Authorised corpora
Identify the repositories searched and the rules governing access and reuse.
Measure 4.04 · verifiable references
Legal File 4.04: AI-Assisted Case-Law Research
A search engine may suggest a lead; only a legal professional can verify the authority of the decision.
A convincing but false citation
An AI-assisted search tool may save time, but it may also invent a citation, merge two judgments, overlook a reversal or present an obsolete authority as current law.
The basic rule is therefore simple: no proposed citation may be relied upon until the original judgment has been located, opened and checked by a competent legal professional.
The evidence chain
- Query. Retain the wording, filters, date and user context.
- Candidate result. Record the system version and ranked references returned.
- Original source. Open the judgment in an authorised, authoritative repository.
- Legal reading. Check the facts, issue, reasoning, operative part and subsequent history.
- Use in the case. The professional decides whether the authority is relevant and explains its role.
- Audit trace. Preserve enough evidence to reconstruct the research process.
Minimum technical and contractual requirements
Currentness
State the last update date and detect repealed, reversed or superseded authorities.
Stable identifiers
Return a persistent reference that enables the original judgment to be found.
Honest uncertainty
The system must be able to say that no reliable result has been found.
Version history
Retain model, index and configuration versions used for the search.
Audit access
Permit an authorised reviewer to examine queries, results and source links.
Useful indicators
| Indicator | What it reveals |
|---|---|
| Unfindable-reference rate | The share of suggested authorities that cannot be traced to an original source. |
| Outdated-authority rate | The share of results no longer representing current law. |
| Relevant-result precision | How many returned references are genuinely useful for the question asked. |
| Human rejection rate | How often professionals discard the system’s suggestions. |
| Time to verification | Whether the tool saves time after mandatory human checking. |
Design principle. A research assistant may point toward a judgment. It must never manufacture legal authority or conceal the limits of its search.