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CasePrompts

The CITE method

A good prompt is an assignment memo.

You already know how to do this. No partner hands an associate a 400-page transcript and says "summarize this." They say: "Two-page memo on every opinion Dr. Smith offered on causation, page-line cites, flag anything inconsistent with his report, by Thursday for the MSJ."

That is an expert prompt. It names the matter, scopes the task, dictates the deliverable, and demands citations. The reason most AI output on case materials is mediocre isn't the tool — it's that "summarize this" is the instruction a partner would never give a human, given to a machine.

The CITE method is that briefing skill, written down: Context, Instructions, Template, Evidence. Four blocks, every time, whatever the tool — Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Rev, Filevine, CoCounsel, or whatever ships next.

CITE, letter by letter

C — Context

Brief the AI like you'd brief a new associate on the matter.

Before

Summarize this deposition.

After

You are assisting defense counsel in a trucking liability matter. The attached document is the certified deposition transcript of the plaintiff driver. The issues that matter are speed at impact and cell phone use.

The AI now knows whose work product this is, what the document is, and what matters — so it reads the transcript the way your side reads it.

I — Instructions

Say exactly what you need — scoped, decomposed.

Before

Find the important parts.

After

Extract every admission, every agreement with examining counsel, and every claimed lapse of memory on the key issues. Capture the full question-and-answer exchange for each, not the answer alone.

"Important" is a judgment call you haven't delegated criteria for. Numbered, scoped instructions are the criteria.

T — Template

Hand over the container; the AI fills whatever format you dictate.

Before

Organize it clearly.

After

Produce a table per issue with columns: # · Type (admission / agreement / no-recall) · Verbatim Q&A · Cite · Why it matters (one sentence). Close with the top five exchanges, ranked.

An output skeleton is the difference between a memo you can use and prose you have to re-process.

E — Evidence

Demand cites, demand verbatim quotes, and demand "not found in the record" instead of a guess.

Before

(nothing — most prompts simply omit this)

After

For every finding, cite page and line in the form page:line and quote the testimony verbatim. If you find no qualifying testimony on an issue, write "not found in the record." Never infer.

This is the anti-hallucination clause. It converts "trust me" output into output you can verify in minutes.

The six jobs the library covers

Litigation work with a record reduces, again and again, to six tasks. Each template in the library is one of them, pre-briefed:

  • Extract key testimony — with the CITE structure and citation discipline built in
  • Build a chronology — with the CITE structure and citation discipline built in
  • Find contradictions — with the CITE structure and citation discipline built in
  • Summarize the record — with the CITE structure and citation discipline built in
  • Draft from the record — with the CITE structure and citation discipline built in
  • Interrogate the file — set standing rules once, then ask the file questions all matter long

Verification is the practice

One principle covers it: AI output is a starting point, not work product. You are responsible for verifying every citation against the record before you rely on it, file it, or send it — the same duty you'd apply to a first-year's memo, applied to a much faster first-year. The Evidence block exists to make that verification fast: when every finding carries a page:line cite and a verbatim quote, checking it takes minutes, not hours.

And know your firm's AI policy before uploading case materials anywhere. This site never touches your documents — it only writes the instructions you'll paste into the tool your firm has approved.

Take the prompt pack with you

The full CITE prompt pack — every published template, formatted to print and keep at the desk — delivered by email.