Claude Cowork · Anthropic
Japanese law in Claude Cowork
Cowork is Claude working on its own through a task on your desktop — reviewing a contract, drafting a memo, filling a form. With japanlaw.org connected, it can look up the Japanese statute a document relies on instead of recalling it, and leave you the link to each article it used.
Set it up
- 1
Cowork uses the same connectors as the rest of Claude. If you have already added japanlaw.org in claude.ai, it is there — skip to the last step.
- 2
Otherwise, in Claude go to Customize, then Connectors, and choose Add custom connector (or use the button above). Paste:
Remote MCP server URLhttps://japanlaw.org/mcp - 3
Leave authentication empty and add it.
- 4
Start a Cowork task and say when the law matters: "check each statute this contract cites against japanlaw.org".
Before you start
- Cowork runs in the Claude desktop app. The connector itself is added on your account, so it is shared with claude.ai and the phone app.
- On a Team or Enterprise plan an Owner adds the connector for everyone; you then turn it on for yourself.
Then ask
- Go through this employment contract and check every working-hours clause against the Labor Standards Act. Link each article you rely on.
- Draft a one-page note for a new employee in Japan on paid annual leave, citing the statute with links.
- This lease cites 借地借家法 several times — confirm each article says what the lease claims.
What Claude Cowork can do with it
search- Finds provisions, laws and defined terms by Japanese or English words, in every law held or in one, best match first. Each result has an id for fetch and the page's URL.
fetch- Reads what a search result's id names: a provision in Japanese with its English, each line marked as the Ministry's translation or machine translation — in force, or as it stood on a day; or a law's overview and outline.
list_laws- Every law japanlaw.org holds: title, number, kind, date of the text in force and how much of it has English.
get_law- One law: what it is for, who it binds and who it does not — its exceptions and how it is enforced on request — the texts of it held, earlier and to come, and its chapters, or what is under one of them.
get_provision- An article, paragraph or item by its citation — 第三十六条第二項, Article 36(2) or art-36/par-2 — in Japanese and English, with what it cites, the terms it defines and its URLs: in force, or as it stood on a day. Shown as a card where the app can draw one.
get_citing_provisions- Every provision in the collection that cites the one given, with links. No official source publishes this direction.
get_definitions- The words a law defines for itself — 労働者, 賃金 — each with the statute's own definition, its English and whose that is, a plain explanation, where it is defined and how far it reaches. Given a provision, the definitions that apply in it and the legal vocabulary it uses.
get_amendments- A law's amendments: the amending Act, its number, the day it takes effect and whether it is in force. Given one, every provision it changes, before and after, in Japanese and English, each English marked as the Ministry's or machine translation.
Two rules that keep the answer honest
Carry the attribution through
Every English paragraph is marked as the Ministry of Justice's translation or as this site's machine translation. Passing the second off as the first is the most damaging thing an answer built on this data can do. Keep the distinction in what you hand back.
Point back to the official original
Only the Japanese text as published by the government has legal effect; every English rendering, the Ministry of Justice's included, is a reference. Include the provision's link so the reader can check the original before acting, and do not present any of it as legal advice.
