Justia APIjustia.com ↗
Access Justia's lawyer directory, US state statutes, court opinions, legal guides, and law schools via a structured JSON API. 8 endpoints.
What is the Justia API?
The Justia API covers 8 endpoints spanning attorney profiles, state statutes, federal and appellate court opinions, legal guides, and law school listings. Use search_lawyers to query attorneys by practice area and location, get_statute_section to retrieve the full text of any state code section, or get_case_detail to pull a complete court opinion — all returning structured JSON.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/9cf3f8bd-b3c7-4d90-80f8-b414979bcada/search_lawyers?page=1&query=family+law&location=New+York' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Typed, relational, agent-ready
A generated client with real types, enums, and the links between objects — the structure a flat JSON response can't carry. Autocompletes in your editor and reads cleanly to coding agents.
- Fully typed · autocompletes
- Objects link to objects
- Typed errors & pagination
Typed Python client. Set up the SDK in your uv project, then pull this API’s typed client:
uv add parse-sdk uv run parse init uv run parse add --marketplace justia-com-api
uv run parse add --marketplace pulls a pinned snapshot of this canonical API — it won’t change underneath you. To customize it, subscribe and swap to your own copy.
"""Walkthrough: Justia SDK — lawyer search, profiles, cases, statutes, law schools, legal guides."""
from parse_apis.Justia_API import Justia, State, ResourceNotFound
justia = Justia()
# Search for lawyers by practice area and location
for lawyer in justia.lawyers.search(query="criminal law", location="Los Angeles", limit=5):
print(lawyer.name, lawyer.phone, lawyer.rating, lawyer.profile_url)
# Get a detailed lawyer profile by slug
profile = justia.lawyer_profiles.get(slug="adam-leitman-bailey-1236057")
print(profile.name, profile.phone, profile.biography, profile.practice_areas)
# Retrieve a court case opinion — formatting preserved for regex separation of opinions
case = justia.case_details.get(path="federal/appellate-courts/ca9/20-70424/20-70424-2024-12-31.html")
print(case.title, case.text[:200])
# Handle a missing resource gracefully
try:
missing = justia.statute_sections.get(path="nonexistent/path/section-000/")
print(missing.title)
except ResourceNotFound as exc:
print(f"Statute not found: {exc}")
# List law schools and browse legal guides
for entry in justia.law_school_entries.list(limit=5):
print(entry.state, entry.url)
for guide in justia.legal_guides.list(limit=5):
print(guide.title, guide.url)
# Explore a state's lawyer categories and statute year index
california = justia.state("california")
for cat in california.lawyers(limit=3):
print(cat.category, [link.text for link in cat.links[:3]])
for year in california.statutes_index(limit=5):
print(year.year, year.url)
print("exercised: lawyers.search / lawyer_profiles.get / case_details.get / statute_sections.get / law_school_entries.list / legal_guides.list / state.lawyers / state.statutes_index")
Search for lawyers by practice area or name and location on Justia's lawyer directory. Returns paginated results with basic lawyer information including name, phone, rating, and profile URL. Pagination via page number. Results vary by query specificity; omitting both query and location returns a broad directory listing.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number for pagination. |
| query | string | Practice area or lawyer name to search for. |
| location | string | Location to search in (city, state). |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"lawyers": "array of objects with name, firm, practice_areas, phone, location, rating, profile_url",
"total_on_page": "integer count of lawyers returned on this page"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"lawyers": [
{
"firm": null,
"name": "John Doe",
"phone": "+1 (555) 012-3456",
"rating": "Top Rated Lawyer 10/10",
"location": null,
"profile_url": "https://lawyers.justia.com/lawyer/stephen-bilkis-1244778",
"practice_areas": []
}
],
"total_on_page": 53
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the Justia API
Lawyer Directory
The search_lawyers endpoint accepts a query (practice area or name) and a location (city or state), returning paginated arrays where each object includes name, firm, practice_areas, phone, location, rating, and profile_url. For deeper detail, get_lawyer_profile takes a lawyer slug or full profile URL and returns biography, practice_areas, education, fees, languages, and video_conferencing availability alongside contact fields like phone, address, and website. list_lawyers_by_state complements those two by returning directory browse links grouped into Practice Areas, Cities, and Counties tabs for any given state slug.
Statutes and Case Law
get_statute_section retrieves the full text of any statute section on law.justia.com/codes/ given a path parameter such as california/2024/code-civ/division-3/part-4/title-5/chapter-2/section-1940/. The response includes text, title, and an optional citation string. Before fetching a section you can discover available years via get_state_statutes_index, which returns an available_years array of year strings and URLs for a given state. Court opinions are accessible through get_case_detail, which takes a path matching a case on law.justia.com/cases/ and returns the full text of the opinion plus a title that includes court and year.
Legal Guides and Law Schools
get_legal_guides returns a deduplicated list of guide topics with title and url fields, covering the broad subject taxonomy on Justia's guides section — useful for building navigation or categorizing legal content. get_law_schools_list returns an array of US states, each with a state name and url pointing to that state's law school listings page on Justia.
The Justia API is a managed, monitored endpoint for justia.com — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when justia.com changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official justia.com API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Build an attorney finder that filters results by practice area and city using
search_lawyersand surfaces ratings and phone numbers. - Create a statute lookup tool that lets users navigate a state's code years via
get_state_statutes_indexthen fetch full section text withget_statute_section. - Aggregate court opinion text for legal research or NLP analysis using
get_case_detailacross federal and appellate case paths. - Populate a legal directory with enriched attorney bios, fee information, and language support from
get_lawyer_profile. - Generate a browsable state-by-state lawyer directory index using the
linkscategories returned bylist_lawyers_by_state. - Index legal guide topics from
get_legal_guidesto build a subject-area taxonomy for a legal content site. - Compile a database of ABA-accredited law schools organized by state using
get_law_schools_list.
| 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 | 100 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 Justia have an official developer API?+
What does `get_lawyer_profile` return beyond what the search results include?+
search_lawyers returns summary fields: name, firm, practice areas, phone, location, and rating. get_lawyer_profile adds a details object with biography, education, fees, languages, and video_conferencing, plus website and full address. It requires a lawyer slug or full profile URL as input.Does `get_statute_section` cover all US states and all historical years?+
law.justia.com/codes/. Year coverage varies by state; use get_state_statutes_index first to confirm which years Justia hosts for a given state before constructing a section path.Can I search or filter court cases by date range, jurisdiction, or keyword?+
get_case_detail retrieves a specific case by path and does not accept search or filter parameters. The API currently covers direct case lookup rather than case search. You can fork it on Parse and revise to add a case-search endpoint targeting Justia's case browse structure.Does the API return bar admission status or disciplinary records for attorneys?+
get_lawyer_profile covers biography, education, fees, languages, and contact details. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint targeting that data if Justia surfaces it on a profile page.