Cite checking for paralegals: a routine for AI-assisted drafts

Cite checking for paralegals: what the check covers

Cite checking a brief means three questions for every authority: does it exist, does it support the sentence it is cited for, and is it still good law. CaseRead's terms allow a paralegal or other staff member operating under a licensed attorney's supervision to use the service, and they make the attorney solely responsible for verifying every citation.

This routine is for a paralegal at a solo or small firm who cite-checks briefs for a supervising attorney. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace your court's rules or your state bar's guidance.

Where AI-assisted drafts need extra care

A draft written with AI can carry cites that were never real. In Mata v. Avianca, the filing included non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by ChatGPT. Treat every cite in an AI draft as unconfirmed until it has been looked up.

Running a citation screen first

CaseRead's own paralegal page describes a six-step workflow, which is its method and not a standard of practice: take the attorney's question, organize the file, work through the stack, draft with tracked changes, check every citation, keep the dates. Its fifth step runs the draft through the Hallucination Shield before it reaches the attorney, asking whether each source exists and supports the sentence. The Shield check is included on every plan, Lite through Team.

For a large stack, CaseRead's tabular review pulls facts from up to 50 documents into one table, and bulk review reads up to 12 documents in a project.

The Shield takes up to 50 citations a run, and the free check allows 2 a day. CaseRead asks you to contact it before using the free check on privileged material. Legal citation checker tools sets the screen beside the citators and Clearbrief. The steps outside the screen are in how to check AI citations before filing.

Running the good-law step with a citator

The good-law step needs a citator, which tells you how later cases treated an authority. In Westlaw, KeyCite and its Overruling Risk warning do this; in Lexis+ with Protégé, Shepard's Verify checks citations in AI responses, documents and drafts. Run this step on every case that passed the lookup, and note each result for the attorney.

Thomson Reuters describes KeyCite Overruling Risk as a warning that a point of law has been implicitly undermined. LexisNexis says Shepard's Verify confirms the status and treatment of authorities inside the research and drafting workflow.

Handing the draft to the attorney

CaseRead's Team plan adds shared projects and invite links for the hand-off, plus sharing with co-counsel with redlines. Team is $199 per seat a month on month-to-month billing, or $159 per seat a month billed yearly, as read on November 4, 2026, and it starts with a 7-day trial; CaseRead pricing lists every plan.

CaseRead lists dates for you to confirm and does not calculate deadlines; the attorney decides those. Whoever ran the check, the attorney verifies every citation before filing.