Turns the full text of one judicial opinion into a structured working summary: posture, facts, issues, holding, reasoning, dicta. Reach for it when you pulled a case and need to know in five minutes whether it helps you.
[JURISDICTION] ·[ISSUE YOU ARE RESEARCHING] ·[FULL TEXT OF OPINION]
## Context
You are a legal research assistant working for a litigation attorney in [JURISDICTION]. The attorney needs a working summary of one judicial opinion. The full text is pasted below. Work only from that text. Do not add outside cases, facts, or law.
## Task
Summarize the opinion. Produce these sections in order:
1. Caption — case name, court, date, and citation as given in the pasted text.
2. Procedural posture — how the case reached this court, two sentences or fewer.
3. Facts — only the facts the court relied on. Five sentences maximum.
4. Issues — each legal question the court decided, stated as a question.
5. Holding — the answer to each issue, one sentence each, with a pointer to where in the pasted text the court states it.
6. Reasoning — the steps the court took to each holding. Name the authorities the court leaned on hardest.
7. Disposition — affirmed, reversed, remanded, or other.
8. Dicta and limits — statements an attorney might be tempted to cite that are not the holding. Concurrences or dissents and what they would change.
9. Relevance — two sentences on how the opinion bears on this question: [ISSUE YOU ARE RESEARCHING].
## Standards
- Quote holding language exactly. Mark every direct quote with quotation marks and its location in the pasted text.
- Label dicta as dicta. Do not promote passing remarks to holdings.
- Plain English. No opinion on whether the decision is right.
- If the pasted text is incomplete, or the opinion never addresses [ISSUE YOU ARE RESEARCHING], say so. Do not fill gaps.
If anything you need is missing, ask before answering.
[FULL TEXT OF OPINION]
BEFORE YOU RUN IT
- Full text of the opinion from Westlaw, Lexis, or the official reporter — not a headnote, syllabus, or blog summary.
- The issue you are researching, stated in one sentence.
- Jurisdiction and court level, so you can weigh the summary's relevance.
- Confidentiality: the opinion is public, but strip your client notes, matter names, and work-product annotations before pasting. Confirm your AI tool sits under your firm's confidentiality and bar guidance (see ABA Formal Op. 512 (2024)).
VERIFY BEFORE IT LEAVES YOUR HANDS
- Read the holding section against the opinion itself. Confirm every quoted phrase appears where the summary says it does, word for word.
- Confirm the summary added nothing: no facts, no authorities, no reasoning that is not in the pasted text. AI tools blend in remembered law from similar cases.
- Check the dicta labels. Would the issuing court treat the flagged language as binding? Misclassifying holding as dicta cuts both ways.
- Pull the case in Westlaw or Lexis and KeyCite or Shepardize it. Confirm it is still good law on your issue: not overruled, not superseded, no negative treatment.
- Verify every other case or statute the summary mentions. Each one must exist, say what the summary claims, and be current. Read it before you repeat it anywhere. Never cite authority you have not read — AI-invented citations are the leading malpractice risk with these tools.
- Confirm procedural posture and disposition against the opinion. AI tools transpose affirmed and reversed more often than you would expect.
- Confirm the citation format and reporter volume against the official source before the citation enters any draft.
Sample output
Sample output — AI-generated from sample inputs:
Caption: Meridian Supply Co. v. Calloway Logistics, Inc. (fictional intermediate appellate opinion, 2024).
Procedural posture: Calloway appealed a judgment awarding Meridian lost-profit damages after a jury trial. The trial court had held the contract's consequential damages waiver unenforceable.
Issue: Does a consequential damages waiver survive when the contract's limited repair-or-replace remedy fails of its essential purpose?
Holding: Yes. "The failure of a limited remedy does not, by itself, invalidate a separately bargained waiver of consequential damages." (Section II.B of pasted text.) The waiver falls only if unconscionable.
Reasoning: The court read the two clauses as independent risk allocations between merchants. It relied most heavily on the comment to the pasted UCC provision and on its own prior decision quoted in Section II.A.
Disposition: Reversed and remanded for recalculation of damages.
Dicta and limits: The court noted a different result "might follow" for a consumer buyer. That is dicta — both parties here were merchants. One judge concurred separately to urge a case-by-case approach; that view did not carry.
Relevance: Supports enforcing your client's waiver even though the repair remedy failed, provided your buyer is a merchant and the waiver was separately negotiated.
CUSTOMIZATION Works on administrative decisions, arbitration awards, and trial court orders — swap the section list to match (an agency decision needs standard of review and deference posture). For appellate brief work, add a section pulling the standard of review the court applied. If you summarize many cases on one issue, run this per case, then feed the outputs to the line-of-cases synthesis prompt.
