Interoperability

Connect your AI to MatterFirst

MatterFirst speaks the Model Context Protocol. Whatever your firm uses to think with, Claude, Copilot, CoCounsel, Harvey, or something you wrote yourselves, it can read your matters, your documents and your deadlines directly, and ask MatterFirst to do things that a person at the firm then approves.

This is not a competing assistant. Your matter data lives in MatterFirst: point your AI at it.

What a connected client can do

Answer questions from your own file
"What settlements do we have in the next fortnight." "Which matters are waiting on finance approval." "What did we tell the vendor's solicitor about the special conditions." Answered from your records, with the document and page each answer came from.
Read a matter as context
A matter attaches to a conversation as a resource, so your assistant starts from the file rather than searching for it. Its extracted facts come with it: parties, key dates, amounts, obligations, risks, each with the excerpt it was taken from.
Ask for something to be done
And that is where it stops. Read on.

Nothing outside MatterFirst can change your files

Every tool that would change something submits a request instead. Sending an email, creating a task, closing a matter, recording a fact: each one appears in MatterFirst for a person at your firm to read and approve, and nothing happens until they do.

We think this is the only defensible way to expose a legal system of record, and we would rather say so plainly than have you discover the alternative. An assistant that can close a matter because it misunderstood a sentence is not a productivity gain.

That is the setting every tool arrives with. A firm that has decided a particular one is safe in its hands can waive the approval for that tool alone, and we would rather that be a switch you can find than something you work around. The request is still recorded either way, against the person whose access was used.

Two further controls, both yours. A firm is reachable only once someone there allows it, and withdrawing that closes the door. And each of the tools can be refused to outside clients while your own people keep using it.

Connecting

There is nothing to install and nothing to publish. Your firm adds MatterFirst to whatever assistant it already uses, in that assistant's own settings, and nobody outside the firm sees it.

  1. 1. In MatterFirst, open Settings, MCP. Decide what an outside client may use. Start with the ones that only read.
  2. 2. If your assistant reads a settings file, issue a key on that page: it is shown once. If it is ChatGPT or Claude, you will not need one.
  3. 3. Follow the steps for your assistant below. The same page shows them filled in with your own address.

ChatGPT signs in instead

  1. 1. In ChatGPT, open Settings, then Connectors.
  2. 2. Choose to add a connector, and give it the address shown below.
  3. 3. ChatGPT will send you to MatterFirst to sign in and agree to what it may see. That sign-in is what authorises it: there is nowhere to paste a key, and you do not need one.
  4. 4. Back in a conversation, turn the MatterFirst connector on for that chat.

Custom connectors sit behind a developer setting in ChatGPT that you may have to switch on first. If you cannot find the option, that is usually why.

Claude (claude.ai and the Claude app) signs in instead

  1. 1. In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors.
  2. 2. Choose "Add custom connector" and give it the address shown below.
  3. 3. Claude will send you to MatterFirst to sign in. That sign-in is what authorises it.
  4. 4. In a conversation, use the + button to switch MatterFirst on for that chat.

Custom connectors are on Claude's paid plans. Claude will not read a key out of a configuration file for a remote server like this one, so the connector dialogue is the way in.

Codex, Cursor, and other assistants that read a settings file uses a key

  1. 1. Issue a key above and copy it.
  2. 2. Paste the settings block below into the assistant and ask it to add MatterFirst as an MCP server.
  3. 3. Give it the key when it asks. Most of them will offer to store it for you.
  4. 4. Ask it something only your firm would know, such as which matters settle this month, to check it worked.

These read a configuration file on your computer, so they will happily use a key. Keep the key on that machine and issue a separate one for each computer, so losing one laptop means revoking one key.

Something else uses a key

  1. 1. If it asks for a configuration file or a JSON block, use the settings below.
  2. 2. If it asks only for an address and then sends you somewhere to sign in, give it the address and sign in as normal.
  3. 3. If neither works, send us what it said and we will make it work.

The settings, if something asks you for them 

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "matterfirst": {
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"
      },
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://matterfirst.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For the person setting this up

Endpoint
https://matterfirst.com/mcp
Transport
Streamable HTTP. stdio is not offered: every consumer here is remote.
Protocol
2025-06-18, 2025-03-26
Authorization
OAuth 2.1 with PKCE against your MatterFirst identity provider, or a bearer key issued in the app for server-to-server use. Metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
Discovery
/.well-known/mcp
Rate limit
Per key, set by the firm. 120 calls a minute by default.
Audit
Every call is recorded against the firm, with the client that made it and whether it was answered or refused.

The other direction

MatterFirst is also an MCP client, so its own agents can reach systems it will never integrate one by one. If your document management system speaks MCP, connect it and your agents can search it while working a matter.

  • iManage Document and email management. Read matters, search documents and workspaces.
  • NetDocuments Document management. Search and read documents and workspaces. (configuration not yet tested against the vendor)
  • SharePoint and OneDrive Microsoft 365 files. Search and read documents held in SharePoint. (configuration not yet tested against the vendor)
  • Google Drive Google Workspace files. Search and read documents held in Drive. (configuration not yet tested against the vendor)

Tools are enabled one at a time, and what a connected server says about its own tools is treated as untrusted text: a description that tries to instruct MatterFirst's agents is stripped before any model reads it.

Questions, or a client that does not connect: tell us what it said and we will make it work.