Rechtspraak MCP Server

MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for searching and analyzing Dutch case law from rechtspraak.nl. Provides advanced search capabilities with query expansion, legal synonyms, faceting, and citation analysis.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Architecture
• Installation
• Usage
  • Interactive CLI
  • MCP Server
  • Direct Entry Points
• Development
• Example Queries
• License
• Contributing

Features

🚀 MCP Server

• Advanced Search: Full-text search with query expansion and Dutch legal synonyms
• Faceted Search: Filter by court, legal area, date range, and procedure type
• Citation Analysis: Extract and analyze case citations (incoming and outgoing)
• Similar Cases: Find similar cases using MoreLikeThis algorithm
• Legal Article Search: Search cases by specific legal articles
• Trend Analysis: Analyze temporal trends in case law
• Query Expansion: Automatic expansion with legal terms and synonyms
• Rate Limiting & Caching: Built-in governance layer for production use

📥 Data Import

• Fetch case law XML from rechtspraak.nl feeds
• Extract links and download case files
• Automated batch processing

📊 Indexing

• Parse XML documents with structured sections
• Enrich with metadata (court types, legal domains, procedures)
• Full-text indexing in Solr
• Schema management and validation

Architecture

src/
├── mcp/              # MCP server (main feature)
│   ├── mcp_server.py       # MCP server implementation
│   ├── mcp_schemas.py      # Pydantic schemas for all tools
│   ├── solr_adapter.py     # Solr query adapter with advanced features
│   ├── governance.py       # Rate limiting & caching
│   ├── legal_synonyms.py   # Dutch legal synonyms expansion
│   └── reference_data.py   # Court/procedure reference data
│
├── importer/         # Data import from rechtspraak.nl
│   ├── extract_links.py
│   ├── fetch_link_files.py
│   └── fetch_content.py
│
├── indexing/         # XML parsing and Solr indexing
│   ├── xml_parser.py
│   ├── solr_indexer.py
│   ├── solr_setup.py
│   └── reindex_all.py
│
├── cli.py           # CLI for indexing
└── config.py        # Configuration

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.13+
• uv (Python package manager)
• Docker & Docker Compose (for Solr)

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <repository-url>
cd rechtspraak-solr

2. Start Solr with Docker:

docker-compose up -d solr

3. Install dependencies:

uv sync

4. Configure environment variables (create .env from .env.example):

cp .env.example .env

5. Setup Solr collection and schema:

uv run rechtspraak-setup

Usage

Interactive CLI

Run the interactive menu for all operations:

python main.py

Or use direct commands:

# Data pipeline
python main.py fetch-links 2023-01-01 2023-12-31
python main.py extract-links 2023-01-01 2023-12-31
python main.py fetch-content

# Indexing
python main.py reindex          # Full reindex (delete + setup + index)
python main.py index            # Index data only
python main.py fix-schema       # Configure schema only

# MCP server
python main.py mcp              # Start MCP server
python main.py test-mcp         # Test connection

# Utilities
python main.py health           # System health check
python main.py test-reference   # Test reference data

MCP Server

The MCP server supports two modes:

1. Local Mode (stdio): For Claude Desktop/Code running on your machine
2. HTTP Mode (SSE): For remote access via API

Local Mode - Configuration for Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rechtspraak": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/path/to/rechtspraak-solr",
        "run",
        "rechtspraak-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SOLR_URL": "http://localhost:8983/solr",
        "SOLR_COLLECTION": "rechtspraak"
      }
    }
  }
}

Local Mode - Configuration for Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code config (.claude/settings.local.json in project):

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "rechtspraak": {
        "command": "uv",
        "args": [
          "--directory",
          "/path/to/rechtspraak-solr",
          "run",
          "rechtspraak-mcp"
        ],
        "env": {
          "SOLR_URL": "http://localhost:8983/solr",
          "SOLR_COLLECTION": "rechtspraak"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

HTTP Mode - Remote Access

For production deployment with remote access:

1. Start HTTP server:

docker-compose up -d

2. Configure nginx (see config/nginx.conf for complete example):

location /sse {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000/sse;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Connection '';
    proxy_buffering off;
}

3. Security: Set MCP_API_KEY environment variable in your .env file

Connecting to Remote MCP Servers

Claude Desktop/Code only supports stdio transport natively, not SSE/HTTP. To connect to remote MCP servers, use the included mcp-sse-client.js bridge client:

Add to Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rechtspraak": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/rechtspraak-solr/mcp-sse-client.js"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BASE_URL": "https://rechtspraak-nl-mcp.knowably.ai",
        "SSE_PATH": "/sse",
        "API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Optional environment variables for mcp-sse-client.js:

• CLIENT_NAME - Custom client name (default: "mcp-sse-client")
• VERBOSE - Enable detailed logging (set to "true")
• MAX_RETRIES - Max connection attempts (default: 3)
• RETRY_DELAY_MS - Delay between retries in milliseconds (default: 2000)
• CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_MS - Connection timeout in milliseconds (default: 30000)

The bridge client acts as a local stdio process that Claude can communicate with, while internally translating requests to SSE/HTTP for the remote server. It includes automatic reconnection, configurable timeouts, and graceful error handling

Available MCP Tools

The server provides the following tools:

• cases_search - Search cases with filters and faceting
• cases_get_by_ecli - Get specific case by ECLI identifier
• cases_expand_query - Expand query with legal synonyms
• cases_highlight_passages - Extract relevant passages from a case
• cases_rerank - Rerank cases by relevance
• cases_get_similar - Find similar cases
• cases_search_by_article - Search by legal article
• cases_validate_ecli - Validate ECLI format
• cases_bulk_get - Batch retrieve multiple cases
• cases_analyze_trend - Analyze temporal trends
• cases_get_statistics - Get comprehensive statistics
• cases_get_court_stats - Compare courts
• cases_get_citations - Extract citations
• cases_compare - Compare multiple cases
• cases_extract_entities - Extract legal entities
• system_health - Check system health

Direct Entry Points

You can also use the entry points directly:

# Full reindex
uv run rechtspraak-reindex

# Index specific directory
uv run rechtspraak-index --data-dir ./data

# Setup collection and schema
uv run rechtspraak-setup

# Start MCP server
uv run rechtspraak-mcp

Development

Project Structure

• MCP Server: Main feature providing search API via MCP protocol
• Data Importer: Tools to fetch case law from rechtspraak.nl
• Indexing: XML parsing and Solr indexing with enrichment
• CLI: Command-line tools for management tasks

Testing

# Check MCP server
uv run rechtspraak-mcp

# Test indexing
uv run rechtspraak-index --data-dir ./test-data --verbose

Example Queries

Once connected to an MCP client (Claude Desktop/Code), you can ask:

• "Search for cases about 'aansprakelijkheid' in the last 5 years"
• "Find cases citing ECLI:NL:HR:2019:1234"
• "What are the trends in 'arbeidsrecht' cases from 2015 to 2023?"
• "Find similar cases to ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2020:5678"
• "Search cases mentioning Article 6:162 BW"
• "Compare courts Hoge Raad and Rechtbank Amsterdam for tax cases"

License

Do whatever you want