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AusLaw MCP

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AusLaw MCP

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Australian and New Zealand legal research. Searches AustLII for case law and legislation, retrieves full-text judgements with paragraph numbers preserved, and supports OCR for scanned PDFs.

Status: ✅ Working MVP with intelligent search relevance

Features

Current Capabilities

  • ✅ Case law search: Natural language queries across all Australian and NZ jurisdictions

  • ✅ All jurisdictions: Commonwealth, all States/Territories (VIC, NSW, QLD, SA, WA, TAS, NT, ACT), and New Zealand

  • ✅ Intelligent search relevance: Auto-detects case name queries vs topic searches

    • Case name queries (e.g., "Donoghue v Stevenson") use relevance sorting

    • Topic queries (e.g., "negligence duty of care") use date sorting for recent cases

  • ✅ Multiple search methods: Title-only, phrase, boolean, proximity searches

  • ✅ Pagination: Retrieve additional pages of results with offset parameter

  • ✅ Legislation search: Find Australian and NZ legislation

  • ✅ Primary sources only: Filters out journal articles and commentary

  • ✅ Citation extraction: Extracts neutral citations [2025] HCA 26 and reported citations (2024) 350 ALR 123

  • ✅ jade.io search: Search jade.io for cases by cross-referencing AustLII results with jade.io metadata

  • ✅ jade.io citation search: Find jade.io articles by neutral citation

  • ✅ Multi-source merging: Merge and deduplicate results from AustLII and jade.io (jade.io preferred)

  • ✅ jade.io URL support: Fetch document text from jade.io URLs (requires user access)

  • ✅ jade.io article resolution: Resolve jade.io article metadata by ID

  • ✅ jade.io citation lookup: Generate jade.io lookup URLs from neutral citations

  • ✅ Paragraph preservation: Keeps [N] paragraph numbers for pinpoint citations

  • ✅ Multiple formats: JSON, text, markdown, or HTML output

  • ✅ Document retrieval: Full text from HTML and PDF sources (AustLII, jade.io)

  • ✅ OCR support: Tesseract OCR fallback for scanned PDFs

Roadmap

  • ✅ jade.io search: Search jade.io by cross-referencing AustLII results with jade.io article metadata (no API required)

  • ✅ Multi-source integration: Merge and deduplicate results from AustLII and jade.io

  • 🔜 Page numbers: Will extract page numbers from reported versions

  • 🔜 Authority ranking: Will prioritise reported over unreported judgements

See ROADMAP.md for detailed development plans.

Quick Start

1. Clone and Build

git clone https://github.com/russellbrenner/auslaw-mcp.git cd auslaw-mcp npm install npm run build

For local development with hot reload:

npm run dev

2. Configure Your MCP Client

Important: You must build the project (npm run build) before configuring any client. All clients launch the compiled dist/index.js.

Claude Desktop

Edit your Claude Desktop configuration file:

OS

Path

macOS

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Linux

~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following (replace /path/to/auslaw-mcp with your actual install path):

{ "mcpServers": { "auslaw-mcp": { "command": "node", "args": ["/path/to/auslaw-mcp/dist/index.js"] } } }

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

Claude Code (CLI)

Register the MCP server using the claude mcp add command:

claude mcp add auslaw-mcp node /path/to/auslaw-mcp/dist/index.js

To verify it was added:

claude mcp list

Codex (OpenAI CLI)

Add auslaw-mcp as a server in your Codex MCP configuration file (~/.codex/config.json or project-level .codex/config.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "auslaw-mcp": { "command": "node", "args": ["/path/to/auslaw-mcp/dist/index.js"] } } }

Cursor

Open Settings → MCP and add a new server with:

  • Name: auslaw-mcp

  • Command: node /path/to/auslaw-mcp/dist/index.js

Or edit .cursor/mcp.json in your project root:

{ "mcpServers": { "auslaw-mcp": { "command": "node", "args": ["/path/to/auslaw-mcp/dist/index.js"] } } }

Docker Deployment

# Build the Docker image docker build -t auslaw-mcp:latest . # Run with Docker Compose docker-compose up # Or run directly docker run -it --rm auslaw-mcp:latest

See docs/DOCKER.md for detailed Docker deployment instructions.

Kubernetes (k3s) Deployment

# Build and import image to k3s nodes docker build -t auslaw-mcp:latest . docker save auslaw-mcp:latest -o auslaw-mcp.tar # Deploy to k3s cluster kubectl apply -f k8s/

See k8s/README.md for complete Kubernetes deployment guide.

Example Queries for AI Assistants

Once the MCP is connected, you can ask an AI assistant like Claude natural language questions. Here are examples organised by use case:

Finding Recent Decisions

"What cases were decided by Australian courts today?"

"Show me the latest Federal Court decisions from this week"

"Find recent Victorian Supreme Court cases about contract disputes"

"What are the newest High Court judgments?"

