. Returns paginated results ordered by relevance score.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number for pagination |
| query | string | Search keyword or phrase (e.g. 'murder', 'land dispute'). If omitted, returns all judgments. |
| date_to | string | Filter cases up to this date in YYYY-MM-DD format |
| date_from | string | Filter cases from this date in YYYY-MM-DD format |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"page": "integer current page number",
"total": "integer total number of matching cases",
"results": "array of case objects with title, url, date, court, citation, case_number, judges, and registry"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"page": 1,
"total": 10000,
"results": [
{
"url": "https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2023/22140/eng@2023-09-11",
"date": "2023-09-11",
"court": "High Court",
"title": "Republic v ENW (Murder Case 38 of 2020) [2023] KEHC 22140 (KLR) (11 September 2023) (Ruling)",
"judges": [
"DK Kemei"
],
"citation": "Republic v ENW [2023] KEHC 22140 (KLR)",
"registry": "High Court at Bungoma",
"case_number": [
"Murder Case 38 of 2020"
]
}
]
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the examplecourt.gov API
The examplecourt.gov API exposes 5 endpoints for retrieving court judgments, case metadata, and institutional structure from a national court reporting portal. Use search_cases to query judgments by keyword and date range, get_case_details to pull full ruling text alongside 9 structured metadata fields, or list_courts to enumerate available courts and court classes by code and URL.
Search and Browse Judgments
The search_cases endpoint accepts a query string, optional date_from and date_to parameters in YYYY-MM-DD format, and a page integer for pagination. It returns a total count of matching cases alongside an array of result objects, each carrying title, url, date, court, citation, case_number, a judges list, and registry. Omitting query returns all judgments in reverse chronological order. The list_cases endpoint offers a simpler paginated feed of recent judgments with only title and url fields — useful for incremental crawls or building a case index.
Full Case Details
get_case_details takes a required url — either a full URL or a path like /akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2023/22140/eng@2023-09-11 — and returns a structured metadata object plus a full_text string of the complete ruling. The metadata block includes title, court, court_station, case_number, judges, judgment_date, language, type, and case_action. This is the endpoint to use when you need the actual judgment prose, not just the header fields available from search results.
Courts and Document Categories
list_courts returns two arrays: courts (each with name, code, and url) and court_classes (each with name, slug, and url). This lets you enumerate all recognized courts before filtering searches. The list_case_categories endpoint exposes search facet data: a courts array with per-court document count values, and a categories array of document types with name, count, and type fields. Both endpoints require no input parameters and return stable reference data suitable for caching.
- Build a legal research tool that full-text searches judgments by keyword and filters by date range using
search_cases - Aggregate all judgments from a specific court by combining
list_courtscodes withsearch_casesqueries - Extract structured metadata (
judges,court_station,case_action) from individual rulings viaget_case_detailsfor downstream analysis - Monitor new judgments as they are published using the paginated
list_casesfeed - Map the distribution of case types across courts using document counts from
list_case_categories - Index full judgment text for a case law search engine using
full_textreturned byget_case_details - Build a court directory or filter UI by enumerating
courtsandcourt_classesfromlist_courts
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 250 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does examplecourt.gov offer an official developer API?+
What does `get_case_details` return beyond what `search_cases` provides?+
search_cases returns summary fields: title, date, court, citation, case_number, judges, and registry. get_case_details adds court_station, language, type, case_action, and the complete full_text of the ruling — the full prose of the judgment itself, not just its header.Can I filter `search_cases` results by a specific court?+
search_cases endpoint currently accepts query, date_from, date_to, and page as inputs; there is no court filter parameter. You can retrieve all court codes via list_courts and apply post-retrieval filtering on the court field in the results. If you need server-side court filtering, you can fork this API on Parse and revise the endpoint to add that parameter.Does the API expose case filings, parties, or supporting documents beyond the judgment text?+
How current are the judgments returned by `list_cases` and `search_cases`?+
list_cases on a schedule and compare returned URLs against your own index.