AI agent for legal assistants
Case Law Currency Check Agent
Every cited authority is current for the point it supports.
What it does
A case cited in a brief, memo or opinion may have been overruled, limited or distinguished since. Missing that is costly. This agent takes the list of cited authorities and checks each for later treatment. It flags negative history, notes the strength of the signal, and finds the replacing authority where there is one. It then rechecks the revised list, because a replacement case can have its own negative history. It never rewrites the document. Edge case: a cited case is still good law for one point but overruled on another, so the agent flags the specific proposition rather than marking the whole case bad.
How it works
Follow the arrows from top to bottom. The orange dashed arrow is the loop: when a check fails, the agent goes back and tries again.
Read the steps as a list
- Document is ready for cite checking
- Extract every cited case and statute
- Look up later treatment for each authority
- Rank each by negative treatment and relevance to the cited point
- Find replacing or supporting authority
- Draft a table of issues and suggested replacements
- User chooses which changes go into the documentThe agent waits here for your OK.
- Recheck the revised citation list
- Is every remaining authority current for its proposition?If not: flag the new problem authorities and search again. Back to step 3.
- Current citation table
How it decides
It ranks treatment: overruled, superseded, limited, distinguished, criticized. It checks whether the negative treatment concerns the proposition cited.
- Flag any overruled or superseded authority
- Flag a case limited on the cited point
- Do not suggest a replacement without checking its history
- Note authorities from outside the jurisdiction
Make it yours
Every agent is a starting point. You choose these settings for your own situation.
- Jurisdiction and database
- Treatment levels flagged
- Document types
- Table format
- Recheck on edits
What keeps you in control
It always asks you first
- User approves every change to the document
Hard limits
- Never edit the document itself
- Never present a case as good law without checking it
It stops when
- Done: no negative treatment affects a cited point
- Stop: a key authority has no current replacement
Set it up
We guide you through the set-up, step by step
Members get the full set-up guide for this agent. No technical skills needed: you copy, paste and upload.
- One set of instructions to paste into your AI, with the clicks for ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Gemini and Grok
- The agent then walks you through connecting your own data, one source at a time
- A downloadable copy with the flow chart, the rules and the full guide
