UK Case Law MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides Claude with tools to search and retrieve UK case law from The National Archives.

Features

• Search UK Case Law: Query across all courts and tribunals (2003+)
• Retrieve Full Judgments: Get complete case text with numbered paragraphs
• Filter by Court/Legal Area: Focus on specific jurisdictions or practice areas
• Pagination Support: Access results beyond the first page
• Rate Limited: Respects TNA API limits (1,000 requests per 5 minutes)

Tools

uklaw_search

Search UK case law with optional filters:

• query - Search terms (legal concepts, party names, keywords)
• legal_area - Filter by area (IP, commercial, employment, etc.)
• court - Filter by court level (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, etc.)
• year_from / year_to - Date range filtering
• limit - Max results (1-50)
• page - Pagination

uklaw_get_case

Retrieve full case text:

• citation - Neutral citation (e.g., [2024] UKSC 1) or document URI
• paragraphs - Optional range (e.g., 1-50)
• include_metadata - Include judges, court, date

Supported Courts

| Court Level | Examples | |-------------|----------| | Supreme Court | UKSC | | Court of Appeal | EWCA Civ, EWCA Crim | | High Court | EWHC (Ch, QB/KB, Admin, Comm, Patents, IPEC, TCC, Fam) | | Tribunals | EAT, UKUT (IAC, LC, AAC) |

Installation

Prerequisites

• Bun runtime

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/georgejeffers/uk-case-law-mcp-server.git
cd uk-case-law-mcp-server

# Install dependencies
bun install

# Run tests
bun test

# Start the server
bun start

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "uk-case-law": {
      "command": "bun",
      "args": ["run", "/path/to/uk-case-law-mcp/src/server.ts"]
    }
  }
}

Usage Examples

Once configured, you can ask Claude questions like:

• "Search for patent obviousness cases in the High Court"
• "Find recent unfair dismissal tribunal decisions"
• "Get the full text of [2024] UKSC 1"
• "What did the Court of Appeal say about breach of fiduciary duty in 2023?"

API

This server uses the TNA Find Case Law API, which:

• Covers judgments from 2003 onwards
• Requires no authentication
• Returns results in Atom/XML format
• Provides full text in LegalDocML (Akoma Ntoso) format

License

This project is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.

You may use this software for personal, educational, and non-commercial purposes only. Commercial use requires a separate license.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome for non-commercial purposes. Please open an issue or PR.

Acknowledgments

• The National Archives for the Find Case Law API
• Model Context Protocol by Anthropic