# UK Case Law Scraper — BAILII Alternative, Judgments API (`nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper`) Actor

The only UK case-law actor with structured court, party, judge, date and citation filters. Search judgments and tribunal decisions from The National Archives' Find Case Law (the official BAILII alternative): citation, parties, judges, dates, links, full text, legislation refs, delta mode.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Nomad.Dev](https://apify.com/nomad-agent) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Automation, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $4.00 / 1,000 judgment results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## UK Case Law Scraper — Find Case Law Judgments API

> **Claude / Codex skill to describe and setup this actor: [SKILL.md](https://github.com/Exdenta/OinkAIJobSearch/blob/main/skill/uk-case-law-scraper/SKILL.md)**

**The only UK case-law Actor with structured court, party, judge, date-range and exact-citation filters** — every direct competitor takes just a keyword or a page range. Search UK court judgments and tribunal decisions from The National Archives' **Find Case Law** service (caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk — the official successor to the data behind **BAILII**) through its public API. Clean structured records out, with optional full judgment text and structured legislation references. No login, no proxies, no HTML parsing.

Covers the UK Supreme Court, Privy Council, Court of Appeal, High Court, Family Court, Upper and First-tier Tribunals, Employment Appeal Tribunal and more — judgments from 2001 onwards (older for some courts), updated as courts publish.

#### Why this Actor

- **Real filters, not just a keyword.** Target a specific court or tribunal (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, a named chamber), a named **party**, a named **judge**, a **date range**, or look up one judgment by **exact neutral citation** — the only Actor in this niche that does. Competitors offer keyword-or-nothing.
- **Citation lookup** with graceful fallback — set a neutral citation and get exactly that judgment (`citationExactMatch`).
- **Delta mode** (`onlyNewSinceLastRun`) — poll the same query on a schedule and pay only for genuinely new judgments. No competitor offers scheduled monitoring.
- **Legislation references** parsed straight from the official judgment XML — statutes cited, with `legislation.gov.uk` links.
- **`contentHash`** to detect when a previously-seen judgment has been revised.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `query` | string | `"negligence"` | Free-text search across judgments. Leave empty to browse latest judgments matching the other filters. Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `citation` | string | *(empty)* | Look up one judgment by its exact neutral citation, e.g. `"[2024] UKSC 1"`. When set, this takes over the search: `query`, `courts`, `party`, `judge` and the date range are all ignored. Returns the exact citation match(es); falls back to raw (unfiltered) search hits if nothing matches exactly. See [Citation lookup](#citation-lookup) below. |
| `courts` | array (multi-select) | *(empty = all)* | Court/tribunal codes to filter by — all 37 collections on Find Case Law, see [Court codes](#court-codes). Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `party` | string | *(empty)* | Filter on a party's name (claimant, defendant, appellant, respondent...). Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `judge` | string | *(empty)* | Filter on the judge's name. Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `fromDate` | date | *(empty)* | Only judgments on/after this date. Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `toDate` | date | *(empty)* | Only judgments on/before this date. Ignored when `citation` is set. |
| `includeFullText` | boolean | `false` | Fetch each judgment's XML and include parties, judges, the full judgment text and structured legislation references. Slower and heavier output. |
| `onlyNewSinceLastRun` | boolean | `false` | Only output judgments not seen in previous runs with this flag. See [Delta mode](#delta-mode) below. |
| `maxItems` | integer | `50` | Hard cap on judgments considered per run. `0` = no cap (use with care). |
| `concurrency` *(Advanced)* | integer | `4` | Parallel detail fetches when `includeFullText` is on. Keep low — this is a public government service. |

### What UK case-law data does this scraper extract?

One flat JSON record per judgment:

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `citation` | Neutral citation, e.g. `[2024] UKSC 1` |
| `title` | Case name (parties as titled by the court) |
| `court` | Court / chamber name, e.g. `Court of Appeal (Civil Division)` |
| `date` | Judgment date (`YYYY-MM-DD`) |
| `url` | Judgment page on Find Case Law |
| `pdfUrl` | Official PDF |
| `xmlUrl` | Akoma Ntoso (LegalDocML) XML |
| `slug` | Court/year/number path, e.g. `uksc/2024/1` |
| `fclId` | Find Case Law document ID |
| `contentHash` | Content hash — detect judgment revisions |
| `parties` | Party names (with **Include full text**) |
| `judges` | Judge names where marked up (with **Include full text**) |
| `fullText` | Plain-text judgment body (with **Include full text**) |
| `legislationRefs` | Statutes cited in the judgment — array of `{text, uri, canonical}`, e.g. `{"text": "Data Protection Act 1998", "uri": "http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/ukpga/1998/29", "canonical": "1998 c. 29"}` (with **Include full text**) |
| `isNew` | `true` on every pushed record — only present when **Only new since last run** is on |
| `citationExactMatch` | `true`/`false` — only present when **Citation** is set; see [Citation lookup](#citation-lookup) |