Line of cases — synthesize the rule
Takes three to six opinions you have already pulled and read, and maps how the rule developed: governing standard, case-by-case chart, conflicts, and gaps. Use it when you have the cases but need the through-line for a brief or memo.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Adverse authority — distinguish-or-confront workup
Builds an honest workup of a case that hurts you: the holding at full strength, the facts it turns on, and ranked candidate distinctions tied to your client's facts. Use it before you draft the section of the brief that deals with the bad case.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Issue-spots an NDA from your client's side: definition scope, exclusions, term, residuals, hidden riders, remedies. Use it to get a structured findings list before your own read, on the most common agreement that crosses a solo desk.
[CLIENT NAME] ·[DISCLOSING PARTY / RECEIVING PARTY / BOTH] ·[PURPOSE OF DISCLOSURE] ·[GOVERNING LAW] ·[NDA TEXT]
## Context
You are a contracts attorney's first-pass reviewer. The client is [CLIENT NAME], the [DISCLOSING PARTY / RECEIVING PARTY / BOTH] under the NDA pasted below. Purpose of the disclosure: [PURPOSE OF DISCLOSURE]. Review from the client's side only.
## Task
Issue-spot the NDA. Produce a numbered list of findings, most serious first. For each finding: the clause (quote the operative language), the problem for this client in one or two sentences, and a suggested fix in one sentence. Check at minimum:
- Definition of confidential information — too broad or too narrow for the client's role; marking requirements the client will not follow in practice.
- Term and survival — duration of obligations; whether trade secrets survive separately.
- Standard exclusions — independently developed, publicly available, rightfully received, already known. A missing exclusion is a finding.
- Permitted disclosures — legal compulsion, advisors, affiliates; notice-and-cooperation duties.
- Use restrictions versus disclosure restrictions — can the receiving party use the information beyond the stated purpose?
- Residuals clause — flag it loudly if the client is the discloser.
- Remedies — injunctive relief language, fee-shifting, any liability cap that guts the agreement.
- Return-or-destroy obligations and certification.
- Non-solicitation or non-compete riders hiding inside the NDA.
- Governing law, venue, and assignment.
Close with a three-sentence overall read: sign, negotiate, or rewrite.
## Standards
- Quote clause language. Do not paraphrase what a clause "probably means."
- Flag silence the same as bad language.
- No findings about clauses that do not exist in the pasted text.
- No statutory or case citations. If enforceability turns on state law, write "verify under [GOVERNING LAW]" and stop.
- This is a first pass for an attorney, not advice to the client.
If the client's role or the purpose is unclear from what I gave you, ask before reviewing.
[NDA TEXT]
BEFORE YOU RUN IT
- The complete NDA text, including exhibits. A review of half the document is worse than none.
- Which side your client sits on, and the business purpose of the disclosure in one sentence.
- Confidentiality: replace party names with placeholders, or confirm your AI tool sits under your firm's confidentiality and bar guidance before pasting client agreements (ABA Formal Op. 512 (2024) covers the duty).
- Any deal facts that change the stakes — active development in the same space, prior dealings, whether employees will be exposed to the information.
VERIFY BEFORE IT LEAVES YOUR HANDS
- Read the full NDA yourself. This output is a checklist for your read, not a replacement. Confirm every quoted clause appears in the document, verbatim and in the cited section.
- Confirm the findings match the client's side. Side-confusion is this prompt's most common failure — a residuals flag aimed at the wrong party inverts the advice.
- Check the silence findings: search the document yourself for each 'missing' exclusion or term before telling the client it is absent. AI misses clauses living in definitions or exhibits.
- Re-read sections the output did not flag. First-pass tools anchor on common clauses and skim bespoke ones, which is where the trap usually sits.
- If the output cites any statute, case, or regulation despite the instruction not to, verify it in Westlaw, Lexis, or the official code before repeating it: confirm it exists, says what the output claims, and is current. Never cite authority you have not read — AI invents citations.
- Confirm any enforceability flag (non-solicit duration, fee-shifting) against current law of the governing state before you advise — verified in a primary source, not from memory.
- Confirm the 'overall read' against your own judgment of the client's leverage and risk tolerance — the model does not know either.
Sample output
Sample output — AI-generated from sample inputs:
Findings — Meridian Supply Co. as receiving party:
1. Definition of confidential information (Section 1). "Any information disclosed by Discloser, whether or not marked." No marking requirement, no specificity. Meridian cannot tell what is covered, so every conversation becomes a potential breach. Fix: limit to information marked confidential, or identified as confidential in writing within 30 days.
