Public legal data sources
Source review · Checked . Based on the linked documentation and tool definitions. Examples are illustrative unless a run receipt is provided. Editorial standards
ToolRouter Legal Research is a router over named public APIs, not a licensed reporter. This page lists which skill hits which source, what text you get back, and which calls need a key. It is a source-selection reference, not legal advice, and it is not equivalent to Lexis, Westlaw, or Harvey's Ask LexisNexis path.
Checked 13 September 2026 against the case-law skill implementations and the publisher pages linked below. Refresh when a source's coverage page or a skill mapping changes.
Coverage at a glance
| Collection | Publisher | Skill | What the skill returns | Key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US opinions | CourtListener | search_cases (US), case_details | Name, court, date, citations, snippet/excerpt (≤500 characters from search), URL, cluster ID. Not full html_with_citations | Optional token |
| US citation graph | CourtListener opinions-cited | citation_analysis (US) | Citing and cited opinion lists. Not Shepard's/KeyCite treatment | Optional token |
| US RECAP dockets | CourtListener RECAP | search_dockets | Case name, court, docket number, dates, URL. Donated PACER filings, not the PACER system | Optional token |
| US judges | CourtListener people | search_judges | Profile fields and URLs | Optional token |
| Historical US reporters through 2020 | Caselaw Access Project | Search via CourtListener after CAP API sunset 5 Sep 2024 | Official book-published US case law through 2020; bulk files remain on case.law | n/a |
| England & Wales judgments | Find Case Law | search_cases (UK) | Title, court, date, citation, HTML/PDF URL. Excerpt empty | No |
| German cases | Open Legal Data | search_cases (DE) | File number, court, date, first 500 characters of content, URL | No |
| Canadian cases | CanLII | search_cases (CA) | Title, citation, database ID, CanLII URL. API is metadata; excerpt empty. Full text is on CanLII's site | Required |
| Indian cases | Indian Kanoon | search_cases (IN) | Title, court, date, headline excerpt (tags stripped, ≤500 chars) | Required |
| Dutch cases | Rechtspraak | search_cases (NL) | Title, court, ECLI, URL. Excerpt empty | No |
| EU court judgments | — | Not in search_cases | Skill returns a note to use legislation instead | — |
| UK / US FR / EU / DE / JP / CA / PL / SE legislation | legislation.gov.uk, Federal Register, EUR-Lex, and the country APIs | search_legislation, legislation_details | Titles, identifiers, dates, links; India has no legislation API in this tool | CanLII key for CA |
| US Code / public laws | GovInfo | search_statutes | Titles, package IDs, download links | Required |
| US bills | Congress.gov | search_congress | Bill numbers, titles, sponsors, actions, URLs | Required |
| US state bills | Open States | search_state_bills | Identifiers, titles, state, session, URLs | Required |
| eCFR | eCFR | search_cfr | CFR references, headings, excerpts, eCFR URLs | No |
| Regulations.gov | Regulations.gov | search_regulations | Rulemaking documents, comment status, URLs | Required |
| openFDA / EPA ECHO / NHTSA | Those agencies | search_fda, search_epa, search_vehicle_safety | Labels, enforcement, recalls. Regulatory data, not case law | No |
Free Law Project describes CourtListener as holding over 10 million opinions across hundreds of jurisdictions (project page, checked 13 Sep 2026). Counts move. Prefer the live coverage page over any number copied here.
How to read “excerpt” and “full text”
CourtListener's search API is explicit: with highlighting off, snippet fields for opinion search are the first 500 characters of the text (or highlighted matches when q is set). ToolRouter search_cases and case_details both use /search/, not /opinions/. So:
- A US “case details” result is still a snippet.
- Full opinion HTML lives on CourtListener's opinion record (
html_with_citationsis the field they recommend). Follow theurl. - UK, Dutch, and Canadian search rows currently ship empty excerpts. Open the publisher URL.
- CanLII's documented API returns metadata (title, citation, dates, keywords), not the judgment body.
Find Case Law publishes selected England and Wales judgments. Coverage starts at different years by court (UK Supreme Court from 2009; many High Court divisions from 2003; Crown Court and County Court only selected later cases). It does not routinely include magistrates' courts, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Judgments may have been appealed. Licence: Open Justice Licence.
CAP is a historical digitization of official reporters through 2020, not a citator and not a substitute for current slip opinions.
Connect your assistant, then try the task described in this guide.
Keys and rate limits
US CourtListener search runs without a token. A token is optional for higher access. CourtListener's published authenticated defaults on 13 September 2026 are 5 requests/minute, 50/hour, 125/day, with membership and commercial options above that (REST API). Do not treat an older “5000/hour” figure as current.
Canada, India, Congress.gov, GovInfo, Open States, and Regulations.gov return unavailable when their keys are missing. That is a skip, not a fabricated empty corpus.
These skills are priced free on ToolRouter. Assistant subscriptions are not.
Illustrative lookup
Use ToolRouter Legal Research.
1. search_cases query="data protection" country=UK limit=5
2. search_legislation query="data protection" country=UK
3. If a UK case row has an empty excerpt, keep the url and pdf_url and do not invent a holding.That is a request shape. Expected UK case rows include identifiers and links; expected legislation rows include titles and official identifiers such as ukpga/2018/12 for the Data Protection Act 2018 on legislation.gov.uk.
What this table is not
It is not Harvey, Lexis, or Westlaw coverage. It is not a citator. It is not complete PACER. It is not every tribunal in every country listed in the tool's marketing subtitle. For the Claude workflow see Public-source legal research in Claude. For the commercial split see Harvey alternatives for public legal research.
Use Legal Research from Connect Claude or toolrouter.com/connect.
*Source-reviewed 13 September 2026 against the case-law clients/skills and the publisher pages linked in the table. Not a live multi-jurisdiction test run.*
