NYS Court System Map and API Availability

Prepared for: 399 OPW Cases — Mr. Fersen Last updated: 2026-04-20 Status: Working architecture document. Update when any listed system, API, or access model changes.

1. Executive Summary

This document maps the New York State Unified Court System (UCS) at a practical operating level and identifies the currently visible public-facing digital systems and the currently identifiable official machine-readable interfaces.

Bottom-line finding

1. The NYS court system is a layered court system made up of:
2. Appellate courts: Court of Appeals, Appellate Divisions, and in some places Appellate Terms / County Court appellate functions.
3. Statewide trial courts: Supreme Court, Court of Claims, Family Court, Surrogate's Court.
4. NYC-specific courts: Civil Court (including Housing and Small Claims) and Criminal Court.

5. Outside NYC local courts: County, City, District, Town & Village Courts.

6. The NYS UCS public website clearly exposes major online services such as:

7. WebCivil Local
8. WebCivil Supreme
9. WebCriminal
10. WebFamily
11. WebSurrogate
12. eTrack
13. NYSCEF
14. EDDS
15. Decisions databases

16. Virtual appearance portals

17. As of this review, no official public developer API documentation was found for most of those NYS UCS systems. They are presented publicly as web applications, portals, and help articles, not developer APIs.

18. The one clearly documented official machine-readable court data feed identified in this review is:

19. UCE (Universal Criminal Extract) — a restricted XML/SFTP feed for approved agencies with legal agreements; not a general public API.

20. For this litigation war-room system, the practical architecture separates:

21. Official NYS court web systems (human access / workflow / filings / notifications)
22. Restricted official feeds (if ever eligible, e.g., UCE)
23. Public/free external APIs for legal intelligence (especially CourtListener)

2. Practical Map of the NYS Court System

2.1 Appellate layer

• Court of Appeals — New York's highest court.
• Appellate Divisions — four departments.
• Appellate Terms / County Court appellate functions — in limited contexts, depending on geography and court type.

2.2 Statewide trial court layer

• Supreme Court
• Court of Claims
• Family Court
• Surrogate's Court

2.3 New York City court layer

• Supreme Civil & Criminal Terms
• Civil Court
• Housing Court
• Small Claims
• Criminal Court
• Family Court
• Surrogate's Court

2.4 Outside NYC local court layer

• County Court
• City Court
• District Court
• Town & Village Courts
• Family Court
• Surrogate's Court

2.5 Specialized parts / programs visible in the public structure

• Court of Claims
• Commercial Division
• Litigation Coordinating Panel
• Problem-Solving Courts
• other county / district special parts as listed locally

3. Official NYS Court Digital Systems Visible Publicly

The public NYS UCS e-Courts entry point currently surfaces these systems:

3.1 Case search systems

• WebCivil Local
• WebCivil Supreme
• WebCriminal
• WebFamily
• WebSurrogate

3.2 Filing / delivery / tracking systems

• NYSCEF — e-filing portal
• EDDS — Electronic Document Delivery System
• eTrack — case activity notifications / reminders

3.3 Opinions / decisions systems

• Official Law Reports
• Trial Courts decisions database
• Commercial Division decisions
• Appellate Department decision pages
• Court of Appeals decisions

3.4 Other operational systems

• Pay Online (certain payment functions)
• Virtual Court Appearances
• Text message / appearance notification tools

4. API Determination Matrix

4.1 Official NYS UCS systems

4.2 Practical conclusion on official NYS APIs

• Public official NYS UCS developer APIs: none clearly documented in the public materials reviewed for WebCivil / WebCriminal / WebFamily / WebSurrogate / eTrack / NYSCEF / EDDS / Decisions.
• Official restricted machine-readable feed identified: UCE only, and only for approved agencies / organizations.

This means the system should assume: 1. Human-facing court systems first 2. Restricted feeds only if eligibility exists 3. External legal intelligence APIs for semantic research and citation control

5. What the Official NYS Systems Actually Give You

5.1 eTrack

• Use case: receive updates / appearance reminders in supported case categories.
• Value: useful for monitoring, not a general-purpose developer integration surface.

5.2 NYSCEF

• Use case: file papers electronically where the court/case type supports e-filing.
• Value: essential workflow system for litigated matters, but exposed as a portal/help center rather than a public API product.

5.3 EDDS

• Use case: send PDFs to courts that do not usually permit e-filing, or for specific submission use cases.
• Value: operational filing/delivery layer; useful in practice, not documented here as a public API.

