Openlaw Mcp

openlaw-mcp

> by LegalAI Space

A free, open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes UK and EU open law — judgments, statutes, regulations, regulator notices — to host LLMs such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor.

Where general-purpose chatbots invent citations, openlaw-mcp fetches the real text from official open-data sources (The National Archives' Find Case Law, legislation.gov.uk, EUR-Lex, HUDOC, ICO, HMRC) and returns it with full provenance and licence attribution. Every tool result is cite-back ready.

Install

Three ways to use openlaw-mcp:

1. Free hosted endpoint — fastest path, zero install, point your client at our URL.
2. Local stdio — runs inside Claude Desktop / Cursor / Claude Code via npx.
3. Self-hosted HTTP — node dist/http.js after npm run build.

1. Free hosted Streamable HTTP endpoint

A community endpoint is available at https://openlawmcp.legalaispace.com/v1/mcp. No API key, no signup, no rate-limit gate beyond the per-IP throttle. Best-effort uptime — no SLA, may be rate-limited, throttled, or migrated as load grows.

Codex CLI

codex mcp add openlaw --url https://openlawmcp.legalaispace.com/v1/mcp

Claude Code CLI

claude mcp add --transport http openlaw https://openlawmcp.legalaispace.com/v1/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor (config file)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openlaw": {
      "url": "https://openlawmcp.legalaispace.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Health check: curl https://openlawmcp.legalaispace.com/healthz should return {"status":"ok","service":"openlaw-mcp"}.

2. Claude Desktop / Cursor / Claude Code (stdio)

Runs locally — no dependency on the hosted endpoint.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openlaw": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@legalaispace/openlaw-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. Self-host the HTTP transport

npm install
npm run build
node dist/http.js   # listens on PORT (default 3000), mount /v1/mcp

Behind a reverse proxy (nginx, Cloudflare, etc.), set TRUST_PROXY to the number of proxy hops so express-rate-limit keys by the real client IP — see [Configuration](#configuration).

Sample prompts

Once the server is configured, paste any of these into your host LLM. They are UK-focused and chosen to exercise the tools where MCP grounding makes the biggest difference — exact statute text, point-in-time status, judgment paragraph quotes, regulator deep links, and ICO / HMRC material that a plain web search cannot reliably return verbatim.

Statute lookups (lookup_statute, legislation_toc)

• "Quote subsection (1) of section 1 of the UK Bribery Act 2010 verbatim, with a link to the legislation.gov.uk source."
• "What is the current in-force text of section 1 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (c.50) on legislation.gov.uk? If the section has not been commenced, say so and cite the source you used."
• "What did section 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018 say as in force on 25 May 2018? Use legislation.gov.uk's point-in-time view."
• "Give me the table of contents for the Procurement Act 2023 — parts, chapters, and section numbers."
• "Compare the wording of section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 as enacted vs as currently in force, and cite both versions on legislation.gov.uk."

Case law (search_caselaw, fetch_judgment, grep_judgment, citator_lite)

• "Quote paragraph 1 of R (on the application of Miller) v The Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41 verbatim, with the Find Case Law URL."
• "Find UK Supreme Court judgments from 2024 onwards that consider Article 8 of the ECHR. Return neutral citations with Find Case Law links and a one-line summary of each."
• "In Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, find every paragraph that mentions the word 'control' and quote each one in full."
• "List judgments published on Find Case Law that cite Pepper v Hart [1992] UKHL 3. Return neutral citations and links — no treatment classification needed."
• "Search Find Case Law for First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) decisions on IR35 / off-payroll working handed down in 2023, and return the first 10 hits."

Regulator material (search_fca_handbook, fetch_fca_notice, search_ico_guidance, fetch_hmrc_manual)

• "Give me the official handbook.fca.org.uk deep link for SYSC 4.1.1R."
• "Resolve these FCA rule references into deep links: SYSC 6.1.1R, COBS 9.2.1R, CASS 7.13.3R."
• "Find recent ICO enforcement actions (monetary penalty notices and enforcement notices) issued in 2025 — return the title, date, and source URL for each."
• "From the HMRC Business Income Manual, give me the section on the badges of trade (BIM20205). Return the bodyText and the gov.uk URL."
• "From the HMRC Employment Status Manual (ESM), summarise the contents page (just the navigation tree, not the bodies)."

EU material (fetch_eurlex)

• "Fetch CELEX 32016R0679 (the GDPR) and return Article 5 in full, with the EUR-Lex source URL."
• "Fetch CELEX 32024R1689 (the EU AI Act) and tell me which articles deal with prohibited AI practices."

ECHR / Strasbourg (fetch_hudoc)

• "Pull the full English text of the ECHR judgment in Bărbulescu v Romania (Application 61496/08) and quote the operative paragraphs."
• "Search HUDOC for Grand Chamber judgments where the United Kingdom was the respondent state between 2020 and 2024."

