Reference Resolution

Turn loose legal citations into exact documents. Handles ECLI, CELEX, article references, case numbers, and more.

POST /v1/resolve

Resolve a legal citation to one or more documents.

Request Body

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`reference`	string	required	The legal citation to resolve
`hint_country`	string	—	ISO country code hint for faster resolution
`hint_type`	string	—	`case_law`, `legislation`, or `doctrine`

How Resolution Works

The resolver runs through up to seven stages, returning as soon as a confident match is found.

Fast-path regex

Matches machine-readable identifiers (ECLI, CELEX, ELI, NOR codes) directly against the database.

Pattern resolver

Country-specific citation patterns from a rules database. Handles formats like German case numbers and French article references.

Cache lookup

Previously resolved references are cached for speed. Identical citations return instantly.

LLM parsing

AI extracts structured fields from the citation — court, date, number, article, code — then queries with those fields.

Relaxed query

Broadens the search by dropping source filters, searching across all sources for the extracted fields.

Title search

For references 15+ characters, searches document titles using full-text matching.

Semantic fallback

Hybrid search with a high confidence threshold (>0.85). Only returns results the system is very confident about.

Match Types

Type	Description
`exact`	Single document matched with high confidence
`ambiguous`	Multiple documents match — provide more details to narrow
`pattern`	Matched via country-specific citation pattern
`title_search`	Found by searching document titles
`fallback_search`	Found via semantic search (lower confidence)
`none`	No match found
`error`	An error occurred during resolution

Response Format

{
  "reference": "art. 1240 code civil",
  "resolved": true,
  "match_type": "exact",
  "documents": [{
    "source": "FR/Legifrance",
    "source_id": "LEGIARTI000006438858",
    "title": "Article 1240 du Code civil",
    "text": "Tout fait quelconque de l'homme...",
    "data_type": "legislation",
    ...
  }],
  "elapsed_ms": 156
}

Supported Reference Formats

Format	Example	Resolves to
ECLI	`ECLI:FR:CCASS:2006:CO00559`	Exact case law document
CELEX	`32016R0679`	EU regulation (GDPR)
Article reference	`art. 6 code civil`	French civil code article
German case number	`BVerfG 1 BvR 123/20`	German constitutional court case
EU regulation	`Regulation (EU) 2016/679`	GDPR full text
UK neutral citation	`[2022] UKSC 5`	UK Supreme Court judgment
NOR code	`JUSX2400001L`	French legislative text
ELI	`eli/loi/2024/...`	European legislation identifier

Tips

Use hint_country when you know the jurisdiction — makes resolution significantly faster.
Use hint_type to narrow between case law and legislation when the citation is ambiguous.
For ambiguous results, the response includes a disambiguation message suggesting how to refine your query.

Next: Discovery →