legalcite

LegalCite

Stop your AI from citing fake cases. LegalCite checks every case citation in legal text against real court records (CourtListener) and flags hallucinated/fake or misattributed cites. A REST API + an MCP server.

• Live: https://legalcite-one.vercel.app
• Verify API: GET /api/verify?text=<paragraph> (or ?citation="410 U.S. 113"; also POST {text})
• MCP: verify_citations(text) → npm legalcite-mcp
• Data: CourtListener (Free Law Project) — free public U.S. court records.

Verdicts

verdict	meaning
real	the case exists and (if named) the name matches
not-found	no such case — likely hallucinated
mismatch	citation is real, but the case name in the text is wrong

How it resolves

1. Token-free (default): reporter-aware regex extracts citations → each resolved via CourtListener's public /c/{reporter}/{vol}/{page}/ finder (redirects to the opinion when real, 404 when not).
2. Token mode (optional): set COURTLISTENER_TOKEN (free) → uses CourtListener's citation-lookup endpoint (Eyecite extraction + full metadata).

It never fabricates — an unresolved citation is reported not-found, never invented.

Layout

api/verify.js          REST endpoint (quota + verify)
api/health.js          liveness + CourtListener check
api/checkout|key|stripe-webhook.js   Stripe Pro billing
lib/verify.js          citation extraction + CourtListener resolution (core)
lib/store.js           Redis quota + key store (fail-open without REDIS_URL)
lib/stripe.js          lazy Stripe client
mcp/server.js          MCP stdio server — verify_citations tool
public/                landing, docs, pricing, llms.txt
scripts/setup-stripe-product.js   one-time Stripe product/price (test key)

Config (Vercel env — all optional for the MVP)

• COURTLISTENER_TOKEN — free; enables richer citation-lookup + metadata.
• REDIS_URL — Upstash; enables hard daily quota + caching (fail-open without it).
• STRIPE_SECRET_KEY / STRIPE_PRICE_ID / STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET — Pro billing.

Pricing

Free: 20 checks/day by IP. Pro: 2,000/day, $19/mo, 7-day trial.

Not legal advice. Verifies citation existence/metadata only — not legal correctness or good-law status.