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How to read the results

Every citation the verifier extracts is classified into one of three buckets. The colors are deliberately similar to traffic lights: green means go, yellow means slow down and check, red means stop.

Green: Verified​

The citation was matched against an authoritative source. The case or statute exists, the cite details (volume, reporter, page, or title, code, section) are consistent with that source, and the system recognized the citation format.

The expanded row shows which provider verified it:

  • CourtListener or Harvard CAP for case law.
  • United States Code for federal statutes.
  • Code of Federal Regulations for federal regulations.
  • New York Legislature for NY statutes via the state's Open Legislation API.
  • State legislature for a state's own statute site (California, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and others).
  • Cornell Legal Information Institute for statutes verified via the LII fallback.
  • Web search on state legislature for citations confirmed by a targeted search of the state's legislature domain.

A green badge is a strong positive signal, but it does not mean the citation is used correctly. Always read the source.

Yellow: Review​

Yellow means "we found something worth a human look." The row tells you why it was flagged. There are a few distinct reasons:

  • Quote unsupported — the case is real and was matched to a source, but the quoted language or the pin-cited page could not be confirmed in the opinion text. This is the flag that catches a real case cited for words it doesn't actually contain.
  • Out of jurisdiction — the case is real, but its deciding court sits in a different state than the jurisdiction you selected (or your firm's default jurisdiction). Common when an out-of-state authority is pasted into a state-court filing.
  • Format only — the format matches a known statute pattern for that jurisdiction, but the verifier could not independently confirm the content. This happens when the state's legislature site is not programmatically queryable, the section reference is article-level rather than a specific section, or the provider returned an ambiguous response. The provider label reads Format check only.

A yellow badge means the citation is plausible but not fully confirmed. Treat it as a flag to check the source yourself before relying on it.

The Unpublished badge​

Some rows carry an additional Unpublished pill. This marks a decision that is unpublished or otherwise non-precedential. It is a caution, not a downgrade — an unpublished opinion that exists still shows as green/Verified, because it is real. The badge is a reminder to confirm the decision carries the precedential weight your argument needs before you rely on it.

Red: Not found​

No authoritative source returned a match for this citation, and the format does not recognizably match any US statute or regulation pattern. This is the strongest signal that a citation is fabricated, garbled, or from a source the verifier does not cover.

Common causes of red results:

  • The citation does not exist (hallucinated by an AI tool).
  • A typo in the volume, reporter, page, or section number.
  • A jurisdiction or code the verifier does not cover (state regulations, municipal codes, tribal law, non-US law).
  • A case that has not been published yet or is from a court with limited online coverage.

Never file a document with a red citation without confirming it yourself.

The annotated text​

Below the per-citation rows, the verifier shows your original text with every recognized citation underlined in the corresponding color. This lets you see exactly where each flagged citation sits in your document. Hover over any highlight for a tooltip with the status and provider. Click a green or yellow citation to open the source.

Use the Copy button to copy the raw text back to your clipboard for quick edits in your drafting tool.

Limitations to keep in mind​

  • The verifier checks existence and quoted-language support, not proposition support. A green case citation whose quote checks out may still not stand for the point the surrounding text claims.
  • The verifier is not a replacement for Shepard's or KeyCite. Citations marked green may have been overruled, superseded, or questioned.
  • Coverage of state trial-court decisions and unpublished opinions is uneven.
  • State regulations, municipal codes, and tribal codes are not yet covered.

Use the verifier as a first pass. Treat green as "worth relying on as the starting point of your own review," not as "verified correct." Treat anything else as a flag that needs human attention.