Researching Legal Topics

"Find Australian cases about duty of care in professional negligence"

"Search for cases dealing with unfair dismissal in the construction industry"

"What are the leading cases on misleading and deceptive conduct under the ACL?"

"Find cases about breach of directors' duties in the last 2 years"

"Search for NSW cases involving defamation on social media"

Finding Specific Cases

"Find the Mabo case"

"Look up Donoghue v Stevenson"

"Find the High Court decision in Palmer v McGowan"

"Search for Re Wakim - the constitutional case about cross-vesting"

Comparing Jurisdictions

"Compare how Victoria and New South Wales courts have treated non-compete clauses"

"Find Queensland cases about adverse possession"

"What's the leading New Zealand case on unjust enrichment?"

Legislation Research

"Find the Privacy Act"

"Search for legislation about workplace health and safety in Victoria"

"What Commonwealth legislation deals with competition law?"

"Find the New Zealand equivalent of the Australian Consumer Law"

Deep Research Tasks

"Find cases that have considered section 52 of the Trade Practices Act and summarise how courts have interpreted 'misleading and deceptive conduct'"

"Research the development of the 'reasonable person' test in negligence across Australian jurisdictions"

"Find all High Court cases about constitutional implied freedoms in the last 10 years and identify the key principles"

jade.io Search

"Search jade.io for cases about negligence duty of care"

"Find the jade.io article for [2008] NSWSC 323"

"Search for Mabo v Queensland and include jade.io results"

Document Retrieval

"Fetch the full text of [2024] HCA 1 and summarise the key holdings"

"Get the judgment in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) and explain the doctrine of native title it established"

Available Tools

search_cases

Search Australian and New Zealand case law.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

query

Yes

Search query (e.g., "negligence duty of care", "Mabo v Queensland")

jurisdiction

No

Filter: cth, vic, nsw, qld, sa, wa, tas, nt, act, federal, nz, other

limit

No

Max results 1-50 (default 10)

sortBy

No

auto (default), relevance, or date

method

No

auto, title, phrase, all, any, near, boolean

offset

No

Skip first N results for pagination (e.g., 50 for page 2)

includeJade

No

Include jade.io results (merged and deduplicated)

format

No

json (default), text, markdown, html

Search Methods:

Method

Description

Best For

auto

AustLII decides

General use

title

Search case names only

Finding specific cases by name

phrase

Exact phrase match

Legal terms of art

all

All words must appear

Precise searches

any

Any word matches

Broad searches

near

Words near each other

Conceptual searches

boolean

Raw SINO query syntax

Power users

Examples:

Find a specific case:

{ "query": "Donoghue v Stevenson", "method": "title", "limit": 5 }

Recent NSW cases on a topic:

{ "query": "adverse possession", "jurisdiction": "nsw", "sortBy": "date", "limit": 10 }

Exact phrase search:

{ "query": "duty of care", "method": "phrase", "jurisdiction": "cth", "limit": 20 }

Pagination (get results 51-100):

{ "query": "contract breach", "limit": 50, "offset": 50 }

search_legislation

Search Australian and New Zealand legislation.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

query

Yes

Search query

jurisdiction

No

Filter: cth, vic, nsw, qld, sa, wa, tas, nt, act, nz, other

limit

No

Max results 1-50 (default 10)

sortBy

No

auto (default), relevance, or date

method

No

auto, title, phrase, all, any, near, legis, boolean

offset

No

Skip first N results for pagination

includeJade

No

Include jade.io results (merged and deduplicated)

format

No

json (default), text, markdown, html

Example:

{ "query": "Privacy Act", "jurisdiction": "cth", "method": "legis", "limit": 10 }

search_jade

Search jade.io for Australian case law by cross-referencing AustLII results with jade.io article metadata. Works without jade.io API access.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

query

Yes

Search query (e.g., "negligence duty of care")

jurisdiction

No

Filter: cth, vic, nsw, qld, sa, wa, tas, nt, act, federal, nz, other

limit

No

Max results 1-50 (default 10)

sortBy

No

auto (default), relevance, or date

type

No

case or legislation

Example:

{ "query": "Mabo v Queensland", "jurisdiction": "cth", "limit": 5 }

search_jade_by_citation

Find a jade.io article by neutral citation. Resolves the citation to jade.io article metadata.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

citation

Yes

Neutral citation (e.g., [2008] NSWSC 323)

Example:

{ "citation": "[2008] NSWSC 323" }

fetch_document_text

Fetch full text from a case or legislation URL. Supports HTML and PDF with OCR fallback.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

url

Yes

URL of the document (AustLII or jade.io)

format

No

json (default), text, markdown, html

Example:

{ "url": "https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/23.html" }

resolve_jade_article

Resolve metadata for a jade.io article by its numeric ID. Returns case name, neutral citation, jurisdiction, and year.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

articleId

Yes

jade.io article numeric ID (positive integer)

Example:

{ "articleId": 68901 }

jade_citation_lookup

Generate a jade.io lookup URL for a given neutral citation. Returns a URL that opens jade.io with the citation search.

