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name: court-rules description: Find U.S. federal and state court filing rules, local rules, judge standing orders and court holidays with the Court Rules MCP tools, and answer with the source document cited. Use when a task asks about page or word limits, courtesy copies, pre-motion conferences, e-filing, service, filing timing or fees, a specific judge's practices, or which days a court is closed.

Court Rules

Use the court-rules MCP server (tools listed below) to answer questions about how to file in a specific court or in front of a specific judge. Every rule the server returns carries the URL of the court's own document. Report that URL with the answer.

Workflow

1. Find the court. Call list_courts with query set to part of the court name or ID (for example "eastern district of new york", "edny", "cook"). Copy the district_id from the result (examples: edny, sdny, il-cook-circuit, ca-los-angeles-superior). Results come in pages: to read on, call again with offset set to the previous next_offset; next_offset is null on the last page.
2. Find the judge, if the question names one. Call search_judges with district_id and name (partial match). Copy the judge_slug. Judges who no longer sit are hidden by default because they carry no current rules; set include_inactive only when the user asks about a former judge.
3. Get the rules.
   • For a topic across a court or a judge, call search_filing_rules with district_id, and optionally judge_slug, q (search terms such as "courtesy copies" or "rejected cure"), logic_type, workflow_phase, case_type and limit. Use judge_slug "court" for court-wide rules. When judge_slug is a judge, court-wide rules are included unless include_court_rules is false.
   • For every rule held for one judge, call get_judge_rules with judge_slug and district_id.
4. Court closures. Call list_court_holidays with district_id and either year or date_from and date_to.
5. Compliance check. check_compliance does not run a check. It returns the request parameters for the REST compliance check (documented at https://docs.courtrules.app/api-reference/check), which needs an API key and runs for the Eastern District of New York (edny) today. Show the parameters to the user and say that the check itself is a separate API call they make with their own key.

Filter values

• logic_type: CourtesyCopyRule, PageWordLimitRule, PreMotionConferenceRule, AdjournmentRequirementRule, BundlingRule, FormatConstraint, DocumentRequirement, CommunicationRule, SealingProcedure, ElectronicFilingRule, FilingTimingRule, ServiceRule, FilingFeeRule, JuniorLawyerIncentive.
• workflow_phase: FILING, CASE_INITIATION, MOTION_PRACTICE, TRIAL_PREP, POST_JUDGMENT.
• Narrow with district_id, judge_slug or logic_type before searching broadly. A search that is too broad is refused.

How to answer

• Quote or summarize the rule, then give the source_url and any page, section or paragraph from the citation fields.
• Fields the server omits are not stated in the source text. Do not fill them in with defaults, and do not turn a missing field into "no limit" or "not required".
• If a search returns nothing, say so and name the court page or document the user should read. Do not answer from memory for a specific court or judge.
• Rules and holidays change. Tell the user to confirm the cited source before filing. This is reference information, not legal advice.
• The enforcement tools (search_enforcement_actions, get_enforcement_details, get_enforcement_stats) cover privacy and regulatory enforcement actions. Use them only when the question is about enforcement, not filing rules.

Sign-in

The server asks the MCP client to sign in on first use (a browser window opens console.courtrules.app; Google or email). Clients without a browser can send an API key from the same console as an Authorization: Bearer <api_key> header. See https://docs.courtrules.app/authentication.