Case Law Research with AI Step by Step
Case law research is where AI with a verified corpus delivers the greatest time savings: it goes through hundreds of decisions, selects the relevant ones and summarises them with case references. This guide shows how to run the process so the result holds up in a filing.
1 704 Laws86 226 Case law1 704 Laws with AI explanation
What the connector searches
The find_caselaw_cz tool works with decisions of the Czech Supreme Court (over 160,000), the Czech Supreme Administrative Court and regional courts in administrative proceedings (over 160,000), and the Czech Constitutional Court (over 75,000). Optionally, it can also include 586,000 decisions of district and regional courts from justice.cz; this takes longer, but is worthwhile for less common questions. Each decision includes the case reference, court, date, headnote or excerpt, and a link to the full text.
The search is full-text, so wording matters. Use legal terms as the courts themselves use them: "unjust enrichment", not "someone got rich unfairly". AI usually does this automatically, but if the results don't match, try rephrasing the query.
A method that works
- Brief the AI: topic, legal question, court, period, and desired output. "Supreme Court decisions on the limitation period for damages claims from workplace injuries since 2018 - summarise when the subjective limitation period begins to run."
- First pass: have the AI search and list 8 to 10 decisions with case references and a one-sentence note on relevance.
- Narrow down: select the three most relevant decisions and have the AI retrieve the full text using the
fetchtool and summarise the court's reasoning. - Verify: open the links and read the key passages. Check the date and whether the decision has since been overruled.
- Output: ask for a table: case reference, court, date, headnote, relevance to your case.
How to search by case reference and ECLI
If you already have the case reference, enter it into the query; the full-text search will find it and the AI will retrieve the full decision. For decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court and regional courts, ECLI is more reliable, since the court name is derived from it. Note: an AI that hasn't used the connector will happily invent a case reference for you. Check that the response includes a link to europaius.com.
Comparing case law across countries
The corpus also includes case law from other EU countries, in the original language. For cross-border cases, ask "how do German courts approach the same question"; the AI will search the German-language corpus and summarise the findings in English. The links lead to the original text, so you can have only the relevant passage translated. For more detail, see the guide Comparing EU Law with AI.
https://mcp.europaius.com/mcp
Frequently Asked Questions
How up to date is the case law in the corpus?
Decisions are downloaded on an ongoing basis, usually within a few days of publication by the court. The courts themselves publish with a delay, which for the Supreme Court can be several months.
Will the AI also find decisions that don't have a headnote?
Yes, the search covers the entire text of the reasoning. The result then shows an excerpt around the passage found.
Can I export the results?
Have the AI generate a table or list and copy it. In developer tools, results can also be obtained as JSON.