The Question Method of Legal Research Interactive Legal Research Modules
← All chapters

Chapter 15: GenAI and Legal Research

Using generative and AI-assisted tools without abdicating judgment — their strengths, failure modes like hallucinated citations, and a verification workflow.

Orientation

Explore the concepts from this chapter

How the Machine Guesses

Feel prediction-without-retrieval: build a sentence one likely token at a time, watch the same mechanism assemble a perfect-looking fictional citation, walk the four-step framework, and sort what these tools can and cannot do.

Practice

Apply what you’ve learned

Verify the AI’s Work

A fluent AI answer with six citations — two solid, one disapproved, one real but cited for its opposite, two that do not exist. Run the four-step framework against the same closed database from Chapter 10, then decide how much of the answer survives.

Right Tool, Right Question

Ten research tasks — for each, the best-fit tool: terms-and-connectors, database-integrated AI, general-purpose AI with verification, or no AI at all. Every option’s reasoning is shown.