Federal Appeals vs Pacer
A side-by-side look at the Federal Appeals and Pacer MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Federal Appeals for legal work as a local process; choose Pacer for legal as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
Which MCP server should you choose?
Choose Federal Appeals when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Legal domain.
- You prefer a local stdio subprocess transport.
- You want tools like
federal_appeal_search, federal_appeal_recent.
Choose Pacer when
- You need dedicated capabilities in the Legal domain.
- You prefer a local stdio subprocess transport.
- You want tools like
pacer_case_search, pacer_party_search.
Feature & specification comparison
Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Legal | Legal |
| Quality signal | 52/100 · Good | 55/100 · Good |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Local subprocess (stdio) | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | Not declared | Not declared |
| Pricing | Not declared | Not declared |
| Required env vars | None listed | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing |
Tools & capabilities
Federal Appeals tools 2
federal_appeal_searchDockets matching a party namefederal_appeal_recentRecent dockets, newest first
Pacer tools 2
pacer_case_searchFind US federal court cases by party name, case title, or case number — live search of the PACER Case Locator (PCL) across every federal district, bankruptcy, and appellate court. Returns case number, title, court, filing date, nature of suit, and case type. Requires your own PACER credentials (Nex…pacer_party_searchFind parties across US federal court cases by name — live PACER Case Locator (PCL) party search across all federal courts. Returns each matching party (name, role) with the associated case number, court, and case title. Requires your own PACER credentials (NextGen); PACER charges your account per s…
Ready-to-paste client configs
Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
Federal Appeals
{
"mcpServers": {
"federal-appeals": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@pipeworx/mcp-federal-appeals"
]
}
}
}
Pacer
{
"mcpServers": {
"pacer": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@pipeworx/mcp-pacer"
]
}
}
}
Frequently asked questions
Federal Appeals is categorized under Legal and uses a local stdio subprocess. Pacer belongs to Legal and uses a local stdio subprocess. Pick Federal Appeals for legal work and Pacer for legal.
Copy the mcpServers block from the config section on this page into your client's config (for example claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json), then fully restart the client.
Federal Appeals has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. Pacer has no declared pricing — check the project's own site. If a server needs environment variables such as API keys, define them under the env key in your client's MCP config.
Yes. MCP clients support multiple servers: add federal-appeals and pacer as separate keys in the same mcpServers object, and your assistant will call tools from either one.
On AllMCPs, Federal Appeals has a quality signal of 52/100 (Good) with 0 views, 0 installs and 0 GitHub stars. Pacer has 55/100 (Good) with 1 views, 0 installs and 1 GitHub stars.