LAA Civil Applications Data Store

This is planned to be the central store of applications for Civil Legal Aid from Check if you can get Legal Aid and Check if your client qualifies for legal aid.

API Documentation

Base URL:

www.civil-case-api.cloud-platform.service.justice.gov.uk/

Authentication

To use the API you will need a JSON Web Token (JWT) which can be obtained from the /token endpoint.

You will need to send a POST request with the following headers:

{
    "accept": "application/json",
    "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
}

and body:

 {
    "grant_type": "password",
    "username": "string",
    "password": "string",
    "scope": "",
    "client_id": "string",
    "client_secret": "string"
  }

The /token endpoint generates the required access token to allow a user to access the service. When submitting other requests, the request needs to contain this authorisation bearer token.

All access tokens are valid for 30 minutes on the API.

Access Tokens

The /token endpoint generates the required access token to allow a user to access the service. When submitting other requests, the request needs to contain this authorisation bearer token.

All access tokens are valid for 30 minutes on the API. This can be adjusted by amending ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES on the auth/security.py file. This can be authenticated via a username and password which is compared to the hashed password in the database. As long as the user is logged in, a JWT token can be generated for their user.

Updating the Secret Key

The OAuth2 JWT encoding requires a SECRET_KEY. This can be defined in your .env file to generate unique tokens. All environments have a different secret key that defines what to be encoded against.

Adding Auth to Routes

To add authorisation to any route, simply add the below to the route definition: shell current_user: Users = Depends(get_current_active_user)

Hashing and Encoding

All password information is hashed and salted per argon2 and passlib. The token is then generated and encoded via JWT which uses the secret key to sign the identity of the token. This means that the token contains a header, payload and a signature following the HS256 algorithm ensuring security.

Cases

Create a case

POST /cases

A case can be created using the following request schema

{
    "case_type": "CLA",
    "notes": [
        {
            "note_type": "Operator",
            "content": "Initial client contact made via phone."
        },
        {
            "note_type": "Provider",
            "content": "Case documents received and filed."
        }
    ],
    "people": [
        {
            "name": "John Doe",
            "address": "123 St. James Avenue",
            "phone_number": "012334 343495",
            "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
            "email": "john.doe@example.com"
        },
        {
            "name": "Jane Doe",
            "address": "124 St. James Avenue",
            "phone_number": "012334 343465",
            "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
            "email": "jane.smith@example.com"
        }
    ]
}

Arguments

Case type (required)

Case type can be either “CLA” or “CCQ”.

Notes

Note type

Note type can be one of “User”, “Provider”, “Operator”, or, “Other”

Content

A string.

Response

You will receive the following response schema:

{
  "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
  "case_type": "CLA",
  "created_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
  "updated_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
  "notes": [
    {
      "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174001",
      "note_type": "Operator",
      "content": "Initial client contact made via phone.",
      "case_id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
      "created_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
      "updated_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174002",
      "note_type": "Provider",
      "content": "Case documents received and filed.",
      "case_id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
      "created_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
      "updated_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "people": [
    {
      "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174003",
      "case_id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
      "name": "John Doe",
      "address": "123 St. James Avenue",
      "phone_number": "012334 343495",
      "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
      "email": "john.doe@example.com",
      "created_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
      "updated_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174004",
      "case_id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
      "name": "Jane Smith",
      "address": "123 St. James Avenue",
      "phone_number": "012334 343495",
      "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
      "email": "jane.smith@example.com",
      "created_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z",
      "updated_at": "2024-10-17T09:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Get all case IDs

GET /cases/

Read a case

GET /cases/{case_id}

Modify a case

PATCH /cases/{case_id}

A case can be modified by providing a new case with the following schema.

If an ID of the sub-object is included the object will be updated, if not a new object will be created.

{
    "case_type": "CLA",
    "notes": [
        {
            "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174003",
            "note_type": "Operator",
            "content": "Initial client contact made via phone."
        },
        {
            "note_type": "Provider",
            "content": "Case documents received and filed."
        }
    ],
    "people": [
        {
            "name": "John Doe",
            "address": "123 St. James Avenue",
            "phone_number": "012334 343495",
            "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
            "email": "john.doe@example.com"
        },
        {
            "name": "Jane Doe",
            "address": "124 St. James Avenue",
            "phone_number": "012334 343465",
            "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
            "email": "jane.smith@example.com"
        }
    ]
}