Search legal documents across jurisdictions (DE federal, EU, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony) using hybrid semantic + keyword search. Returns ranked results with content snippets, not full text.
Suitable for topic questions and case facts when the relevant provision or decision is not yet known. A known citation is resolved by legal_lookup; several known citations by legal_lookup_batch. Natural-language questions using the documents' terminology usually rank better than keyword lists or doctrinal labels, e.g. 'Wann verjährt ein Schadensersatzanspruch?' or 'Wie sind mehrdeutige Vertragsklauseln auszulegen?'. Ranking indicates textual relevance, not legal applicability or exhaustive coverage. document_kind separates norms from case-law: the three norm subtypes ('statute'/'regulation'/'directive') form one filter class — any of them admits all three, so an EU regulation or directive is never hidden by a reflexive 'statute'. 'decision' restricts to court decisions and drops every norm before ranking, so it can hide the statute that answers a rule question. Without a document_kind filter, norms, case law and guidance can rank together, subject to other filters. This supports mixed questions (norm + its case-law application) and unclear German-vs-EU scope (e.g. data protection: BDSG vs DSGVO). Legislative materials are excluded by default and require explicit scope. A statute law_abbreviation combined with a decision scope ('decision', a decision source_type, court or decision_type) yields an empty set, because decisions carry file-number identifiers, not statute abbreviations; cited_norm filters decisions by the provision they cite. legal://filter_values documents the per-value definitions and the disambiguation list. law_abbreviation, jurisdiction and source_type restrict the law, jurisdiction and source respectively; when omitted, these filters add no restriction. Other filters and the corpus-language default still apply. legal://rechtsrahmen lists which law governs which domain (EU vs national, substantive vs procedural).
Common mix-ups (which law governs):
- Procedural law by jurisdiction: ZPO (zivilrecht), STPO (strafrecht), VWGO (verwaltungsrecht), ARBGG (arbeitsrecht), SGG (sozialrecht), BVERFGG (verfassungsrecht), FAMFG (familienrecht)
- AO, ESTG, KSTG, USTG, FGO: AO=procedure, EStG/KStG/UStG=substantive
- VVG, BGB: Insurance rescission → BGB §§ 812ff, not VVG
- VERSAUSGLG, FAMFG: VersAusglG=substantive, FamFG=procedure
- APOG, AMG: ApoG=operation, AMG=drug approval
- WEHRPFLG, SG: WPflG=conscription, SG=soldiers
- AGG, BETRVG: AGG=anti-discrimination, BetrVG=works council