Citation hygiene (format_oscola)

• "Format the following bundle of UK cases in OSCOLA, one per line: Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562; Pepper v Hart [1992] UKHL 3; R (Miller) v The Prime Minister [2019] UKSC 41."
• "Convert this sloppy reference into OSCOLA and produce a working Find Case Law URL: 'Uber BV v Aslam, 2021 Supreme Court, UKSC 5'."

When MCP shines (and when it doesn't)

• Strongest payoff: "verbatim text of section X" prompts, point-in-time statute lookups, FCA Handbook deep-link resolution, and any request that needs current in-force wording or a recent ICO/HMRC publication. Generic web search either guesses or gets blocked by upstream JS challenges (notably legislation.gov.uk's AWS WAF); the MCP server is allow-listed and returns parsed, cite-ready XML.
• Marginal payoff: quoting a famous paragraph from a landmark judgment, or formatting a textbook citation. The host LLM often gets these from training data alone — MCP still adds provenance and reduces hallucination risk, but the wording would have been correct anyway.
• No payoff: purely conceptual questions ("explain the difference between the FCA and the PRA"). These should be answered without calling any tool; if your host LLM fires MCP tools here, treat it as an over-eager router rather than a useful grounding.

Tools

| Tool | What it does | Source / URL | | --- | --- | --- | | search_caselaw | Search The National Archives' Find Case Law (E&W courts + tribunals from 2001). | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/atom.xml?query=... | | fetch_judgment | Pull a full judgment as structured Akoma Ntoso. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/{court}/{year}/{number}/data.xml | | grep_judgment | Run a regex inside a single judgment's paragraphs. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/{court}/{year}/{number}/data.xml | | lookup_statute | Point-in-time lookup of any UK statute section on legislation.gov.uk. | https://www.legislation.gov.uk/{type}/{year}/{number}/section/{section}/data.xml (or .../{YYYY-MM-DD}/data.xml) | | legislation_toc | Walk the table of contents for an Act or SI. | https://www.legislation.gov.uk/{type}/{year}/{number}/contents/data.xml | | fetch_eurlex | Fetch an EU document by CELEX number. | https://publications.europa.eu/resource/celex/{CELEX} | | fetch_hudoc | Fetch an ECHR judgment (English / French Court-authored text only). | Search/metadata: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/query/results; body: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/docx/html/body?... | | search_fca_handbook | Resolve an FCA Handbook reference (SYSC 4.1.1R) to a deterministic deep link.[^1] | Local computation only (no fetch); emits deep link under https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/... | | fetch_fca_notice | Build metadata + deep link for a known FCA Final or Decision Notice slug.[^1] | Local computation only (no fetch); emits deep link https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/{category}/{slug} | | search_ico_guidance | Search ICO guidance and enforcement notices. | POST https://ico.org.uk/api/search (mirrors listing at https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/) | | fetch_hmrc_manual | Fetch a section of an HMRC internal manual. | https://www.gov.uk/api/content/hmrc-internal-manuals/{manual}[/{section}] | | format_oscola | Format a parsed citation in OSCOLA (UK / Ireland) or Bluebook. | Local computation only (no network call) | | citator_lite | Forward citation lookup for a judgment. Treatment classification is not included. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/atom.xml?query=%22[citation]%22 |

[^1]: FCA materials are link-only / metadata-only. The server does not fetch FCA Handbook or notice body text, and notice listing is disabled unless FCA grants written permission for automated access. Users are pointed to the FCA's own site for authoritative content. See ATTRIBUTIONS.md for the legal posture.

Resources

Clients that support MCP resources can also read:

| Resource template | What it returns | Source / URL | | --- | --- | --- | | judgment://{slug}/{year}/{number}/header | TNA judgment header text. URL-encode slugs with /, e.g. ewca%2Fciv. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/{slug}/{year}/{number}/data.xml | | judgment://{slug}/{year}/{number}/index | JSON paragraph index for a judgment. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/{slug}/{year}/{number}/data.xml | | judgment://{slug}/{year}/{number}/para/{eId} | A single judgment paragraph by Akoma Ntoso eId. | https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/{slug}/{year}/{number}/data.xml | | statute://{type}/{year}/{number}/section/{section} | Current legislation.gov.uk section document as JSON. | https://www.legislation.gov.uk/{type}/{year}/{number}/section/{section}/data.xml |

How tools and resources work technically

Common runtime flow (all tools)

1. MCP client sends tool name + JSON arguments (inputSchema validated by zod).
2. Server handler calls either:

• a source client (src/sources/*.ts) that performs HTTP fetches via shared Fetcher, or
• a local computation path (FCA link resolvers, citation formatter) with no network call.

