Step 1
Locate the authority outside the AI tool.
Find the case, statute, rule, regulation, record citation, or secondary source in a trusted legal database, official source, or court record before relying on it.
The Bench & Bar AI Brief
AI Citation Verification Checklist
A practical process for checking AI-generated legal citations before filing, relying on, or circulating them.
Verification steps.
Use this checklist whenever legal citations, quoted authority, or source summaries were generated, revised, or organized with AI assistance.
Step 2
Confirm the citation details.
Check the party names, reporter, docket number, court, date, pin cite, rule number, section number, and quoted language against the actual source.
Step 3
Read the cited passage in context.
Read enough before and after the cited passage to confirm that the authority supports the proposition for which it is used.
Step 4
Check current validity.
Confirm whether the authority has been reversed, superseded, amended, limited, questioned, or otherwise affected by later law.
Step 5
Preserve the verification path.
Keep a record of where the authority was checked, when it was checked, and what source confirmed it.
Step 6
Do not rely on unsupported authority.
If the authority cannot be located or verified, remove it, replace it with verified authority, or disclose the issue through the appropriate review process.