Why AI Changes Legal Citation Research

Traditional legal research involves querying databases like Westlaw or LexisNexis with Boolean operators, then manually reviewing dozens of results. AI introduces a fundamentally different approach: you describe the legal issue in natural language, and the model helps you identify relevant authorities, suggest search strategies, and organize findings by relevance.

Critical caveat: AI models can and do fabricate citations. The workflow below treats AI as a research *accelerator*, not a research *replacement*. Every citation must be verified in an authoritative database.

The Citation Discovery Framework

Step 1: Issue Framing Prompt

I'm researching [specific legal issue] in [jurisdiction]. The key facts are:
- [Fact 1]
- [Fact 2]
- [Fact 3]