🇺🇸 US Legal MCP Server

A comprehensive Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for US legal data, providing access to Congress bills, Federal Register documents, court opinions, and committee data.

✨ Features

📜 Congress.gov Integration

• Search bills and resolutions
• Get recent legislation
• Get committee information
• Real-time legislative data

📋 Federal Register Integration

• Search regulations and executive orders
• Get recent agency documents
• Full document text and metadata

⚖️ CourtListener Integration

• Search court opinions (federal and state courts)
• Get recent court decisions
• Access Supreme Court, appellate, and state court data
• Full case text and metadata

🗳️ Congress Committees

• Get committee information
• Filter by chamber (House/Senate)
• Legislative activity tracking

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

npm install
npm run build

Environment Variables (Optional)

# For enhanced Congress.gov access (free tier available)
export CONGRESS_API_KEY="your_congress_api_key"

# For CourtListener API access (free tier available)
export COURT_LISTENER_API_KEY="your_court_listener_api_key"

Running the Server

npm start

MCP Configuration (Cursor/Claude)

To use this MCP server with Cursor or Claude Desktop, add the following configuration:

For Cursor

Create or edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or your Cursor MCP config location):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "us-legal-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/legal-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "CONGRESS_API_KEY": "",
        "COURT_LISTENER_API_KEY": "258021eb4dd1901f1acfdb3f521fb8a7837a9097"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /absolute/path/to/legal-mcp with your actual project path.

For Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "us-legal-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/legal-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "CONGRESS_API_KEY": "",
        "COURT_LISTENER_API_KEY": "258021eb4dd1901f1acfdb3f521fb8a7837a9097"
      }
    }
  }
}

See mcp-config-example.json in this repository for a reference configuration.

🛠️ Available Tools

search-congress-bills

Search for bills and resolutions in Congress.gov

• Query: Search terms (e.g., "immigration", "healthcare")
• Congress: Optional Congress number (100-120)
• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

search-federal-register

Search Federal Register documents (regulations, executive orders)

• Query: Search terms
• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

search-all-legal

Comprehensive search across all working sources (Congress Bills, Federal Register, Court Opinions)

• Query: Search terms
• Limit: Results per source (1-50)

get-recent-bills

Get recently introduced bills

• Congress: Optional Congress number
• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

get-recent-regulations

Get recently published Federal Register documents

• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

search-court-opinions

Search for court opinions and decisions

• Query: Search terms (e.g., "constitutional", "copyright")
• Court: Optional court filter (e.g., "scotus", "ca1", "ca2")
• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

get-recent-court-opinions

Get the most recently published court opinions

• Court: Optional court filter
• Limit: Number of results (1-50)

get-congress-committees

Get list of Congressional committees

• Congress: Optional Congress number (100-120)
• Chamber: Optional filter ("House" or "Senate")

📊 Data Sources

| Source | Description | API | Auth Required | Status | | -------------------- | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------- | ------------- | ------ | | Congress.gov | Bills, resolutions, committees | https://api.congress.gov/v3 | Optional | ✅ | | Federal Register | Regulations, executive orders | https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1 | No | ✅ | | CourtListener | Court opinions, decisions | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/ | Optional | ✅ |

Note: US Code and Regulations.gov integrations were removed due to persistent API reliability issues.

🔑 API Keys

Congress.gov API Key (Optional)

1. Visit https://api.congress.gov/
2. Sign up for a free account
3. Get your API key
4. Set CONGRESS_API_KEY environment variable

CourtListener API Key (Optional)

1. Visit https://www.courtlistener.com/api/
2. Create a free account
3. Get your API key from your profile
4. Set COURT_LISTENER_API_KEY environment variable

Note: A pre-configured API key is included in the example MCP config file for quick setup.

🎯 Example Usage

Search for Immigration Bills

{
  "tool": "search-congress-bills",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "immigration",
    "congress": 118,
    "limit": 10
  }
}

Search Federal Regulations

{
  "tool": "search-federal-register",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "environmental protection",
    "limit": 5
  }
}

Comprehensive Legal Search

{
  "tool": "search-all-legal",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "healthcare",
    "limit": 20
  }
}

Search Court Opinions

{
  "tool": "search-court-opinions",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "immigration asylum",
    "court": "scotus",
    "limit": 10
  }
}

Get Congressional Committees

{
  "tool": "get-congress-committees",
  "arguments": {
    "congress": 119,
    "chamber": "Senate"
  }
}

📝 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please read the contributing guidelines and submit pull requests.