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Drafting and citations: how it works

Bring researched law, recorded facts and retained decisions into a draft. Inspect explicit matter-detail fill, missing values, contrary accounts, citation holds and the exact version released.

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Availability

Available
Supported work
Bring researched law, source-linked facts and counsel’s recorded decisions into the draft, then inspect the wording and citations before release.
Start with
Explicit placeholder fill reads known values from actual matter, party, firm and verified profile records and shows each source. Unknown tokens and [CONFIRM …] fields stay open.
Key limit
Case citations are checked against CourtListener's public case law. BRON is not a citator. Its strongest treatment result is “no negative signals found.”

Some capabilities have their own availability or configuration requirements, shown below.

Before you start

  • Explicit placeholder fill reads known values from actual matter, party, firm and verified profile records and shows each source. Unknown tokens and [CONFIRM …] fields stay open.
  • Drafting reads a bounded set of retained matter decisions and rationale. A missing memory read does not certify the draft or invent a chosen position.
  • Prepare the draft from the matter’s recorded facts, sources, decisions and assignment; counsel supplies and reviews the legal standard. North Harbor’s illustrative passage preserves both notice accounts and the email’s limits. Agreement §9.2 is a contract reference, with no researched holding to invent.
  • A matter with its documents taken in. Drafting reads the matter's facts, each with its document and page.
  • Firm templates and a house drafting style, if the firm has them. An owner or admin imports the templates and sets the style.
  • The forum, and the assigned judge's standing orders if you want them checked. A judge's orders are used only once an attorney has confirmed them.
  • A Word add-in is in development.

How it works

Prepare work for counsel from the matter’s researched law, source-linked facts and recorded decisions. Fill known matter details on command and leave unknown or confirmation fields open. Preserve adverse accounts and unresolved questions, then review citations and the exact version before release.

What may this passage say about the requirement, and which source supports each part?

From recorded matter to draft

  • Fill known details only when asked

    On the attorney’s fill command, known names, court details, case number and letterhead come from actual matter, party, firm and verified profile records. Each fill names its source. Unknown values and explicit confirmation fields stay unresolved.

  • Retain the chosen approach as context

    Later drafting reads a bounded set of recorded matter decisions and their rationale. That context helps the team preserve its chosen position, but counsel still checks the draft; memory is not proof that generated wording followed the decision.

From research and record to draft

  • Keep the legal requirement beside the factual account

    Counsel checks the governing law and reviewed element definition, then reads supporting and adverse facts against it. In the North Harbor example, agreement §9.2 is supplied; no researched judicial holding is supplied. Draft the factual notice analysis and retain the legal questions that still require research instead of inventing an authority.

  • Make the next evidence question part of the analysis

    State what the May 2 email establishes about sending and what the testimony disputes about notice. Preserve the unanswered receipt or reading question and the proposed follow-up request. A corrected fact can flag recorded draft dependencies for review; BRON does not silently revise the legal argument or approve the new wording.

Drafting from the record

  • Drafts record the facts they used

    When BRON drafts from your facts, it records which facts the draft relied on. Drafts made before BRON began keeping that record do not have one.

  • Each fact arrives with its status and page

    The drafter receives each fact with its status, such as disputed or admitted, and the document and page it rests on.

  • Long documents, section by section

    Available

    A motion is planned section by section and drafted against the matter's evidence, with the document you are answering in front of every section. Anything that had to be left out is named.

  • The firm's settlement numbers stay out of drafts

    BRON treats every draft as a document that could leave the firm. The drafter can see the valuation range, but never the firm's floor, ceiling or walkaway number.

  • The firm's earlier arguments, without party names

    Drafting can reuse the firm's own earlier arguments, with party names removed, unless the firm turns this off.

Sources and changed facts

  • Open the passage a sentence cites

    Click a sentence to open the passage it cites, wherever BRON can locate it. For a scanned exhibit, the passage is a box on the page. Opening it shows what the sentence points to. Whether the source supports the sentence is your judgment.

  • An accepted correction creates review tasks

    When an attorney accepts a fact correction, BRON creates review tasks for current work that recorded reliance on it. Only recorded dependencies are covered. The work's text stays unchanged for attorney review.

  • The editor marks a draft whose facts changed

    The editor marks a draft whose underlying facts changed after it was written, with the label Changed since drafted. The check looks at each drafting pass as a whole, not at each section on its own.

Before it can leave

  • Each citation is checked before the document leaves

    Available

    Before a document is signed, shared with the client, exported, filed or emailed, BRON checks each citation and holds the document if one cannot be confirmed. Case citations are checked against CourtListener's public case law.

  • A licensed attorney records the release

    Only a licensed attorney at the firm can release a held document, and the release is recorded with their reason, under their name.

  • Approval belongs to one version

    If someone edits an approved document, the approval does not carry over, and the new version needs its own review. This applies where the document has a review request.

  • Quotations are checked against the source

    Available

    A quotation is checked against what the source actually says, not only against the source existing.

