CourtListener vs Legal Information Institute

CourtListener is a web-based legal research service with a searchable archive covering opinions from U.S. federal and state courts, oral arguments, judges, judicial financial records, and federal filings. Its RECAP Archive includes nearly every federal case, hundreds of millions of docket entries, and tens of millions of legal documents. Search tools cover case law, dockets, and citations, and alerts can track topics, people, companies, citations, and other searches. Free Law Project also provides REST APIs, bulk data files, webhooks, database replication, and an MCP server through which AI assistants can access CourtListener data and APIs. The project is built on open source technology. The free non-member plan includes five docket alerts, unlimited daily opinion search alerts, five daily RECAP search alerts, five Pray & Pay requests, and API limits of 5 per minute, 50 per hour, and 125 per day. Paid tiers list higher limits. Complimentary EDU and qualifying LSO memberships are also available.

Legal Information Institute (LII) is a free web resource publishing legal information and explanatory material for the public. Its collections include the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, state regulations, Supreme Court opinions, and federal rules. LII enriches government-published data by identifying, extracting, annotating, indexing, and presenting its features. Explanatory offerings include Wex, Supreme Court Bulletin previews, and case summaries in the Gender Justice Collection. Users can search case law and statutes and regulations, read commentary, and use citation tools. Read It Online accepts a formal case citation and returns links to free and paid judicial-opinion resources. Introduction to Basic Legal Citation is a free Bluebook alternative maintained by co-founder Peter Martin. Regulations from all 50 states and Washington, DC receive enhanced functionality. Coverage includes U.S. federal law, all states, and selected world law. The Free access plan costs nothing. LII does not provide legal advice or personalized research help.