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Citation Verifier

Second Seat's Citation Verifier is a free tool that checks every legal citation in a block of text against authoritative sources. It is the same verification engine that powers our main product, now open for anyone to use.

Who it is for​

  • Attorneys reviewing AI-generated drafts before filing.
  • Paralegals and law clerks proofreading briefs and memos.
  • Supervising attorneys verifying work product from junior associates.
  • Any legal professional who wants a fast sanity check against fabricated or misremembered citations.

Where to find it​

app.secondseat.ai/verify

No account is required for first use. Signed-in Second Seat users get the same tool inside their authenticated workspace.

What it does​

  1. You paste legal text (a brief, motion, memo, or AI-generated draft).
  2. The verifier extracts every legal citation in the text.
  3. Each citation is checked against authoritative sources: CourtListener and Harvard CAP for case law; state legislature sites, the US Code, the eCFR, and Cornell LII for statutes and regulations.
  4. You get back a structured report showing which citations exist, which need review, and which could not be verified anywhere.
  5. The original text is rendered below the report with every citation highlighted inline so you can see the flagged ones in context.

What it does not do​

The verifier confirms existence, not correctness of use. It does not:

  • Tell you whether the cited authority actually supports the proposition it is offered for.
  • Tell you whether the case is still good law (that is Shepard's or KeyCite territory).
  • Replace careful reading of the full source.

Treat a green badge as "this citation exists and the volume, reporter, and page are plausible" and a yellow badge as "the format is recognizable but we could not confirm content." A red badge is a strong signal to double-check before filing.

Jurisdictions covered​

  • All federal courts via CourtListener.
  • All 50 states plus DC for case law via CourtListener and Harvard CAP. State-court coverage varies.
  • Federal statutes (US Code) and federal regulations (CFR).
  • All 50 states plus DC for statutes. Coverage quality varies by state: some are verified against the state's own legislature site, others via Cornell LII, and a few rely on structural-format validation only (see How to read the results).