5.4 Decisions databases

• Use case: retrieve published decisions and official law-report material.
• Value: useful for human review and as a possible source layer, but no official developer API documentation was identified.

5.5 UCE

• Use case: structured criminal docket/case activity data for operational systems.
• Value: closest thing in the reviewed NYS court ecosystem to a true official feed, but restricted, criminal-focused, and not open to the general public.

6. Adjacent Public / Free APIs Worth Using with NY Litigation

These are not NYS UCS APIs, but they are highly relevant for this legal war-room build.

6.1 CourtListener REST API v4.3

CourtListener provides a broad public legal data API suite, including: - Case Law APIs - Search API - Citation Lookup and Verification API - Alert APIs - plus PACER / RECAP / judges / disclosure / citation-network tools

6.2 CourtListener Search API

Use case: keyword and semantic search across case law, PACER data, judges, and oral arguments.

6.3 CourtListener Citation Lookup and Verification API

• verify citations found in opponent papers or draft arguments
• parse citations from blocks of text
• reduce hallucinated or malformed citations

6.4 CourtListener Alert APIs

• search alerts and docket alerts
• notifications by email or webhook

6.5 Why CourtListener matters for this architecture

For a legal war room, CourtListener currently provides what NYS UCS public systems do not clearly expose in documented API form: - machine-readable search - citation verification - alerts / webhooks - structured legal data access

7. Recommended Architecture

7.1 Layer 1 — Official NYS court operations layer

Use official NYS court systems for: - filing status checks - direct case lookups - e-filing through NYSCEF - EDDS submissions where needed - eTrack notifications - human verification of procedural posture

7.2 Layer 2 — External public/free legal intelligence layer

Use CourtListener for: - semantic case-law retrieval - citation verification - public legal search - alerts / webhook-driven monitoring where useful

7.3 Layer 3 — 399 OPW Cases SSOT layer

This application stores: - matter list - court / county / docket number / year - court-system source used - available digital channel (NYSCEF / EDDS / eTrack / none) - available external API support (CourtListener / none) - monitoring status - evidence and research decisions

8. Immediate Recommendations

1. Treat NYS court systems as workflow platforms, not assumed APIs.
2. Treat UCE as the only clearly identified official machine-readable NYS feed in this review — and only relevant if you qualify for access.
3. Use CourtListener as the first public/free API layer for: case-law search, semantic retrieval, citation verification, alerts.
4. Build a connector matrix per matter with fields like Court, County, Docket/Index Number, Year, NYSCEF applicable, EDDS applicable, eTrack possible, Official API available, External API support available.
5. Do not architect around undocumented NYS court web endpoints. If they exist under the hood, treat them as unsupported until officially documented or contractually approved.

9. Data Model — Matter Connector Fields

Per-matter fields captured in the case_connectors table:

• court_level — appellate / supreme / housing / civil / criminal / family / surrogate / local
• court_type — e.g., NYC Housing, Kings Supreme, EDNY
• nyscef_supported — yes / no / n/a
• edds_supported — yes / no / n/a
• etrack_supported — yes / no / n/a
• official_public_api — yes / no / restricted
• official_restricted_feed — e.g., UCE or none
• external_public_api_support — e.g., CourtListener or none
• notes — free-form

10. Source Notes

This document is based on currently visible official public NYS UCS materials and official CourtListener API documentation. Treat as a working architecture document, not a legal opinion or a guarantee that undocumented endpoints do not exist.

11. Sources

Official NYS Unified Court System

• Main site / navigation: https://www.nycourts.gov/
• e-Courts landing page: https://publicredesign2025.nycourts.gov/e-courts
• Courts structure pages: https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ and https://ww2.nycourts.gov/courts/10jd/suffolk/structure.shtml
• Filing / tracking guidance: https://www.nycourts.gov/howdoi/fileortrackcase.shtml
• NYSCEF help article: https://portal.nycourts.gov/knowledgebase/article/KA-01072/en-us
• EDDS help article: https://portal.nycourts.gov/knowledgebase/article/KA-01056/en-us
• UCE landing page: https://portal.nycourts.gov/UCE/
• UCE FAQ: https://portal.nycourts.gov/UCE/UCE-FAQ

CourtListener

• REST API v4.3: https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/
• Search API: https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/search/
• Citation Lookup API: https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/v4/citation-lookup/
• Alert APIs: https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/alerts/

Change log

• 2026-04-20 — Initial version adopted into the repo.