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PACER shows docket events only when you already know the case.

What if the event is in another case, another court, another state? PACER has no query for that. TrollerBk takes the court event feed, links each line to a case, a docket, and a type, and returns the matches. The matrix below is the difference.

See pricing See coverage

The matrix

Lookup versus the event feed

The first row is lookup. The rest is finding. If the job is “open the case I already follow,” PACER and a research suite will do it. If the 363 is in another case, another court, another state, only the last column starts from the event feed instead of from a case number you do not have.

Capability PACER Portal research suites Roll your own TrollerBk
Depth on a single case you already know Yes Yes Yes Yes
Cross-case questions ("which cases have a sale motion this week?") No Partial
inside their screens		 Expensive Yes
Business bankruptcies nationwide, nearly every court Yes
per page, per lookup		 Partial Very expensive Yes
Docket events classified (plans, disclosure statements, 363 motions, transfers, final reports) No Partial Build it Yes
Claims registers with proof-of-claim documents Yes
one case at a time		 Partial Build it Yes
Claim transfers tracked across the market No Partial No Yes
Custom reports built to your mandate — not a canned screen No Partial
their screens		 Build it Yes
Works inside your AI assistant (MCP) No No Build it Yes
Where you work Their site Their suite Your stack Inbox, spreadsheet, API, assistant, or portal
Pricing $0.10/page; $3 cap on documents and docket reports Per seat PACER + AI + payroll Flat monthly

“Portal research suites” describes the category of bankruptcy research products sold as a closed platform for case-centric legal work. Capabilities vary by vendor; check theirs against your mandate.

Where the work happens

Custom report first. Assistant, inbox, or portal second.

Describe the mandate. We build the report. It arrives in email, a spreadsheet, an API, or MCP in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or the agent you prefer. The subscriber portal is the operations console once the list has named a case: refresh the docket, pull documents, read the claims register.

Custom reports →

The economics

Rolling your own is not a weekend project.

At sustained volume, PACER per-page charges plus the AI usage to extract and summarize what you pulled exceed the subscription, and you still lack the unified corpus, the hourly refresh, the classified events, and the claim-transfer layer. TrollerBk spreads those costs across every subscriber.

See the worked example →

Objections, answered

For research, yes. TrollerBk holds the dockets and pulls the documents from PACER for you. PACER shows docket events only when you already know the case. TrollerBk answers the other-case, other-court, other-state question: where did this event file? You keep your PACER account for filing and for anything TrollerBk does not cover.

Research suites are built for case-centric legal practice, with screens the vendor already decided you need. TrollerBk is built for investors, claims traders, and restructuring advisors who start from the market. The product is a custom report around your mandate, delivered any way you want it: inbox, spreadsheet, API, MCP in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or the agent you prefer, and a portal for sitting with a case. Do not rely on a prebuilt tool that does not fit.

You can, and some firms have tried. The barrier is not code. It is PACER charging for every page every time, 94 courts to harvest continuously, millions of docket entries to classify, claims registers to parse, and the AI bill to read what you pull. At realistic volume that costs more than a TrollerBk subscription, and you still do not have the historical corpus or the claim-transfer layer.

Same company, different job. BankruptcyObserver monitors specific counterparties and alerts you when one files: the defensive, expense-limiting use case. TrollerBk takes the national event feed and finds the cases that match a mandate: the offensive, return-seeking use case. Many firms use both.

See it against your own mandate.

We will run the last 30 days of filings through your criteria before the first call.

Run the last 30 days See pricing