Federal judge profile + appointment history (CourtListener) API

Look up a US federal judge in CourtListener and get a normalized profile: schools, ABA ratings, all judicial seats with appointer and start/termination dates, plus derived current-seat and the set of appointing presidents. Answers 'What courts has this judge served on?', 'Who appointed them?'.

Price$0.01per request

MethodPOST

Route/v1/gov/courtlistener-judge

StatusLive

MIME typeapplication/json

Rate limit60/minute

Cache86400s public

govlegalcourtsjudgesjudiciarycourtlistenerus

API URLhttps://x402.hexl.dev/v1/gov/courtlistener-judge

Integration docs

Example request

{
  "query": "Sotomayor",
  "limit": 1
}

Example response

{
  "query": "Sotomayor",
  "totalMatches": 1,
  "returned": 1,
  "judges": [
    {
      "name": "Sonia Sotomayor",
      "dob": "1954-01-01",
      "dod": null,
      "gender": "Female",
      "school": [
        "Princeton University",
        "Yale University"
      ],
      "abaRating": [
        "Qualified",
        "Well Qualified",
        "Well Qualified"
      ],
      "seatCount": 5,
      "currentSeat": {
        "court": "Supreme Court",
        "courtId": "scotus",
        "positionType": "Judge",
        "appointer": "Obama, Barack Hussein, II",
        "dateStart": "2009-08-06",
        "dateTermination": null
      },
      "appointedBy": [
        "Clinton, William Jefferson",
        "Obama, Barack Hussein, II",
        "Bush, George H.W."
      ],
      "seats": [
        {
          "court": "Second Circuit",
          "courtId": "ca2",
          "positionType": "Judge",
          "appointer": "Clinton, William Jefferson",
          "dateStart": "1998-10-07",
          "dateTermination": "2009-08-07"
        },
        {
          "court": "Supreme Court",
          "courtId": "scotus",
          "positionType": "Judge",
          "appointer": "Obama, Barack Hussein, II",
          "dateStart": "2009-08-06",
          "dateTermination": null
        },
        {
          "court": null,
          "courtId": null,
          "positionType": "Assistant district attorney",
          "appointer": null,
          "dateStart": "1979-01-01",
          "dateTermination": "1984-01-01"
        },
        {
          "court": null,
          "courtId": null,
          "positionType": "Private practice",
          "appointer": null,
          "dateStart": "1984-01-01",
          "dateTermination": "1992-01-01"
        },
        {
          "court": "S.D. New York",
          "courtId": "nysd",
          "positionType": "Judge",
          "appointer": "Bush, George H.W.",
          "dateStart": "1992-08-12",
          "dateTermination": "1998-10-13"
        }
      ],
      "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/person/3045/sonia-sotomayor/"
    }
  ],
  "disclaimer": "Informational data product aggregated from public government / open-legal APIs. NOT legal advice. Verify against the official primary source before relying on it."
}

Input schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "required": [
    "query"
  ],
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Judge name"
    },
    "limit": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 15,
      "default": 5
    }
  }
}

Output schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "additionalProperties": true
}