Descrybe MCP Server

Descrybe is a provider-hosted MCP server that brings the Descrybe Legal Engine into Claude and other MCP clients. It exposes the Descrybe Legal Research Toolkit on top of an index of roughly 300 million structured U.S. primary law records, including federal and state case law, statutes, and regulations. The server is designed for grounded legal research workflows where citations, treatment history, and quoted language need to be verifiable against authoritative sources.

The connector covers the full research arc: classifying a legal question, searching case law by concept or exact quoted wording, searching statutes and regulations, walking a proprietary citator to see how cases have been treated by later courts, verifying that quoted language actually appears in the cited opinion, and pulling source documents. Descrybe was launched as one of the partner legal research connectors in Anthropic's "Claude for Legal" release in May 2026 and ships as a default research backend in the legal-clinic, ip-legal, and law-student plugins.

Access requires a Descrybe customer subscription. The standalone Legal Engine plan is priced at $25 per month with no per-query charges, with a full-platform tier at $50 per month. Authentication uses each customer's own Descrybe account credentials passed to the remote MCP endpoint.

Tools

Prerequisites

• A Descrybe subscription (Legal Engine standalone is $25/month, full platform $50/month)
• Your Descrybe account credentials or API key
• An MCP-capable client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any client supporting remote HTTP MCP servers)

Remote server URL

Descrybe is a provider-hosted HTTP MCP server. There is nothing to install locally.

https://mcp.descrybe.com/mcp

Claude Code / .mcp.json configuration

The Descrybe connector ships as a default research backend in Anthropic's claude-for-legal plugins (legal-clinic, ip-legal, law-student). To add it manually:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "descrybe": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.descrybe.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

You can also register it via the Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add --transport http descrybe https://mcp.descrybe.com/mcp

Authentication

Descrybe is marked as a "customer subscription" connector in Claude for Legal, meaning you authorize the server once with your own Descrybe account. After the initial sign-in, Claude reuses the credential when making tool calls. Refer to Descrybe's account settings for issuing or rotating API keys.

Verifying the connection

In Claude, ask: "Use Descrybe to find a recent Ninth Circuit case on the fair use defense for transformative AI training." If the connector is configured, Claude will call the Descrybe tools and return cited results.

• Ground a legal memo in verified primary law by pulling cases, statutes, and regulations from Descrybe instead of relying on the model's parametric knowledge.
• Run a citator check on every case Claude proposes to cite, flagging anything that has been distinguished, criticized, or overruled before it lands in a brief.
• Verify quoted language in an existing draft by asking Claude to confirm each quotation actually appears in the cited opinion.
• Build a litigation research workflow that classifies the issue, runs concept and exact-language searches, and returns a ranked list of authorities with treatment history.
• Power law school research, legal clinic intake, and IP prior-art-style case searches as part of Anthropic's Claude for Legal plugins.

• "Use Descrybe to find federal circuit cases discussing the 'transformative use' factor in fair use analysis after 2020."
• "Look up the citator treatment for Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 and tell me whether it is still good law."
• "Verify that this quotation appears verbatim in the cited Second Circuit opinion, and pull the source document if it does."
• "Search Descrybe for state statutes governing non-compete enforceability in California and Massachusetts and summarize the differences."
• "Classify this client question, then run a concept search and an exact-language search and return the top authorities for each."

• Official, vendor-hosted MCP server, no local install or self-hosting required.
• Grounded in roughly 300 million structured U.S. primary law records with a proprietary citator, which reduces hallucinated or stale citations.
• Ships as a default connector inside Anthropic's Claude for Legal plugins, so it works out of the box for legal-clinic, ip-legal, and law-student workflows.
• Flat-rate pricing ($25/month standalone) with no per-query charges, predictable for heavy research use.

• Requires a paid Descrybe subscription; there is no free tier for the MCP endpoint.
• Coverage is limited to U.S. primary law; non-U.S. jurisdictions and secondary sources are not in scope.
• Public documentation of the exact MCP tool schemas is limited; capabilities here are derived from Descrybe's published feature list and the Claude for Legal connector manifest rather than a public tool reference.

• CourtListener (Free Law Project): Free, open-access MCP connector for U.S. case law and PACER filings, also shipped in Claude for Legal.
• Thomson Reuters / Westlaw MCP: Enterprise legal research connector with broader editorial content and KeyCite, aimed at firms already on Westlaw.
• Trellis: MCP connector focused on state trial court records and litigation analytics, complementary to Descrybe's primary-law focus.