1. Handler normalizes/parses upstream data into stable data fields.
2. Server returns an envelope: data, provenance (source, source_url, fetched_at, content_hash, cache_hit, licence metadata), and learn_more; some tools also include note.
3. On upstream errors, tools return isError: true plus a canonical authoritative URL.

Per-tool technical behavior

• search_caselaw: receives search filters (query, optional court/date/page), fetches TNA Atom feed, parses entries into normalized judgment refs, returns paged hits + provenance.
• fetch_judgment: receives neutral citation or TNA URI, resolves to /data.xml, parses Akoma Ntoso into meta, header, paragraphs, returns full structured judgment + provenance.
• grep_judgment: same fetch/parsing as fetch_judgment, then runs JS regex across parsed paragraph text, returns match list/snippets + provenance.
• lookup_statute: receives legislation type/year/number/section (+ optional as_of), fetches CLML section XML, extracts title/text/version metadata/extent/prospective flags, returns normalized section document + provenance.
• legislation_toc: receives legislation type/year/number, fetches CLML contents XML, flattens parts/chapters/sections into entries, returns TOC + provenance.
• fetch_eurlex: receives CELEX, validates/normalizes it, blocks out-of-scope national sectors (7/8), fetches from Cellar with content negotiation (XHTML then HTML fallback), returns raw body + detected media type + provenance.
• fetch_hudoc: receives either itemid or search query. Search path fetches JSON results and suppresses out-of-policy records. Item path fetches metadata then body only when language/doctype/translation guard passes. Returns records/body + provenance + suppression note when applicable.
• search_fca_handbook: receives parsed handbook reference inputs, computes deterministic deep link locally, returns metadata + local provenance (urn:openlaw-mcp:local) without FCA content fetch.
• fetch_fca_notice: receives known notice slug (+ category), computes deterministic FCA deep link locally, returns metadata + local provenance; listing path intentionally errors (scraping disabled).
• search_ico_guidance: receives optional type/sector/date/page filters, posts to ICO /api/search, shapes response into enforcement list items, returns paged results + provenance.
• fetch_hmrc_manual: receives manual slug (+ optional section slug), fetches GOV.UK Content API JSON, returns either manual navigation tree or section body (bodyHtml + bodyText) + provenance.
• format_oscola: receives citation text + formatting options, parses and formats locally (OSCOLA/Bluebook), optionally emits derived Find Case Law URL for neutral citations, returns formatted output + local provenance.
• citator_lite: receives neutral citation, searches TNA Atom with quoted query to find citing judgments, trims to limit, returns citing list + disclaimer + provenance.

Per-resource technical behavior

• judgment://.../header: MCP resource vars (slug, year, number) are validated/parsed, server fetches TNA judgment XML once, extracts plain-text header, returns text/plain.
• judgment://.../index: same fetch path, maps parsed paragraphs to { eId, num, preview }, returns application/json.
• judgment://.../para/{eId}: same fetch path, selects one paragraph by exact Akoma Ntoso eId, returns text/plain ([num] text when num exists).
• statute://.../section/{section}: validates resource vars, fetches legislation.gov.uk section XML via legislation client, returns parsed section document JSON.

Provenance

Every tool response carries a provenance block:

{
  "data": { },
  "provenance": {
    "source": "Find Case Law",
    "source_url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2024/12/data.xml",
    "fetched_at": "2026-05-12T12:00:00Z",
    "content_hash": "sha256-...",
    "cache_hit": false,
    "licence": "Open Justice Licence v2.0",
    "licence_url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/open-justice-licence",
    "attribution": "Contains information licensed under the Open Justice — Licence v2.0"
  },
  "learn_more": "https://legalaispace.com"
}

If you redistribute the content downstream, preserve the attribution.

Limitations

• No BAILII. BAILII's terms prohibit programmatic re-use; the client blocks all outbound requests to it.
• No FCA scraping or full text. FCA Handbook and Notices are link-only / metadata-only by design. Known slugs and references are converted into deep links; the server does not enumerate FCA notices or fetch FCA page/PDF bodies without written permission.
• HUDOC scope. Only English/French Court-authored judgments. Third-party translations are excluded.
• Find Case Law coverage is E&W courts and tribunals from 2001 onwards. Older judgments are out of scope.
• EUR-Lex Member State legislation reached via N-Lex is excluded; only EU-authored content is fetched.
• legislation.gov.uk WAF. www.legislation.gov.uk is fronted by an AWS WAF that issues a JavaScript challenge (HTTP 202 Accepted with x-amzn-waf-action: challenge and an empty body) to clients whose IPs it considers suspicious — typically datacenter egress. From a residential network or an allow-listed deployment the API serves XML normally. Affected calls (`lookup_sta

…

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: damankaur-dev
• Source: damankaur-dev/openlaw-mcp
• License: Apache-2.0

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.