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Never trust the citation-shaped sentence

Open the case. Find the paragraph. Read it.

Use AI to locate possible sources, then verify the authority with your own eyes before it reaches a letter, submission or court book.

AI finds. You verify.

A case name, neutral citation and convincing quotation can all be wrong. The authority is not verified until you have opened a source, confirmed the case details, located the cited paragraph and read what surrounds it.

The central rule

Never rely on an AI-generated quotation, citation, summary or paragraph number without opening the judgment and reading it yourself.

Ask the AI for the URL—or every URL it can find

Do not ask only whether the case exists. Ask for direct links to the judgment and make the AI separate what it knows from what it could not verify.

Case-location prompt
A search result is not the judgment

Ask for a direct judgment URL, but treat every link as a lead. A database summary, case note, search snippet, headnote or AI answer is not a substitute for reading the judgment.

Visit every URL

Open each candidate source. It may be a court website, AustLII, Jade or another database. Multiple versions are useful because one may have stable paragraph numbering, a cleaner PDF or better metadata.

  • The page actually opens and contains the full judgment.
  • The case name and parties match.
  • The court matches.
  • The decision date matches.
  • The neutral citation matches exactly.
  • The judgment is not a different decision in the same litigation.
  • The document is complete rather than a headnote or excerpt.

If the sources disagree, stop. Work out why before using the authority. You may have an appeal, an earlier interlocutory decision, corrected reasons, different reported versions or simply the wrong case.

Find the exact paragraph—and read around it

Use the browser's find function to search for the paragraph number, a distinctive phrase or the relevant legal term. Then read the complete paragraph slowly.

  1. Read the paragraph immediately before it.
  2. Read the cited paragraph in full.
  3. Read the paragraph immediately after it.
  4. Identify which judge wrote it and whether the other judges agreed.
  5. Check whether it states the court's reasoning, quotes a party, summarises another case, or records an argument the court rejected.
  6. Check whether qualifying words change the proposition.
The quotation must survive its context

If the sentence means something different when you read the surrounding paragraphs, it is not safe to use for the proposition the AI gave you.

Write down what you actually verified

Keep a short verification note beside your draft. This makes it much harder for an unverified AI statement to slip back into the finished document.

Fictional Ash v Machine verification note
CASE: [full case name] COURT / DATE: [court and decision date] NEUTRAL CITATION: [citation] SOURCE CHECKED: [direct URL] PARAGRAPH: [number] PROPOSITION IT SUPPORTS: [one careful sentence] CONTEXT / LIMITS: [qualifications, separate judgment, factual distinction] STATUS: VERIFIED BY READING THE FULL PARAGRAPH

Copy the case name and citation from the judgment itself. Do not retype them from memory or copy them back from the AI answer.

Save the complete judgment to PDF

Once verified, print or save the entire judgment to PDF. Do not save only the cited page: the court and the other party must be able to see the context, and you may need another part of the reasons later.

  • Prefer the source's official PDF when one is available and complete.
  • Otherwise use the browser's print-to-PDF function.
  • Check the first page, cited paragraph and final page after saving.
  • Make sure paragraph numbers, page edges and footnotes have not been cut off.
  • Retain the source URL in your verification note.

Name it properly

Use your normal yymmdd_ prefix and a stable description. The date should reflect when you saved the working copy, while the filename should preserve the recognisable case name and citation.

260918_Reid_v_Howard_[1995]_HCA_40.pdf

If a database creates an awkward download name, rename your saved copy. Do not change the contents of the judgment.

Print the judgment clean

For a physical court book, print the entire judgment double-sided when the applicable requirements permit it. Check that odd and even pages remain readable and that punching or binding will not cover text.

Do not highlight before printing the court-book copy

The clean copy should not tell the reader what conclusion to reach or introduce marks that are absent from the filed material. If you need highlights or notes for navigation, add them only to your clearly identified personal working copy.

After printing, check the judgment against the saved PDF: first page, cited paragraph, last page and total page count. Then place it behind the matching authority tab in the order shown by the court-book index.

The sixty-second final check

  • I opened at least one full judgment source myself.
  • I confirmed the parties, court, date and citation.
  • I found the exact paragraph.
  • I read the surrounding context and identified the judge.
  • The proposition in my document is no broader than the judgment supports.
  • I saved the complete judgment as a readable PDF.
  • The filename follows my naming convention.
  • The court-book copy is complete, double-sided where permitted, and unhighlighted.
The practical lesson
Ash does not cite a case because the machine sounded certain. He asks the machine where it came from, opens every useful source, finds the paragraph, reads it in context and prints the clean judgment. The AI saves search time. Ash keeps responsibility for the authority.
General information only, not legal advice. Citation, authority and court-book requirements differ between jurisdictions and matters. Check current court rules, practice notes, orders and accepted citation conventions. Database access and print functions may differ. Last reviewed: September 2026.