Research in your AI conversation
Source research for legal professionals
TheLawyer gives legal professionals source retrieval inside a compatible AI assistant or terminal workflow. Use it to assemble the evidence for a research note, inspect a cited passage and identify questions that need further professional review.
TheLawyer product guides ·
Start with a defined research instruction
Give the assistant a jurisdiction, an as-of date and a precise issue. Request a source list before a polished answer. For each proposition, ask for the original passage and an explanation of why it matters. Narrow instructions make it easier to spot an answer that drifts beyond the retrieved evidence.
Check dates and version assumptions
A source can be relevant to the issue and still describe the wrong point in time. Ask which retrieved version the assistant used and whether a later change needs checking. Where coverage is missing, record the gap and consult the authoritative publisher or your other research resources before relying on the conclusion.
Preserve a reviewable correction
If a reviewer changes the analysis, retain the previous claim, the corrected wording, the evidence and the reviewer attribution. The research skill can append that record with write access. This supports later review of how the reasoning changed; it is not an assurance that a lawyer has approved every answer.
A question to start with
Prepare a research note on this narrowly defined issue as of the specified date. Map each material proposition to an original passage. List coverage gaps and disputed interpretations separately, and identify what requires my review.
An example prompt for your connected assistant. Your assistant decides which tools to call; review the result and the original sources.
Connect your assistantFrom question to checked sources
- 1
Define the issue
State the jurisdiction, relevant date and facts. Ask the assistant to identify missing information before drawing a conclusion.
- 2
Ask for the original text
Have the assistant search the indexed corpus, retrieve relevant passages and return source links. A missing result is a coverage gap to investigate.
- 3
Review and keep the trail
Open the original sources, check their dates and compare the wording with the answer. With write consent, the research skill can save the question, answer and later corrections.
Questions about this workflow
Does a source-linked answer count as legal review?
No. Citations make the evidence inspectable, but a qualified reviewer still needs to assess relevance, currency and interpretation. TheLawyer does not mark an AI-generated answer as professionally approved just because it contains source links.
Does TheLawyer cover every legal source?
No. Research is limited to the sources and versions in the indexed corpus. Ask your assistant to identify missing coverage and distinguish retrieved text from its own interpretation. Source links do not guarantee that an answer is correct.
What gets saved in my research history?
With write access and the research skill, questions, answers, citations and attributed corrections can be saved privately to your account. The host must actually send that content. A failed save should be reported. Your AI provider also has its own data policies.