Executive Summary: PACER vs Cobalt Court API is a question risk teams ask once they realize that federal and state court records answer different parts of the same diligence problem. PACER provides instantaneous access to over 1 billion documents across the federal court system, while most business litigation is filed in state courts, where the National Center for State Courts reports that 98 percent of all cases are handled.[1][2] This guide compares the two so a lender can decide which tool answers which question, rather than treating one as a replacement for the other.
What is PACER and what does it actually cover?
Which courts does PACER include?
PACER is the federal judiciary's public access system. It reaches federal district courts, appellate courts, and bankruptcy courts nationwide, and a federal case file is a docket sheet plus the documents filed in that case.[3] That breadth is the point: if you need a borrower's federal civil suits, criminal matters, or bankruptcy petitions, PACER is the authoritative system.
How does a lender access PACER records?
PACER access is per-document and pay-per-page, and search is largely manual through its web interface or a single-court query. It is comprehensive, but it is not built for programmatic, high-volume screening inside an automated underwriting flow. A team pulling many files learns quickly that PACER rewards depth over throughput.
What is the Cobalt Court Case API and what does it cover?
Which jurisdictions does the API support?
The Cobalt Court Case API queries state business litigation in two jurisdictions only: New York State and Miami-Dade County, Florida. It does not query PACER, federal courts, or bankruptcy records, and it is not a nationwide litigation screen. The endpoint is `GET /courtCases`, it searches by business name, and it returns results through a callback.
Why only New York and Miami-Dade?
The coverage is deliberately narrow. New York is a major center for alternative lending and financial services, and Miami-Dade is a hub for South Florida small-business and MCA lending. For a lender whose borrowers cluster in those two venues, a fast programmatic state-court signal is more useful than a manual federal pull. Outside those two jurisdictions, the API returns nothing, so the workflow must route to a fallback.
How do PACER and Cobalt compare side by side?
Where does each tool win?
The two systems are complementary. PACER answers the federal and bankruptcy question across the whole country. Cobalt answers a fast, automated, state-court business-litigation question in two specific venues. Neither substitutes for the other.
| Dimension | PACER | Cobalt Court Case API |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Federal courts nationwide, including bankruptcy | New York State and Miami-Dade County only |
| Record types | Civil, criminal, bankruptcy dockets and filings | State business litigation: judgments, cases, parties |
| Access model | Manual web search, pay-per-page | Programmatic API, async callback, 1 credit per lookup |
| Search key | Party name, case number, court | Business name |
| Best fit | Federal or bankruptcy diligence anywhere | High-volume state-court screening in 2 venues |
What does the API call look like?
The Court Case API is callback-only. The request supplies the business name, the jurisdiction, and a callback URL, and Cobalt POSTs the results when the lookup finishes, typically in 30 to 120 seconds.
curl --location 'https://apigateway.cobaltintelligence.com/courtCases?businessName=Acme%20Capital%20LLC&jurisdiction=newYork&callbackUrl=https://your-app.example.com/cobalt/callback' \
--header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
--header 'Accept: application/json'What data does the Court Case API return?
Which fields come back?
The documented return fields are judgment details such as type and status, case information including case number and court division, filing dates, the parties involved, and judgment amounts where available. Amounts are not always present, so the workflow should treat a missing amount as a prompt to confirm, not as a zero.
What does the API not return?
It does not return federal records, bankruptcy filings, real-time docket-event streams, or alerts. It searches by business name only. There is no documented person-name, EIN, or case-number lookup for court records, and there is no continuous monitoring product.
How should a lender route between the two?
When does the file need PACER?
Route to PACER when the question is federal: a bankruptcy petition, a federal civil suit, or a criminal matter, regardless of the borrower's state. Route to PACER as well when the borrower operates outside New York and Miami-Dade and you need court signal that the Cobalt API cannot supply.
When does the API carry the load?
Use the Court Case API for fast, repeatable pre-screening of borrowing entities concentrated in New York or Miami-Dade. It fits cleanly inside an automated stack alongside Secretary of State, TIN/EIN, UCC, and OFAC checks, and it returns a state-court signal without a human opening a court portal.
The honest framing is not PACER or Cobalt. It is PACER for federal and bankruptcy depth, Cobalt for fast state-court business signals in two venues, with an explicit fallback everywhere else.
How should compliance shape the use of court data?
What limits apply to public records in lending?
Court judgments and civil suits are public records, and using them in credit decisions can trigger Fair Credit Reporting Act duties, which Regulation V implements for furnishers and users of report data.[6] The FCRA bars consumer reporting agencies from reporting most civil suits and judgments that antedate a report by more than seven years.[4] Cobalt is a data source, not a consumer reporting agency and not a decisioning engine, so the lender owns how the data is used.
How does a judgment connect to recovery risk?
A money judgment, once filed, can create a lien that attaches to the debtor's property, which is why a prior judgment is a repayment-and-recovery signal and not just a reputational note.[5] That connection is the reason court records belong next to UCC data in a pre-funding file.
How does this fit a complete risk stack?
What should run alongside court records?
Court records are strongest paired with entity verification, lien discovery, and sanctions screening. See the pre-funding UCC lien search underwriter workflow for the lien layer[7] and BSA/AML for alternative lenders and OFAC's role for the sanctions layer.[8]
What belongs in the audit trail?
Store the raw API response, the parsed fields, the jurisdiction searched, and the decision reason. When a state is unsupported, log the fallback rather than recording a silent clear.
How can a lender get started?
A team can start by scoping which borrowers concentrate in New York or Miami-Dade and where the federal or out-of-venue fallback will run. To see the Court Case API return live data against a sample entity, book a Cobalt demo and walk the call flow with the team.
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