CourtListener Business Bankruptcy Scraper

CourtListener Business Bankruptcy Scraper

Scrape US business bankruptcy filings from CourtListener by company name, chapter, court, or date range. Each filing returns the debtor name, case number, judge, filing date, and current status. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Tracking corporate distress through PACER is expensive and slow. CourtListener provides free, searchable access to federal bankruptcy dockets. This Actor reads the public RECAP archive so you can pull Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 filings for a specific company, an entire court, or a date window without paying per page.

Who uses it	What they scrape CourtListener for
Credit analysts	Monitor Chapter 11 filings to adjust credit risk on existing counterparties.
Turnaround consultants	Identify new Chapter 7 and 11 cases filed in Delaware or SDNY this week.
Business journalists	Track retail or restaurant bankruptcy filings by keyword and date.
Legal marketing teams	Build a list of recent Chapter 11 debtors for bankruptcy practice outreach.

What it does

This Actor collects US business bankruptcy filings from CourtListener and returns each case as a flat row with debtor name, case number, chapter, court, filing date, and status.

• 🔍 Keyword search: find filings by debtor name, such as a retailer brand or holding company.
• 📅 Date range filter: pull cases filed after, before, or between specific dates.
• ⚖️ Chapter filter: restrict results to Chapter 7, 11, 12, or 13 cases only.
• 🏛️ Court filter: target a single bankruptcy court like 'nysb' or 'deb'.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with CourtListener data

📉 Monitor corporate distress.

A credit analyst runs the Actor weekly with a date range and Chapter 11 filter to catch new filings from companies in their portfolio.

🏢 Source leads for bankruptcy practices.

A legal marketer searches for 'retail' filings in Delaware and SDNY to build a list of new Chapter 11 debtors for business development.

📰 Track an industry's bankruptcies.

A journalist enters a keyword like 'restaurant' and a date range to compile every related filing for a trend story.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
Free public records	Reads the RECAP archive on CourtListener, no PACER fees.
Fixed flat schema	Every case returns the same fields: debtor, case number, chapter, court, date, and status.
Bulk retrieval	Pull up to a million filings in one run for paid users.

How it compares

This Actor focuses on CourtListener bankruptcy filings with keyword, chapter, and court filters. Here is how it compares to other CourtListener scrapers on Apify.

Feature	ParseForge	CourtListener Scraper - Opinions, Dockets & Courts
Bankruptcy case search by debtor name	Yes	Not listed
Filter by bankruptcy chapter (7, 11, 12, 13)	Yes	Not listed
Filter by court ID	Yes	Not listed
Date range filter for filings	Yes	Not listed
Full court opinions and dockets	Not listed	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a debtor name search query, and narrow results by bankruptcy chapter, court ID, and filing date range so only relevant cases reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "searchQuery": "retail",
 "maxItems": 10,
 "chapter": "11",
 "dateFiledAfter": "2025-01-01"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "searchQuery": "retail",
 "maxItems": 200,
 "chapter": "11",
 "dateFiledAfter": "2025-01-01"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01599 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.60
1,000 results	$15.99
10,000 results	$159.90

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the CourtListener Business Bankruptcy Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to CourtListener through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/business-bankruptcy-filings-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your search query is not too narrow. Try removing the court ID or chapter filter, or broaden the date range. CourtListener's search may also return no matches for very obscure debtor names.

The run stopped before reaching my max items.

Free users are capped at 100 filings. If you are on a paid plan and the run stopped early, CourtListener may have returned fewer results than your requested maximum for that query.

I got an error about the date format.

Ensure your dates use the YYYY-MM-DD format, such as 2025-01-01. A single-digit month or day must include a leading zero.

Why are some fields empty in my results?

CourtListener records vary. Some cases may not have a judge assigned yet or a status updated. Empty fields reflect missing data at the source.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Is this data from PACER?	It comes from the RECAP archive hosted by CourtListener, which mirrors federal PACER dockets. You get the same case information without the per-page charges.
Do I need a CourtListener API key?	No. This Actor reads the public search interface. No registration or token is required.
Can I search for a specific company name?	Yes. Use the search query field to enter a debtor name, such as a retailer brand or holding company.
What bankruptcy chapters can I filter?	You can filter by Chapter 7 (liquidation), Chapter 11 (reorganization), Chapter 12 (family farmer), or Chapter 13 (wage earner). Leave the field empty to get all chapters.
How do I filter by court?	Enter a court ID in the Court ID field. For example, 'nysb' for the Southern District of New York or 'deb' for Delaware.
What date format should I use?	Use YYYY-MM-DD format, such as 2025-01-01. You can set a start date, an end date, or both.
How many filings can I pull in one run?	Free users are limited to 100 filings. Paid users can set a maximum up to 1,000,000 filings per run.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the dataset tab.
Does this include the full docket entries?	This Actor returns the case-level summary: debtor name, case number, chapter, court, filing date, and status. It does not pull every docket entry.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Free Law Project. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.