Search Alerts for Case Law and Filings
Search alerts are triggered by our search engine and are a powerful way to get fine-tuned alerts on cases or topics that you are following.
Creating Alerts
To create a Search Alert, begin with a search in CourtListener's Case Law, RECAP or Oral Argument database. You can set static calendar dates or rolling relative dates for your alerts. In the results page, click the bell icon in the search bar or click the Get Alerts button in the sidebar on the left.
After you click the bell icon or the Get Alerts button, you will see a pop-up like this, where you can see the filters applied to your alert, how many results it had over the past 100 days, and give it a name and frequency. For RECAP search alerts, you can also choose whether you want alerts for both cases and filings, or for cases only (more on this below).
The available rates are "Real Time," "Daily," "Weekly," "Monthly," or "Off." Real Time alerts for Case Law are usually delivered within about an hour of when something is published by the court. Real time alerts for oral arguments and the majority of RECAP alerts are batched and delivered every [[ alerts.rt_alerts_sending_rate ]] minutes. Daily, weekly, and monthly alerts come at the end of the day, week, and month.
Search alert webhooks for Case Law are delivered at the same time as the alert email. For Oral Argument alerts and the majority of RECAP alerts, webhooks are delivered immediately as we ingest the data, regardless of the configured alert rate.
Alerts that are Off will not be run. This can be useful for temporarily disabling an alert.
Enabling Real Time Alerts
Real Time alerts are available for Free Law Project members. If you see a message like the one below, you will need to become a member to enable Real Time alerts:
Limitations of Real-Time RECAP Search Alerts
Search Alerts in the RECAP Archive can be triggered by fields on the case itself, fields on the filings within the case, or a combination of both. This flexibility introduces complexity, which leads to certain limitations when triggering real-time alerts. For example, suppose you have a real-time alert based on a query like:
caseName:"Lorem vs Dolor" AND description:"Notice of Removal"
Now imagine a case previously named "Ipsum vs Dolor" contains a filing with the description "Notice of Removal". If the case name is later updated to "Lorem vs Dolor", this case would now match the alert query.
However, because the field that causes the match caseName is at the case level and not tied directly to the individual filing, CourtListener cannot detect that a relevant filing now qualifies for the alert. As a result, the alert will not be triggered in real time. Instead, edge-case alerts like this are processed at the end of the day using a different matching strategy. In such cases, the associated webhooks are also triggered at the end of the day, rather than in real time.
Apart from the edge case described above, real-time search alert emails are triggered within [[ alerts.rt_alerts_sending_rate ]] minutes of ingesting a case or filing that matches the alert criteria.
Limitations with Cases that Have Many Parties
To keep the system running smoothly, real-time alerts skip party information for cases with a large number of attorneys. Specifically, if a docket has more than [[ alerts.max_attorneys_to_percolate ]] attorneys, the party, attorney, and firm fields won't be used when processing real-time alerts.
This means that if your alert relies on party, attorney, or firm filters, it may not be triggered in real time for these large cases. However, these alerts are still processed at the end of the day using a different matching strategy, so you will still receive them just not in real time.
Limitations with Text-Based Queries and Party Fields
Another known limitation of RECAP Search Alerts is that alerts do not support combined text-based queries involving both party or attorney fields and filing-level fields such as description. For example, the following query will not work as expected:
party:"Michael Jordan" AND attorney:"LeBron James" AND description:goat
This is because party and attorney values are only associated with dockets, not with individual filings, unlike other docket fields.
As a workaround to build alerts that involve party and attorney conditions along with a filing description, use the sidebar filters instead of the main query box.
RECAP Search Alerts for Cases or Filings
For RECAP Search Alerts, you can choose whether you'd like alerts for new cases only, or for both new cases and new filings:
Use this to choose whether to get one alert per case or one alert per filing, regardless of the case it's a part of.
Editing or Deleting a Search Alert
Existing alerts can be edited or deleted from your user profile. By clicking the Edit button, you will be taken back to the search screen with the alert configured for editing. There, you can refine your search, or the name or frequency of the alert.
From your profile page, you can also delete an alert.
Disabling a Search Alert
To temporarily disable an alert, edit it and set the rate to "Off." Every alert email also has a one-click link for disabling the alert that triggered it.
Supported Courts
Search alerts are available for many jurisdictions across the country, and we are frequently expanding our system to support even more locations. To see which courts are currently supported, check our coverage pages, where we list the jurisdictions that we regularly scrape for oral arguments, case law, or filings.
If there is a jurisdiction that is not currently listed, please express your interest, and we will do our best to add it to our list.
How to Receive Alerts
You can choose how alerts are delivered:
- Email: Stay informed in your inbox with straightforward notifications. This is the simplest, easiest way to get alerts, and it doesn't require any additional setup.
- Webhooks: For more advanced uses, webhook events can be sent to your applications or services. This option is mainly for developers. Check out the webhook documentation to learn more.
mike