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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​

The format matches a known 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.
  • The cited provider returned an ambiguous response.

A yellow badge means the citation is plausible but unverified. Treat it as a flag to check the source yourself before relying on it.

The provider label for a yellow result is typically Format check only, indicating the match was made against Second Seat's statute-pattern reference rather than against live content.

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, not proposition support. A green case citation may not say what the text claims it says.
  • 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.