### How to scrape UK judgments with this Actor

1. Enter a **search query** (`negligence`, `data protection`, a party name...) — or leave it empty and filter by court/date only. Or set **Citation** to look up one specific judgment (see below).
2. Optionally restrict by **courts** (`uksc`, `ewca/civ`, `ewhc/kb`, `eat`, ...), **party**, **judge**, **fromDate** / **toDate**.
3. Turn on **Include full text** if you need parties, judges and the judgment body.
4. Turn on **Only new since last run** to skip (and avoid billing for) judgments already returned by a previous run — handy for polling the same query on a schedule.
5. Run and export JSON, CSV or Excel — or call it over the API:

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper").call(run_input={
    "query": "negligence",
    "courts": ["uksc", "ewca/civ"],
    "fromDate": "2024-01-01",
    "maxItems": 100,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["citation"], "|", item["title"], item["url"])
```

```bash
curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nomad-agent~uk-case-law-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "negligence", "courts": ["uksc"], "maxItems": 50}'
```

### Output example

```json
{
  "source": "find-case-law",
  "citation": "[2024] UKSC 1",
  "title": "Paul and another v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust",
  "court": "United Kingdom Supreme Court",
  "date": "2024-01-11",
  "url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2024/1",
  "pdfUrl": "https://assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2024/1/uksc_2024_1.pdf",
  "xmlUrl": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2024/1/data.xml",
  "slug": "uksc/2024/1",
  "fclId": "gxdrmpqf",
  "parties": ["Paul and another", "Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust"],
  "judges": ["Lord Leggatt", "Lady Rose"],
  "legislationRefs": [
    {"text": "Fatal Accidents Act 1976", "uri": "http://www.legislation.gov.uk/id/ukpga/1976/30", "canonical": "1976 c. 30"}
  ],
  "fullText": "Hilary Term [2024] UKSC 1 On appeal from..."
}
```

`isNew` (delta mode) and `citationExactMatch` (citation lookup) are added on top of this shape when those inputs are used — see [Delta mode](#delta-mode) and [Citation lookup](#citation-lookup).

### Court codes

All **37** collections published on Find Case Law — every court and tribunal the service carries, with the years each one covers. The **Courts & tribunals** input is a multi-select of exactly these codes: pick as many as you need, or leave empty for all.

| Code | Court | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| `uksc` | Supreme Court | 2009– |
| `ukpc` | Privy Council | 2009– |
| `ewca/civ` | Court of Appeal, Civil Division | 2001– |
| `ewca/crim` | Court of Appeal, Criminal Division | 2003– |
| `ewhc/admin` | High Court, Administrative Court | 2003– |
| `ewhc/admlty` | High Court, Admiralty Court | 2003– |
| `ewhc/ch` | High Court, Chancery Division | 2003– |
| `ewhc/comm` | High Court, Commercial Court | 2003– |
| `ewhc/fam` | High Court, Family Division | 2003– |
| `ewhc/ipec` | High Court, Intellectual Property Enterprise Court | 2013– |
| `ewhc/kb` | High Court, King's / Queen's Bench Division | 2003– |
| `ewhc/mercantile` | High Court, Mercantile Court | 2008–2014 |
| `ewhc/pat` | High Court, Patents Court | 2003– |
| `ewhc/scco` | High Court, Senior Courts Costs Office | 2003– |
| `ewhc/tcc` | High Court, Technology and Construction Court | 2003– |
| `ewcr` | Crown Court | 2020– |
| `ewcc` | County Court | 2019– |
| `ewfc` | Family Court | 2014– |
| `ewcop` | Court of Protection | 2009– |
| `eat` | Employment Appeal Tribunal | 2021– |
| `ukut/aac` | Upper Tribunal, Administrative Appeals Chamber | 2011– |
| `ukut/iac` | Upper Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber | 2007– |
| `ukut/lc` | Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber | 2014– |
| `ukut/tcc` | Upper Tribunal, Tax and Chancery Chamber | 2016– |
| `ukftt/tc` | First-tier Tribunal, Tax Chamber | 2019– |
| `ukftt/grc` | First-tier Tribunal, General Regulatory Chamber | 2009– |
| `ukftt/hesc` | First-tier Tribunal, Care Standards | 1985– |
| `ftt/pc` | First-tier Tribunal, Land Registration Division | 2024– |
| `ftt/phl` | First-tier Tribunal, Primary Health Lists | 2025– |
| `ukiptrib` | Investigatory Powers Tribunal | 2023–2024 |
| `siac` | Special Immigration Appeals Commission | 2003– |
| `ftt/claims` | Claims Management Services Tribunal | 2010–2011 |
| `ukftt/credit` | Consumer Credit Appeals Tribunal | 2008–2013 |
| `ukftt/estate` | Estate Agents Tribunal | 2010 |
| `ukit` | Information Tribunal | 1990–2010 |
| `ukist` | Immigration Services Tribunal | 2001–2009 |
| `ftt/transport` | Transport Tribunal | 2000–2009 |

### Citation lookup

Set **Citation** to a neutral citation (e.g. `[2024] UKSC 1`) to look up one specific judgment instead of running a broad search. When set:

- `query`, `courts`, `party`, `judge`, `fromDate` and `toDate` are all ignored.
- The Actor searches Find Case Law for that citation text, then keeps only the result(s) whose citation matches **exactly** (whitespace/case-insensitive) — tagged `"citationExactMatch": true`.
- If nothing matches exactly (e.g. a slightly malformed citation), it falls back to returning the raw, unfiltered search hits for that text instead, tagged `"citationExactMatch": false`, so you still get something useful to inspect. The fallback is capped at 25 records, so a mistyped citation can never run up a large bill.

