Skip to Main Content
Banner Image

Artificial Intelligence [AI] and Legal Research

This guide is intended to introduce new law students, as well as law students who need a refresher on the topic, to the concepts of researching using AI.

Making a Research Plan

  1. Making A Research Plan:
    1. Determine the jurisdiction:
      1. Federal law or state law?
      2. If federal law, which circuit? If state law, which state is relevant?
    2. Determine the issue to be researched:
      1. What, precisely, have you been asked to determine?
      2. Categorize the information in the prompt:
        1. Relationship between parties, potential claims, potential defenses, etc.
    3. Develop a list of potential search terms:
      1. Which search terms are narrow and specific enough to limit your query?
      2. Will a secondary source help you to understand the issues?
      3. If the results are too much, which specific terms will help limit your results?
    4. Develop a research plan:
      1. Think about the sources you’ll need to consult.
      2. If you’re unfamiliar with the legal area, you may want to consult a secondary source.
    5. Search for authorities:
      1. Begin your research using the search terms you developed.
      2. Keep notes of which searches were successful and which weren’t [you want to make sure you’re not running the same search over and over again.]
      3. Read the authorities you find, keeping notes to make sure you can keep track of relevant passages.
    6. Update your research:
      1. Make sure you have the most recent and relevant authorities!

Making a Research Plan

Authorities

  • Different Levels of Authority:
    • Primary – are the laws and rules
      • Constitutions [foundational to the jurisdiction]
      • Statutes [laws made by legislatures]
      • Regulations [administrative agency rules]
      • Opinions [findings by courts]
    • Secondary – describe the laws and rules
      1. Law reviews [deep analysis on legal topic, lots of references]
      2. Treatises [book-length works on the law as it pertains to a particular subject]
      3. Restatements [prepared by ALI, not the law but are good summaries of the law]
  • Mandatory v. Persuasive Authority:
    • Mandatory: this authority must be followed by the court at issue.
    • Persuasive: this authority may be followed by the court at issue.
  • Binding v. Persuasive Precedents:
    • A binding precedent is the reason for a decision of a higher court that must be followed by a lower court in the same court hierarchy.
    • A persuasive precedent is the reason for a decision of another court that is not binding but is relevant to the case and is an important statement of law.

Citators

  • What is a Citator?
    • A citator is a tool that shows you how and when a particular legal authority has been cited.
    • Citators give qualitative and quantitative information [number of citing references & treatment received]
  • Where do you find a Citator?
    • The different tabs above a particular resource when viewing that resource in an online legal database are the citators.
    • These tabs are entitled Negative Treatment, History, and Citing References.
  • Using Citators:
    • In Westlaw, KeyCite. In Lexis, Shepards.
    • These tools are used to find/update cases and/or to make sure the law is up to date.
    • These tools use differently colored indicator flags.
      • Traffic signal-like indicators: Lexis
      • Flag-like indicators: Westlaw
    • Citators help you verify the citations you make.