Parameters:

Parameter

Required

Description

citation

Yes

Neutral citation string (e.g., [2008] NSWSC 323)

Example:

{ "citation": "[2008] NSWSC 323" }

Jurisdictions

Code

Jurisdiction

cth

Commonwealth of Australia

federal

Federal courts (alias for cth)

vic

Victoria

nsw

New South Wales

qld

Queensland

sa

South Australia

wa

Western Australia

tas

Tasmania

nt

Northern Territory

act

Australian Capital Territory

nz

New Zealand

other

All jurisdictions (no filter)

Running Tests

npm test

Test scenarios include:

  1. Negligence and duty of care - Personal injury law searches

  2. Contract disputes - Commercial law and breach of contract

  3. Constitutional law - High Court constitutional matters

  4. Employment law - Unfair dismissal and workplace relations

  5. Property and land law - Native title and land rights disputes

Project Structure

src/ ├── services │ ├── austlii.ts # AustLII search integration │ ├── fetcher.ts # Document text retrieval (HTML/PDF/OCR) │ └── jade.ts # jade.io search, article resolution & cross-referencing ├── test │ ├── unit │ │ ├── constants.test.ts │ │ ├── errors.test.ts │ │ ├── formatter.test.ts │ │ └── logger.test.ts │ ├── jade.test.ts │ └── scenarios.test.ts ├── utils │ ├── formatter.ts # Output formatting (JSON/text/markdown/html) │ └── logger.ts # Logging utility ├── config.ts # Configuration management ├── constants.ts # Shared constants ├── errors.ts # Error types and handling └── index.ts # MCP server & tool registration docs/ ├── architecture.md # Architecture documentation ├── DOCKER.md # Docker deployment guide └── ROADMAP.md # Development roadmap k8s/ ├── configmap.yaml # Configuration for k8s ├── deployment.yaml # Deployment specification ├── namespace.yaml # Kubernetes namespace ├── README.md # Kubernetes deployment guide └── service.yaml # Service definition

Deployment

Docker

Quick start:

./build.sh # Build Docker image docker-compose up # Run locally

See docs/DOCKER.md for detailed Docker deployment instructions.

Kubernetes (k3s)

Quick start:

./build.sh # Build and export image # Import to k3s nodes (see k8s/README.md) ./deploy-k8s.sh # Deploy to cluster

See k8s/README.md for complete k3s deployment guide and DEPLOYMENT_CHECKLIST.md for a comprehensive deployment checklist.

Configuration

All configuration can be customized via environment variables:

  • AUSTLII_SEARCH_BASE - AustLII search endpoint

  • AUSTLII_REFERER - Referer header

  • AUSTLII_USER_AGENT - User agent string

  • AUSTLII_TIMEOUT - Request timeout (ms)

  • JADE_BASE_URL - jade.io base URL

  • JADE_USER_AGENT - jade.io user agent string

  • JADE_TIMEOUT - jade.io request timeout (ms)

  • OCR_LANGUAGE - Tesseract OCR language

  • OCR_OEM, OCR_PSM - OCR engine settings

  • DEFAULT_SEARCH_LIMIT - Default search results

  • MAX_SEARCH_LIMIT - Maximum search results

  • DEFAULT_OUTPUT_FORMAT - Default format (json/text/markdown/html)

  • DEFAULT_SORT_BY - Default sort order (auto/relevance/date)

  • LOG_LEVEL - Logging level (0=DEBUG, 1=INFO, 2=WARN, 3=ERROR)

See config.yaml for defaults and .env.example for a template.

Data Sources and Attribution

This project retrieves legal data from publicly accessible databases.

AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute)

jade.io

  • Search integration works by cross-referencing AustLII results with jade.io article metadata

  • Maximum 5 concurrent jade.io article resolutions to avoid overwhelming the server

  • Users must have their own jade.io subscription for full document access

  • This tool does not bypass jade.io's access controls

  • Respects jade.io's terms of service

Fair Use

Please use this tool responsibly:

  • Implement reasonable delays between requests

  • Cache results when appropriate

  • Don't overload public legal databases

  • Consider supporting AustLII through donations

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full contribution guidelines and AGENTS.md for AI agent instructions.

Key principles:

  • Primary sources only (no journal articles)

  • Citation accuracy is paramount

  • All tests must pass before committing

  • Real-world testing (hits live AustLII)

Disclaimer

This tool is for legal research purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

  • Search results may not be comprehensive and should not be relied upon as a complete statement of the law

  • AustLII databases may not include all decisions or the most recent updates

  • Always verify citations and check for subsequent treatment of cases

  • Legal advice should be sought from a qualified legal practitioner for any specific legal matter

  • The authors and contributors accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from use of this tool

License

MIT

Install Server
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security – no known vulnerabilities
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license - permissive license
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quality - confirmed to work

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