Index/ Claude Skills/ Cite-Check: Authority Verification
Claude skill · the verification pipeline

Cite-Check — Authority Verification

How the cite-check skill verifies every authority in a filing against the Descrybe Legal Engine before it goes out. Four checks per cite: does it exist, is it cited right, is it still good law, and is the quote word-for-word accurate.

01

The pipeline

Every authority gets one of three verification paths — case, quote, or statute — then everything lands in one prioritized report.

InputFiling
Brief, demand, or motion.
STEP 1Extract
authorities
Pull every authority out of the target document, keeping every line location so fixes apply everywhere.
STEP 2Verify every
authority
Three paths, decided by what the authority is:
CASE find_case_from_reference → is it in Descrybe?
NO Flag NOT FOUND — fabricated or uncovered.
YES check_case_status (treatment, good law) → confirm the holding supports the proposition → is the caption / cite correct?
QUOTE verify_quote — word-for-word?
YES Verified.
NO Misquote — fix or paraphrase.
STATUTE search_laws_and_rules → confirm current text, watching renumbering and amendments.
STEP 3Report
One authority table plus prioritized action items.
STEP 4Fix the filing
Applied on approval, with an audit note for every correction.
02

Pipeline steps

STEP 1Extract
authorities
Pull every authority out, with line numbers.
  • Case citations — full cites, short-cites, and Id. / supra chains
  • Statutes and rules — C.R.S., U.S.C., C.R.C.P., regs
  • Quotations — every quoted string 20+ characters as a verify candidate
STEP 2Verify
cases
Resolve each case against Descrybe, then check whether it still stands.
  • Resolve — find_case_from_reference; flag caption, reporter, volume, page, court, and year mismatches
  • Treatment — check_case_status; drill forward cites on any caution or negative
  • Holding — confirm the case actually supports the proposition it’s cited for
STEP 3Verify quotes
& statutes
The language has to be exact. A real case cited for a holding it doesn’t contain is as dangerous as a fake one.
  • Quotes — verify_quote against the resolved case; correct or paraphrase on mismatch
  • Statutes — search_laws_and_rules; confirm current text, watch renumbering and amendments
STEP 4Report
& fix
One table, prioritized action items, applied on approval.
  • Authority table — doc cite vs. Descrybe cite, exists?, cite correct?, treatment, quote verified?
  • Action items ordered by risk — fabricated first, then wrong cite, negative treatment, misquotes
  • Fixes applied on approval, with an audit note for every correction
03

What it catches

This exists because AI-drafted and human-drafted filings both ship bad cites. One fabricated case can sink credibility with an arbitrator or judge.

CatchesBad
authority
• Fabricated / hallucinated cases
• Wrong reporter, volume, page, or year
• Truncated or garbled captions
• Overruled or negatively-treated authority
• Quotes that appear nowhere in the opinion
• Cases cited for a holding they don’t contain
RulesOperating
rules
• Never certify a cite you couldn’t verify
• “Not in Descrybe” ≠ “doesn’t exist” — escalate to a primary source
• Run independent checks in parallel; batch the case lookups
• Preserve an audit trail — record what was wrong and how it was verified
• Distinguish defense-win cases — fine to cite for a standard, say so
• Scale depth to stakes — full pass pre-filing, lighter pass for sanity checks
The ruleNever certify a cite you couldn’t verify. “Not in Descrybe” doesn’t mean “doesn’t exist” — but it also doesn’t mean “safe to file.” Every authority either resolves against primary law or gets flagged, escalated, and labeled binding vs. persuasive.