`get_opinion`

Pack: court-listener · Endpoint: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/court-listener/mcp

Get the FULL TEXT of a US court opinion by its CourtListener opinion ID (the opinion_id returned by search_opinions). Served from our hosted mirror of CourtListener bulk data — 8.3 million opinions, 71% state case law, no API key needed. Returns the opinion text, author, type, whether the text came from OCR of a scan, and the snapshot date it was mirrored at. Note the mirrored table carries no filing date — date_created is when CourtListener ingested the record, not when the court ruled. Opinions filed after the snapshot fall through to the live API.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`id`	number	yes	CourtListener opinion ID (numeric)

Example call

Arguments

{
  "id": 12345678
}

curl

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/court-listener/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"get_opinion","arguments":{"id":12345678}}}'

TypeScript (@pipeworx/sdk)

import { Pipeworx } from '@pipeworx/sdk';
const pipeworx = new Pipeworx();

const result = await pipeworx.call('get_opinion', {
  "id": 12345678
});

Response shape

Always returns: id, author, type, date_created, download_url, url, text

Field	Type	Description
`id`	number	Opinion ID
`author`	string \| null	Author of the opinion
`type`	string \| null	Opinion type
`date_created`	string \| null	Date opinion was created
`download_url`	string \| null	URL to download opinion
`url`	string \| null	URL to opinion on CourtListener
`text`	string \| null	Full or truncated opinion text

Full JSON Schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "number",
      "description": "Opinion ID"
    },
    "author": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "Author of the opinion"
    },
    "type": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "Opinion type"
    },
    "date_created": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "Date opinion was created"
    },
    "download_url": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "URL to download opinion"
    },
    "url": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "URL to opinion on CourtListener"
    },
    "text": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "description": "Full or truncated opinion text"
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "id",
    "author",
    "type",
    "date_created",
    "download_url",
    "url",
    "text"
  ]
}

Connect

Add this to your MCP client config, or use one-click install buttons:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "court-listener": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/court-listener/mcp"
    }
  }
}

See Getting Started for client-specific install steps.

get_opinion