Oral Argument Recordings APIs

Use these APIs to gather and analyze the largest collection of oral argument recordings on the Internet.

Oral Argument Recordings

Use this API to gather data about oral argument recordings. This API is linked to the docket API (below), which contains data about each case. It is also linked to the judge API, which has information about the judges in the case.

The audio files we gather from court websites come in many formats. After we gather the files, we use Doctor to convert them into optimized MP3s that have a 22050Hz sample rate and 48k bitrate. Next, we set the ID3 tags to better values that we scraped, and finally, we set the cover art for the MP3 to the seal of the court, and set the publisher album art to the Free Law Project logo.

Assuming the court has not taken the files down, the original audio files can be downloaded from the court using the download_url field. If you prefer to download our enhanced version, that location is in the local_path_mp3 field. To download the file, see our help article on this topic.

The duration field contains an estimated length of the audio file, in seconds. Because these MP3s are variable bitrate, this field is based on sampling the file and is not always accurate.

As with all other APIs, you can look up the field descriptions, filtering, ordering, and rendering options by making an OPTIONS request:

curl -v \
  -X OPTIONS \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <your-token-here>' \
  "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/audio/"

Learn more about filtering, sorting, and serialization by reviewing the query refinement documentation.

Dockets

/api/rest/v4/dockets/

Docket objects sit at the top of the object hierarchy:

In our PACER database, dockets link together docket entries, parties, and attorneys.
In our case law database, dockets sit above Cluster objects.
In this database, they sit above Audio objects.

To look up field descriptions or options for filtering, ordering, or rendering, complete an HTTP OPTIONS request:

curl -v \
  -X OPTIONS \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <your-token-here>' \
  "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/dockets/"

Learn more about filtering, sorting, and serialization by reviewing the query refinement documentation.

To look up a particular docket, use its ID:

curl -v \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <your-token-here>' \
  "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/dockets/4214664/"

The response you get will not list the docket entries, parties, or attorneys for the docket (doing so doesn't scale), but will have many other metadata fields including basic metadata like the name of the case and the docket number, the court, the judge it's assigned to, and more:

{
  "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/dockets/4214664/",
  "id": 4214664,
  "court": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/courts/dcd/",
  "court_id": "dcd",
  "original_court_info": null,
  "idb_data": null,
  "clusters": [],
  "audio_files": [],
  "assigned_to": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/people/1124/",
  "referred_to": null,
  "absolute_url": "/docket/4214664/national-veterans-legal-services-program-v-united-states/",
  "date_created": "2016-08-20T07:25:37.448945-07:00",
  "date_modified": "2024-05-20T03:59:23.387426-07:00",
  "source": 9,
  "appeal_from_str": "",
  "assigned_to_str": "Paul L. Friedman",
  "referred_to_str": "",
  "panel_str": "",
  "date_last_index": "2024-05-20T03:59:23.387429-07:00",
  "date_cert_granted": null,
  "date_cert_denied": null,
  "date_argued": null,
  "date_reargued": null,
  "date_reargument_denied": null,
  "date_filed": "2016-04-21",
  "date_terminated": null,
  "date_last_filing": "2024-05-15",
  "case_name_short": "",
  "case_name": "NATIONAL VETERANS LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM v. United States",
  "case_name_full": "",
  "slug": "national-veterans-legal-services-program-v-united-states",
  "docket_number": "1:16-cv-00745",
  "docket_number_core": "1600745",
  "pacer_case_id": "178502",
  "cause": "28:1346 Tort Claim",
  "nature_of_suit": "Other Statutory Actions",
  "jury_demand": "None",
  "jurisdiction_type": "U.S. Government Defendant",
  "appellate_fee_status": "",
  "appellate_case_type_information": "",
  "mdl_status": "",
  "filepath_ia": "https://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.178502/gov.uscourts.dcd.178502.docket.xml",
  "filepath_ia_json": "https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.178502/gov.uscourts.dcd.178502.docket.json",
  "ia_upload_failure_count": null,
  "ia_needs_upload": true,
  "ia_date_first_change": "2018-09-30T00:00:00-07:00",
  "date_blocked": null,
  "blocked": false,
  "appeal_from": null,
  "tags": [
    "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/tag/1316/"
  ],
  "panel": []
}

Use this API to get the metadata you need a particular audio file or to filter audio files to ones of interest.