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BAILII UK Case Law

Search BAILII case law, retrieve judgment sections, and list UK courts through a locally run MCP server.

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Install BAILII UK Case Law

Pick your client, then add it in one click or paste the config.

STDIOPython
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bailii-uk-case-law": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "bailii-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Settings → Developer → Edit Config, merge this into mcpServers, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

Automated check passed— started and listed 3 tools correctly (8d ago).

Overview

The BAILII UK Case Law MCP server searches BAILII’s UK case-law collection and returns titles, citations, and links. It can retrieve judgment text with automatic extraction for sections such as summaries, conclusions, discussion, and background, while defaulting to a shorter response. Running locally helps avoid BAILII’s blocking of cloud and datacenter IPs. Use it for targeted research, especially EAT decisions, older cases, and tribunals with stronger BAILII coverage.

Use cases

  • Search BAILII for cases on a legal issue
  • Retrieve the discussion or conclusions from a judgment
  • Find employment tribunal decisions
  • Check which BAILII courts are available
  • Research older UK cases not found elsewhere

Key features

  • Full-text search across BAILII courts
  • Judgment retrieval with section extraction
  • Summary and conclusions by default
  • Optional full-text judgment retrieval
  • UK court listing
  • Local execution

Tools3

What BAILII UK Case Law lets your agent do. Expand a tool for its parameters.

Verified live~641 tokens of context

Security & health

What it can reach and how reliably it runs — from our own checks, not the maintainer’s claims.

ActiveLast checked 2d ago

Recent health check succeeded.

6/6 checks healthy over the last 47d

What it can do

From the 3 tools this server returned when we ran it; 3 declare their own safety hints.

Makes network requests · 2Read-only tools · 3
Network at startup2 connections
Files written at startup30

Observed 2026-10-16 in an isolated sandbox. A description of reach, not a security audit.

Supply-chain signal

No high-severity advisories surfaced by our automated scan.

Critical 0High 0Medium 0Low 0

Scanned 13d ago via OSV.dev · bailii-mcp (PyPI)

Adoption & maintenance

Factual signals from GitHub, npm, and our automated checks — not a rating.

GitHub stars6Stargazers on the source repository.
Last commit5mo agoMost recent push to the default branch.
Availability100%Our rolling endpoint + install checks that succeeded.
Install checkPassedOur sandbox started it and listed its tools.
Tools exposed3Callable tools this server registers over MCP.
Directory activity2 viewsConfig copies, upvotes, and views on AllMCPs.

How BAILII UK Case Law works

What the BAILII UK Case Law MCP server does

The BAILII UK Case Law MCP server gives an MCP-compatible AI client access to targeted searches and judgment retrieval from BAILII. It is intended for researching UK case law without downloading an entire collection. Search results include case titles, citations, and links, which can help identify a judgment before retrieving its text.

The server covers the courts exposed by BAILII, including examples such as the UK Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, Upper Tribunal, and Employment Appeal Tribunal. The available court list can be queried rather than assumed, making it useful when narrowing a search to a particular court.

How it works

The server exposes three MCP tools:

  • bailii_search performs full-text searches across BAILII courts.
  • bailii_get_judgment retrieves the text of a selected judgment.
  • bailii_list_courts returns the available UK court identifiers.

Judgments can be large, commonly around 30–100 KB. To keep normal responses manageable, retrieval defaults to approximately 5,000 characters containing the summary and conclusions. Requests can target detected sections such as summary, conclusions, held, discussion, and background, or request the complete judgment when the full text is needed.

Setup and configuration

The BAILII UK Case Law MCP server runs locally and communicates through the local MCP process. Python 3.10 or later is required. The recommended launch method uses uvx, which runs the PyPI package without a separate installation:

bash
uvx bailii-mcp

Alternatively, install the package with pip and start it using bailii-mcp:

Terminal
pip install bailii-mcp
bailii-mcp

It can be configured in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or VS Code. Claude Code uses claude mcp add bailii -- uvx bailii-mcp; the other clients require an MCP server entry with uvx as the command and bailii-mcp as its argument. The repository also supports an editable install from source with pip install -e ..

Tools and capabilities

Use bailii_search for questions involving legal topics, case names, or phrases found in judgments. Use bailii_get_judgment after identifying a result to inspect the court’s reasoning or holding. Section extraction is useful when only the discussion or conclusion matters, while full retrieval is available for broader analysis. bailii_list_courts helps discover supported court names and identifiers before filtering research.

Limitations and notes

BAILII blocks requests from cloud servers and datacenters, so local execution is a functional requirement for this implementation. Requests therefore originate from the user’s machine. BAILII’s terms prohibit bulk downloading; use the BAILII UK Case Law MCP server for targeted research and keep request rates reasonable. Section extraction depends on the formatting of each judgment, so some documents may not contain clearly detectable sections.

Read the full README View source on GitHub

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Frequently Asked Questions about BAILII UK Case Law

BAILII UK Case Law is an MCP server that connects an AI client to BAILII’s UK case-law collection. Its main tools search across BAILII courts, retrieve judgment text with section-focused output, and list available courts. It runs locally so requests originate from the user’s machine rather than a cloud server.

Install it with `uvx bailii-mcp`, or use `pip install bailii-mcp` followed by `bailii-mcp`. Python 3.10 or later is required. You can also clone the repository and install it in editable mode with `pip install -e .`.

Use the local `uvx bailii-mcp` command for Claude Desktop or VS Code, and run `claude mcp add bailii -- uvx bailii-mcp` for Claude Code.

Ask for a specific section, such as the discussion, summary, conclusions, held, or background. Judgment retrieval defaults to the summary and conclusions at about 5,000 characters, while a request for the complete judgment returns the full text when needed.

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