rechtspraak-solr-mcp-server by axyr - MCP Server

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.

Features
Architecture
Installation
Usage
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

Clone the repository:

git clone <repository-url>
cd rechtspraak-solr

Start Solr with Docker:

docker-compose up -d solr

Install dependencies:

uv sync

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

cp .env.example .env

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:

Local Mode (stdio): For Claude Desktop/Code running on your machine
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:

Start HTTP server:

docker-compose up -d

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;
}

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

axyr/rechtspraak-solr-mcp-server