# BAILII UK Case Law

Searches UK case law on BAILII and pulls the sections you actually need out of a judgment. Useful when you want the court's own wording, not a summary of it.

- MCP server · `type=mcp` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf (Devin Desktop), Cline, Zed, Gemini CLI · ★ 6
- Author: paulieb89
- License: not stated · policy=link-only · description only; the file stays with the author
- Source: https://github.com/paulieb89/bailii-mcp
- Updated: 2026-05-01
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/mcp/bailii-uk-case-law

## What it does

The server exposes three tools to your agent: full-text search across BAILII courts, retrieval of a judgment, and a list of the courts it can search — UKSC, EWCA, EWHC, UKUT, EAT among them. Judgments run 30-100KB, so the default response is summary plus conclusions, roughly 5000 characters. You can ask for one section or the whole thing.

Section detection keys off headings: `summary`, `conclusions`, `held`, `discussion`, `background`. A judgment formatted without clear headers won't split cleanly. That's how the extraction works, not a bug you can configure away.

It has to run on your machine. BAILII rejects traffic from cloud hosts and datacenters, so requests need to leave from a residential IP. Python 3.10+ is required. BAILII's terms rule out bulk downloading, which makes this a tool for targeted lookups — keep your request rate sane.

## Requirements
- Needs: Python and uv (commands run via uvx)

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

**Platform CLI**
```bash
claude mcp add bailii-mcp -- uvx bailii-mcp
```
uvx runs the command named after the package; if the README names another one, use uvx --from bailii-mcp <command>

### Codex

**Platform CLI**
```bash
codex mcp add bailii-uk-case-law -- uvx bailii-mcp
```
uvx runs the command named after the package; if the README names another one, use uvx --from bailii-mcp <command>

### Cursor

**Config file**
File `.cursor/mcp.json`:
```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "bailii-uk-case-law": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "bailii-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}
```
uvx runs the command named after the package; if the README names another one, use uvx --from bailii-mcp <command>

### GitHub Copilot

**Config file**
File `.vscode/mcp.json`:
```json
{
    "servers": {
        "bailii-uk-case-law": {
            "type": "stdio",
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "bailii-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}
```
uvx runs the command named after the package; if the README names another one, use uvx --from bailii-mcp <command>

### Gemini CLI

**Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini mcp add bailii-uk-case-law uvx bailii-mcp
```
uvx runs the command named after the package; if the README names another one, use uvx --from bailii-mcp <command>

## When to use it
- find judgments on HMO licensing
- pull only the conclusions section out of a long judgment
- check recent whistleblowing decisions from the employment tribunal
- retrieve an older case that isn't in the National Archives database
- verify a citation and link before putting it in a document

## Example prompts
- Search BAILII for cases about HMO licensing
- Show me the discussion section of that judgment
- Get the full text of Chinn v Hoilund-Carlsen

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