### Delta mode

Turn on **Only new since last run** (`onlyNewSinceLastRun`) to have the Actor remember which judgments it has already returned (keyed by `fclId`, falling back to `slug` then `citation`) across runs, and skip judgments it has already seen.

- Skipped (already-seen) judgments are **not pushed and not billed** — only genuinely new judgments count toward `maxItems` billing and appear in the dataset.
- Every judgment that *is* pushed with this flag on is tagged `"isNew": true`.
- State is kept in a dedicated key-value store (separate from the run's default store) so it persists across scheduled runs of the same Actor.

### Integrations

Export results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or wire this Actor into [Make](https://make.com), [Zapier](https://zapier.com) or [n8n](https://n8n.io); call it programmatically with `run-sync-get-dataset-items`; or use it from AI agents via the [Apify MCP server](https://mcp.apify.com).

### Pricing

Pay per event: **$0.05 per Actor start** and **$0.004 per judgment returned**.
100 judgments ≈ $0.45. No subscription — pay only for what you fetch.

### Use cases

- Legal research: track new judgments by topic, court or judge
- Litigation intelligence: monitor cases naming a company or party
- Feed RAG / AI legal assistants with authoritative primary law
- Academic analysis of UK courts and tribunals
- Compliance and news alerting on precedent-setting decisions

### FAQ

**Is it legal to scrape this data?**
Yes — Find Case Law is The National Archives' official open service and this Actor uses only its documented public API. Judgments are Crown copyright, re-usable under the [Open Justice Licence](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/open-justice-licence). Note: the licence requires attribution and does **not** cover programmatic *computational analysis* (e.g. bulk text/data mining) — that needs a (free) licence application to The National Archives. Retrieval, research, republication with attribution are fine; check the licence for your use case.

**Do I need an API key or login?**
No. The Find Case Law public API is unauthenticated.

**How far back does coverage go?**
Consistently from 2001–2003 onwards depending on court; the archive grows as The National Archives ingests older judgments.

**How fresh is the data?**
Every run hits the live API — new judgments appear as courts publish them, often same-day.

**Something broken or missing?**
Open an issue on the Actor's **Issues** tab — it is monitored and fixes ship fast.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Free-text search across judgments (e.g. <code>negligence</code>, <code>data protection</code>). Leave empty to browse latest judgments matching the other filters. Ignored when Citation is set.

## `citation` (type: `string`):

Look up one judgment by its exact neutral citation, e.g. <code>\[2024] UKSC 1</code>. When set, this takes over the search: Search query, Courts, Party, Judge and the date range are all ignored, and the actor returns only the judgment(s) whose citation matches exactly (case/whitespace-insensitive). If nothing matches exactly, it falls back to returning the raw (unfiltered) search hits for that citation text instead. Leave empty for a normal search.

## `courts` (type: `array`):

Optional court/tribunal codes to filter by — all 37 collections published on Find Case Law. Empty = all courts. Years show each collection's published coverage. Ignored when Citation is set.

## `party` (type: `string`):

Optional filter on a party's name (claimant, defendant, appellant, respondent...). Ignored when Citation is set.

## `judge` (type: `string`):

Optional filter on the judge's name. Ignored when Citation is set.

## `fromDate` (type: `string`):

Only judgments on/after this date. Ignored when Citation is set.

## `toDate` (type: `string`):

Only judgments on/before this date. Ignored when Citation is set.

## `includeFullText` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch each judgment's XML and include parties, judges, the full judgment text and structured legislation references (statutes cited). Slower and heavier output. Full text is Crown copyright, re-usable under the Open Justice Licence.

## `onlyNewSinceLastRun` (type: `boolean`):

Only output judgments not seen in previous runs with this flag. Skipped (already-seen) judgments are not pushed or billed, so repeat runs against the same query only charge for genuinely new results.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on judgments considered per run. 0 = no cap (use with care — broad queries match thousands of judgments). With 'Only new since last run' on, some considered judgments may be skipped as already-seen, so fewer than this may actually be pushed and billed.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many judgment pages to fetch in parallel when 'Include full text' is on. Keep low — this is a public government service.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "negligence",
  "includeFullText": false,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": false,
  "maxItems": 50,
  "concurrency": 4
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "negligence"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "query": "negligence" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "negligence"
}' |
apify call nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=nomad-agent/uk-case-law-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/6yiUR9P1imsGHYvat/builds/d0h9eRs2VntoCkVBE/openapi.json