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Security report for courtlistener.com

Free Law Project · Non-profit · N/a

Low risk. 3 critical or high findings in GDPR outside view and SSL/TLS.

Security score

81/100

Risk levelLow

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

CourtListener is a reputable non-profit legal research platform sponsored by the Free Law Project. It provides free access to millions of legal opinions, oral arguments, and related legal data, serving lawyers, journalists, academics, and the public. The platform offers advanced search capabilities, APIs, and alerts, positioning itself as an important open access resource in the legal domain. Technically, the site uses modern web technologies including jQuery, Bootstrap, D3.js, and SVG graphics, delivering a well-structured, mobile-optimized, and accessible user experience. Security posture is solid with HTTPS enforced and secure form handling, though explicit security headers and cookie consent mechanisms could be improved. The absence of WHOIS data is a notable gap but does not detract significantly from the site's legitimacy given its transparent sponsorship and comprehensive policies. Overall, CourtListener demonstrates strong business credibility, excellent content quality, and a good security foundation.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of courtlistener.com. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
53/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

3 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

  2. SSL/TLS

    TLS encrypts the connection and proves the site is really yours. Weak or expiring certificates trigger browser warnings and put traffic at risk.

    • High

      Weak Protocols Supported

      Server supports weak protocols: TLSv1.1

      What to do: Disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, and all SSL versions

      • CWE-327
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V12.1.1

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Keep watching courtlistener.com

This scan found 16 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

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  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

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Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
77
Security headers
85
Email security
85
DNS health
85
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
53
Average
81

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

CourtListener operates as a non-profit entity under the Free Law Project umbrella, focusing on open access legal data and research tools. Its market position is strong within the legal research community due to its extensive data collections and open APIs. The business model relies on sponsorship and donations, with clear calls for support. The target audience includes legal professionals and researchers. The platform's partnership ecosystem includes related Free Law Project domains and open source projects. Growth indicators include frequent data updates and active community engagement. Strategic observations highlight the importance of maintaining transparency, expanding contact channels, and enhancing privacy compliance to strengthen trust and user engagement.

Security posture

The website exhibits a mature security posture with mandatory HTTPS and secure form implementations. Publicly available vulnerability disclosure policies indicate a proactive security culture. However, the lack of explicit security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and absence of a security.txt file are areas for improvement. No vulnerabilities or exposed sensitive data were detected in the content. Incident response readiness is supported by published policies but lacks direct contact channels for security issues. GDPR compliance is implied but could be enhanced with cookie consent mechanisms. Overall, the site balances security and usability well but should address minor gaps to elevate its security maturity.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and enforce security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options.
  2. Add a cookie consent banner or mechanism to comply fully with GDPR and enhance user privacy transparency.
  3. Publish a security.txt file to facilitate vulnerability reporting and improve incident response communication.
  4. Provide clear contact information including support and security incident emails or phone numbers on the website.
  5. Regularly audit WHOIS data and domain registration to ensure transparency and reduce trust concerns.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Free Law Project
Description
CourtListener is a free legal research website containing millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts. It is sponsored by the non-profit Free Law Project, which seeks to provide free access to primary legal materials, develop legal research tools, and support academic research on legal corpora.
Key services
Legal case law search, PACER document archive, Oral arguments search, Judge database, Financial disclosures search, APIs for legal data, Alerts and notifications
Content quality
excellent
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.4.1, Bootstrap 3.3.0, D3.js, Plottable.js, Font Awesome, SVG graphics
Frameworks
Bootstrap
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
85/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Secure forms with CSRF tokens (implied by framework usage)
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of nonce attributes in scripts

Analytics and tracking

Tracking level
minimal
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Transparency
poor

Site quality

Design
excellent
User experience
excellent
Content relevance
excellent
Navigation
excellent
Professionalism
excellent
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is a comprehensive legal research platform sponsored by a reputable non-profit.
  2. Content is rich, well-structured, and professionally presented.
  3. No signs of adult or malicious content.
  4. WHOIS data is missing, which reduces trust slightly but is mitigated by strong content and transparency.
  5. No explicit contact emails or phone numbers found on main page.
  6. Security policies and vulnerability disclosure are publicly available.
  7. No cookie consent mechanism detected despite GDPR compliance claims.
  8. No advertising or tracking scripts detected.
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a solid technical foundation using popular and well-supported libraries such as jQuery, Bootstrap, and D3.js. The use of SVG for logos and visualizations enhances scalability and visual quality. The site is mobile-optimized and accessible, with good SEO practices including meta tags and structured data. Performance is moderate, likely due to rich visualizations and data content. There is no detected CMS, suggesting a custom or lightweight backend. Hosting details are not explicit but the use of storage.courtlistener.com for static assets indicates a dedicated infrastructure. Opportunities exist to modernize further by adopting newer frameworks and enhancing security headers.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 82/100Low23 findingsView report
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