  • A statute citation that cannot be traced stays unverified

    Available

    A statute citation counts as verified only when BRON can trace it to the matter's own authorities or an official source. Otherwise it is marked unverified.

  • The treatment scan stops at “no negative signals found”

    Available

    BRON searches CourtListener for later opinions that cite a case, and a model reads each citing passage for negative treatment. The strongest result is “no negative signals found.” BRON is not a citator, and every note says so.

Filing and certification

  • Check the draft against the judge's standing orders

    Available

    Before filing, BRON checks the draft against the court's formatting rules, and against the assigned judge's standing orders once an attorney has confirmed them. A check that could not run reports not checked, never passed.

  • A certificate of AI use, from the audit trail

    Available

    BRON can prepare a Certificate of AI Use from the matter's audit trail. It will not certify anything the record contradicts.

  • A word count taken from the body

    Available

    The word count is computed from the body of the document. Over the limit, the certificate says the document does not comply.

What it reads from

  • Matter intelligence
  • Discovery and the documents in the record
  • Researched authorities
  • Firm templates and house style
  • The forum and the assigned judge's orders

Who can do what

  • Counsel checks that the draft actually follows retained strategy and recorded decisions. Supplied context is not proof of adherence.
  • Counsel decides how supporting and adverse accounts bear on the element. Preserve receipt and reading as open questions when the source establishes only sending, then connect the draft to the proposed evidence request.
  • If a citation cannot be confirmed, the document is held when it is signed, filed, exported, emailed or shared with the client. Only a licensed attorney at the firm can release it.
  • A release is recorded with the attorney's reason, under their name. Tracked changes, client visibility and reviewer sign-off have no override.
  • Where a document has a review request, approval applies to that exact version. A later edit needs review again.
  • In the illustration, v3 was written before the email arrived and held for review; Alex prepared v4 and Elena approved that version. That review does not establish timely notice or replace the citation and release checks.
  • Sharing a document with a client needs a licensed attorney.
  • When BRON proposes to send or sign, nothing happens until a person with access to the matter approves that exact action.
  • The adverse-authority check warns and does not block. Whether an authority is directly adverse or controlling is counsel's judgment.

What it produces

  • The filing and the served copy
  • The audit trail
  • The exported record of sources
  • The client portal, once an attorney releases it

Limits

  • Case citations are checked against CourtListener's public case law, within its shared rate limit.
  • Citation checking in the conversation is advisory. The hold applies when a document is about to leave.
  • Some file formats have no text locator. Those sources open without a highlighted passage.
  • Page numbers worked out from extracted text approximate the filed document and are marked advisory.
  • Tracked changes, client visibility and reviewer sign-off have no override.
  • A Word add-in is in development.

What BRON will not do

  • Release a document when the citation check could not run.

    A check that could not run is a different failure from a citation that could not be confirmed, and nobody can override it. Nothing is released until the check runs.

  • Say an authority is still valid.

    That would take a citator's data, which BRON does not have.

  • Treat an authority you pinned in research as checked.

    A draft started from a research session carries the authorities you pinned and nothing else. The citation check reads it the same way it reads a draft typed from scratch.

  • Grant an override it could not record.

    The attorney's reason is recorded in the audit log before the document goes out. If it cannot be recorded, the override fails with it.

  • Invent a page number for the table of authorities.

    Without page numbers to work from, it lists authorities in the order they first appear and labels the table that way.

  • Put one lawyer's name over another lawyer's bar number.

    When a specific attorney signs, the signature block uses that attorney's own verified bar record, never the firm's default. A missing number shows as a gap the attorney has to fill.

  • Block a filing for leaving out an adverse authority.

    Whether a case is directly adverse and controlling is a legal judgment. BRON names the adverse authorities the matter already holds that the draft does not mention, and leaves the call with counsel.

  • Strip the firm's own copy.

    Only the copy that leaves the firm loses its authorship data, editing time and internal comments. The stored version keeps them as the firm's record of who edited what. Hidden text is reported, never removed.

  • Time a court's acceptance to a click.

    Confirming that a court recorded a filing takes the court's own timestamp, a docket reference and a typed reason, from a licensed attorney at the firm.

When something goes wrong

  • A source link identifies the cited passage, not that the passage supports the proposition. Accepted fact corrections flag recorded reliance for review rather than automatically rewriting the draft.
  • If the sources named in a review’s source basis cannot be checked against the matter, BRON does not record that source check. An unavailable check is not a successful review.
  • If the citation check itself cannot run, nothing is released, and that cannot be overridden.
  • If an override cannot be recorded, it is not granted.
  • A pre-file check that could not run reports not checked, never passed.
  • A statute citation BRON cannot find in the matter's own authorities or an official source stays unverified.
  • If BRON cannot locate a quotation exactly in its source, the source opens without a highlight. Some formats carry no text locator.
  • If the treatment scan cannot read the citing passages, the result is unverified, never clean.
  • A word-count certificate over the limit says the document does not comply. The Certificate of AI Use will not certify what the audit trail contradicts.
  • Citation checking in the conversation is advisory. The hold applies when a document is about to leave.