quick and dirty commandline tool to download a case by citation from caselaw access project (https://case.law). Requires API key registration.

caselaw.py

import requests, json, string, sys, os

endpoint = "https://api.case.law/v1/cases/"

apikey = os.environ["CASELAW"]  # put your case.law api key here

headers = {"Authorization": "Token " + apikey}

def depunctuate(st):
    return st.translate(str.maketrans(dict.fromkeys(string.punctuation)))

def get_opinion_texts(api_response):
    ops = api_response["results"][0]["casebody"]["data"]["opinions"]
    doublespaced_ops = ["\n\n".join(x["text"].split("\n")) for x in ops]
    return "\n\n<hr>\n\n".join([x for x in doublespaced_ops])

def get_name(api_response):
    try: 
        shortname = api_response["results"][0]["name_abbreviation"]
    except:
        shortname = ""
        longname = api_response["results"][0]["name_abbreviation"]
    if shortname:
        return shortname
    return longname

def get_cites(api_response):
    cites = [x["cite"] for x in api_response["results"][0]["citations"]]
    return "\n\n".join(cites)

def get_date(api_response):
    date = api_response["results"][0]["decision_date"]
    return date

def get_case(cite):
    resp = requests.get(endpoint, headers=headers, params={"cite": cite, "full_case": "true"}).json()
    opinions = get_opinion_texts(resp)
    name = get_name(resp)
    cites = get_cites(resp)
    date = get_date(resp)
    text = name + "\n\n" + cites + "\n\n" + date + "\n\n" + opinions
    filename = depunctuate(name) + "_" + depunctuate(cites) + ".md"
    return (text, filename.replace(" ", "_"))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    toget = sys.argv[1]
    text, filename = get_case(toget)
    with open(filename, "w") as f:
        f.write(text)