A citation checker for briefs has one job: before your signature goes on a filing, tell you which authorities exist, which ones say what your sentence says they say, and which ones need a human to look again. CaseRead's free check does the first two for each citation in your draft, up to 50 per run, and flags the rest for you. It does not replace a citator, and it does not replace you. It does catch the citation that would end up in a sanctions order.
This page explains what the check does, what it does not do, and where it fits in the cite-check you already run.
Why attorneys check citations with software now
Courts have been finding fabricated and misdescribed authority in filings since Mata v. Avianca in 2023, and they have not slowed down. Our running list of AI hallucination sanctions cases tracks the orders: monetary sanctions, referrals to grievance committees and bars, removal from the case, suspension, and dismissal of the client's claims. The common thread is never the tool. It is a citation that no one opened before filing.
The duty is old. Rule 11(b)(2) certifies that your legal contentions are warranted by existing law, and the state analogues say the same (our Rule 11 guide walks through it). What is new is the volume of plausible-looking text a lawyer can now produce, or receive from a contract attorney, a paralegal, or a client, without anyone having looked anything up. A checker is how you make the look-up cheap enough to do on every draft.
What CaseRead's check does with your brief
Paste the brief or upload it as a PDF or Word file. The check pulls out the legal citations, up to 50 per run, and runs each one through two tests:
- Does the source exist? Each citation is looked up live: case law through the Free Law Project's collection of US court opinions, statutes and regulations through CaseRead's public law database, which covers all 53 US jurisdictions (the 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico and federal law). A citation the lookup cannot match is marked not found.
- Does it support your sentence? For a source that is found, its own text is read against the sentence you cited it for. A case that exists but does not hold what your brief says it holds is flagged as a possible misuse. That is the error a quick click-through misses, because the case is real.
Anything the check cannot confirm either way, such as a short-form cite or a partial reference, comes back as inconclusive, so you know where to look by hand.
What it does not do
Be clear-eyed about the limits, because a checker you over-trust is worse than none.
- It is not a citator. It does not tell you whether a case has been reversed, overruled or limited by later courts. Run KeyCite, Shepard's, or a careful search of citing decisions for that. Our guide to checking whether a case is still good law covers the free ways.
- "Not found" is not proof of fabrication. It means the lookup did not return a match. The cite may be wrong, or the authority may be unpublished, municipal, foreign, or a treatise. Review every not-found cite yourself before you draw a conclusion, and before you accuse opposing counsel of anything.
- It checks the first 50 citations. A longer brief should be run in parts. The results page tells you when it stopped.
- It does not check your Bluebook form, pin cites or quotation accuracy line by line. Those remain part of a proper five-pass cite check.
Where it fits in your cite-check
Think of the check as the first pass, the one that used to take an associate an afternoon and now takes a couple of minutes:
| Pass | Question | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Existence | Is every authority real and correctly cited? | The checker, then you on anything flagged |
| 2. Support | Does each authority say what the sentence claims? | The checker flags possible misuse; you read the key passages |
| 3. Treatment | Is it still good law? | A citator or your own search of citing cases |
| 4. Quotations and pin cites | Are the quotes exact and the pages right? | You |
| 5. Form | Bluebook or local citation rules | You, or your staff |
Running the first two passes on every draft, including the drafts that come back from a contract lawyer or out of a general-purpose AI tool, is the habit that keeps a fabricated case out of the record. Our 10-minute verification workflow shows how to fold it into a filing week.
What happens to the text you paste
CaseRead does not keep the text of your brief. Only counts (how many citations were found and how many were confirmed) are recorded. To run the check, the text and the extracted citations are sent to the services that do the work: the AI model that extracts the citations and reads each source against your sentence, and the law sources that are searched. You see the summary and the first few results right away; the full report unlocks with an email address. No account, no card, no password.
Still, treat it as you would any outside service: if a brief is under seal or carries information your client has not consented to share, redact before you paste.
How it compares with the incumbents' brief checkers
Westlaw and Lexis both sell brief analysis inside their subscriptions. Thomson Reuters' Quick Check reports warnings for cited authority, an analysis of quotations and suggested additional authority, and its configurator lists it in every Westlaw Edge plan. LexisNexis's Brief Analysis runs Shepard's on the cited authority, checks quotations against the court's language and flags erroneous citations; the LexisNexis store lists it in the Essential, Enhanced and Professional Lexis+ plans (all read October 26, 2026). Both come with their citators, which is a real advantage on treatment. If your firm already pays for one of them, use it. If you do not, or you want a second, independent screen on a draft that came out of an AI tool, a free check that tests both existence and support covers the two failures courts are sanctioning. We compare the full products, prices included, in Westlaw vs Lexis vs CaseRead pricing for solo attorneys and CoCounsel vs CaseRead.
The research behind the check
The same two checks run inside CaseRead itself. On Pro and Team, research answers cite the sources CaseRead's search actually returned, each linked to its text, and the Hallucination Shield checks the citations before you rely on them. CaseRead for Word puts the cite-check in a side panel beside the document you are drafting. But you do not need an account to check a brief today.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free citation checker for legal briefs? Yes. CaseRead's Hallucination Shield checks a pasted brief or an uploaded PDF or Word file for free, up to 50 citations per run and two runs a day, with no account. Each citation is looked up to confirm it exists, then read against the sentence it is cited for to check that it supports it. Anything it cannot confirm is flagged for you to review.
How do I verify case citations in a brief? Confirm three things for each authority: that it exists and is cited correctly, that it actually supports the proposition in your sentence, and that it is still good law. A citation checker handles the first two quickly; a citator or a search of later citing decisions handles the third. Then check quotations, pin cites and citation form by hand.
Can an AI citation checker tell if a case was overruled? Not CaseRead's free check. It confirms that a source exists and supports your sentence, but it does not analyze later treatment. Use KeyCite, Shepard's or a careful search of citing cases for that before you file.
Does a "not found" result mean the case is fake? No. It means the live lookup returned no match. The citation could be fabricated, but it could also be mis-cited, unpublished, very obscure, municipal, foreign or a secondary source. Review every not-found citation yourself before relying on it or raising it with the court.
Is my brief stored when I use the checker? CaseRead does not keep the text you paste; only aggregate counts are recorded. The text is sent to the services that run the check, the AI model and the law sources searched, so redact anything sealed or confidential that your client has not agreed to share.