law.judge-lookup

Find US federal + state appellate judges by name in CourtListener's People DB. Query by firstName (case-insensitive prefix), lastName (case-insensitive prefix), or both — at least one required. Returns id, full name + components, dates of birth/death, gender, education (school, degree level, year), political affiliations (party + appointing executive period), count of distinct judicial positions, and canonical CourtListener URL per match. Pairs with law.case-search + law.attorney-lookup to complete the WHO graph of a legal research workflow. Backed by CourtListener (Free Law Project); underlying data is public domain.

price
$0.0036 USDC per call
method
GET/api/law/judge-lookup
payment
x402 v2 · USDC on Base (EIP-3009) or Solana (SPL transfer)
auth
None. Sign the payment, retry with PAYMENT-SIGNATURE.

Overview

The judge lookup API is a pay-per-call law endpoint built for AI agents and autonomous software. Find US federal + state appellate judges by name in CourtListener's People DB.

There is no signup and no API key. An agent (or any HTTP client) hits the endpoint, receives an x402 "402 Payment Required" challenge, signs a sub-cent USDC payment on Base or Solana, and retries — the data comes back on the paid request. That makes it a drop-in judge lookup data source for an agent tool-use loop, an MCP host, or a backend that needs law data on demand without onboarding to yet another vendor portal.

Use cases

Parameters

NameTypeDescription
firstNamestringFirst-name prefix to search (case-insensitive). "Son" matches "Sonia". Optional, but at least one of firstName/lastName required.
min 2 chars · max 100 chars
lastNamestringLast-name prefix to search (case-insensitive). "Soto" matches "Sotomayor". Optional, but at least one of firstName/lastName required.
min 2 chars · max 100 chars
limitintegerMax judge records to return (1-50). Default 10.
min 1 · max 50

Code samples

cURLbash
# 1. Probe with no auth → 402 envelope with PaymentRequirements
curl -sS 'https://2s.io/api/law/judge-lookup?firstName=xx&lastName=xx&limit=10'

# 2. Sign + retry with PAYMENT-SIGNATURE:
curl -sS 'https://2s.io/api/law/judge-lookup?firstName=xx&lastName=xx&limit=10' \
  -H 'PAYMENT-SIGNATURE: <base64-json-payload>'

# Or use the canonical runner (handles probe → sign → retry):
#   EVM_PRIVATE_KEY=0x... node --env-file=.env.local \
#     --experimental-strip-types scripts/x402-pay.ts \
#     'https://2s.io/api/law/judge-lookup?firstName=xx&lastName=xx&limit=10'
TypeScript / Node — @2sio/sdktypescript
import { TwoS } from '@2sio/sdk'

const client = new TwoS({
  privateKey: process.env.EVM_PRIVATE_KEY as `0x${string}`,
})

const result = await client.law.judgeLookup({
  "firstName": "xx",
  "lastName": "xx",
  "limit": 10
})

console.log('endpoint:', result.endpoint)
console.log('cost:', result.costUsd, 'USDC')
console.log('tx:', result.settlement?.txHash)
console.log('data:', result.data)
Python — 2siopython
import os
from twosio import TwoS

client = TwoS(private_key=os.environ["EVM_PRIVATE_KEY"])

result = client.law.judge_lookup(firstName="xx", lastName="xx", limit=10)

print("endpoint:", result.endpoint)
print("cost:", result.cost_usd, "USDC")
print("tx:", (result.settlement or {}).get("tx_hash"))
print("data:", result.data)
MCP — Claude Desktop / AgentKit / any MCP hostjson
// 1. Add @2sio/mcp to your MCP host config (Claude Desktop example below).
//    EVM_PRIVATE_KEY funds x402 payments per call.

// claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "2sio": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@2sio/mcp"],
      "env": { "EVM_PRIVATE_KEY": "0x..." }
    }
  }
}

// 2. Once the server is running, agents call this tool via standard MCP:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "law.judge-lookup",
    "arguments": {
      "firstName": "xx",
      "lastName": "xx",
      "limit": 10
    }
  }
}

Response

FieldTypeDescription
okboolean
one of: true
itemsarray
totalintegerTotal matching rows upstream; null when unknown.
sourceobject
metaobject
Example response datajson
{
  "ok": true,
  "items": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "example",
      "firstName": "example",
      "middleName": "example",
      "lastName": "example",
      "suffix": "example",
      "dateOfBirth": "example",
      "dateOfDeath": "example",
      "gender": "example",
      "isJudge": false,
      "education": [
        {
          "school": "example",
          "degreeLevel": "example",
          "degreeYear": 1
        }
      ],
      "politicalAffiliations": [
        {
          "party": "example",
          "source": "example",
          "startDate": "example",
          "endDate": "example"
        }
      ],
      "positionCount": 1,
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "dateModified": "example"
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "source": {
    "provider": "example",
    "url": "example",
    "license": "example"
  },
  "meta": {
    "query": {
      "firstName": "example",
      "lastName": "example",
      "limit": 1
    }
  }
}

FAQ

Do I need an API key to use the judge lookup API?
No. law.judge-lookup is x402-native — there is no signup and no API key. Your client makes the call, receives a 402 with payment requirements, signs a USDC payment, and retries. Funds come from a wallet you control.
How much does the judge lookup API cost?
$0.0036 USDC per call, charged per request. There are no monthly fees, seats, or minimums — you pay only for the calls you make.
Can I try the judge lookup API for free first?
Yes. Add ?trial=1 (or the header X-2s-Trial: 1) to get a free real call per endpoint per hour, so you can verify the response shape before wiring payment.
Which networks and tokens are supported?
USDC on Base (via EIP-3009 transferWithAuthorization) or Solana (SPL transfer), using the open x402 payment protocol.
How do I call law.judge-lookup from an AI agent or MCP host?
Use @2sio/sdk (TypeScript), 2sio (Python), or the @2sio/mcp server for any MCP host — each handles the probe → sign → retry loop for you. See the code samples on this page.

Discovery

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