2. Missing exclusion — independent development (Section 2). The draft lists public-knowledge and rightful-receipt exclusions but omits independent development. Meridian's product team works in the same space; without it, parallel work looks like misuse. Fix: add the exclusion with a documentation requirement.
3. Term (Section 5). Obligations survive "in perpetuity." Perpetual duties on unmarked information are a compliance trap. Fix: three years from disclosure; trade secrets protected as long as they qualify under applicable law.
4. Non-solicitation rider (Section 8). A two-year employee non-solicit is buried in a confidentiality agreement and exceeds the stated purpose. Fix: strike it, or carve out general solicitations not targeted at Discloser's employees.
5. Venue (Section 11). Exclusive venue in Discloser's home county. Fix: client's state, or mutual.
Overall read: negotiate. The skeleton is standard, but findings 1 and 2 are unacceptable for a receiving party with an active development team. Findings 3 through 5 are trade material.
CUSTOMIZATION Set the side carefully — discloser and receiver reviews are near opposites, and a mutual NDA needs both lenses. For M&A diligence NDAs, add standstill, non-circumvention, and clean-team checks to the Task list. For employee-facing NDAs, add a check for whistleblower and trade-secret-notice carve-outs required in some jurisdictions, and verify those requirements under current law before relying on the flag.
First-pass contract review — services agreement
Issue-spots a services or master services agreement by risk area: scope, money, exit, indemnity and caps, IP. Use it on MSAs, consulting agreements, and vendor contracts before your own read.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT First-pass contract review — commercial lease
Issue-spots a commercial lease from the tenant's or landlord's side, dollar-quantifying where the lease gives numbers: rent mechanics, CAM, repairs, assignment, default, guaranty. Use it before your own read of any retail, office, or industrial lease.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT First-pass contract review — executive employment agreement
Issue-spots an executive employment agreement, centered on the definitions that decide everything: cause, good reason, severance triggers, restrictive covenants. Use it from either the employer's or the executive's side before your own read.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT First-pass contract review — SaaS subscription
Issue-spots a SaaS agreement from the customer's side: data ownership and vendor AI-training rights, uptime remedies, liability caps, auto-renewal traps, URL-incorporated terms. Use it on any software subscription a client asks you to bless.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Redline explained — client email draft
Drafts a plain-English client email explaining the counterparty's redline: what changed, what it costs, accept or push back. Use it when the client needs to make decisions on a markup they cannot read.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Redline materiality memo — fight, trade, accept
Sorts a counterparty's redline into three tiers — fight, trade, accept — with quoted language, effects, and a response sequence. This is your internal negotiation map before you answer a markup.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Redline integrity check — find unmarked changes
Compares the draft you sent against the full text the counterparty returned and lists every difference — then flags differences their marked redline did not show. Use it whenever a returned 'redline' must be trusted before you respond.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Risk-rank a contract against the client playbook
Scores a counterparty's draft clause by clause against your client's negotiating playbook — meets preferred, within fallback, below fallback, walk-away, or silent — then ranks the gaps by business risk. Use it to turn a 40-page draft into a negotiation agenda.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT All 152 prompts in this library are free with a VetsLearn account: every prompt, every checklist, synced to your account.
Unlock free with an account → Build a client negotiating playbook from past deals
Drafts a clause-by-clause playbook — preferred, fallback, walk-away, rationale — from a client's past signed agreements and stated risk preferences, marking which positions are stated, observed, or inferred. Use it to turn negotiation history into a reusable standard.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Deposition question bank — fact witness
Builds a module-by-module question bank for deposing a percipient fact witness. Reach for it after you have the witness's documents and statements but before you outline the deposition.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Deposition question bank — adverse party
Builds a question bank aimed at extracting admissions from the opposing party and locking them into their pleadings and discovery responses. Use it once you have their interrogatory answers and document production.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Deposition question bank — opposing expert
Builds a cross-style question bank for deposing the other side's retained expert, organized around qualifications, methodology, bases, and reliability-standard hooks. Use it after you have the expert's report and disclosure.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Deposition question bank — Rule 30(b)(6) corporate designee
Builds a question bank for a corporate designee deposition, organized by notice topic, with binding-the-entity and preparation-diligence sequences. Use it after the notice topics are set and any objections are resolved.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Deposition question bank — treating physician
Builds a question bank for deposing a treating physician, separating records-based treatment testimony from causation opinions and policing the treating-versus-retained line. Use it once the medical records and any disclosure are in hand.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Turns a pasted statute into a structured plain-language summary: elements, deadlines, penalties, cross-references, and undefined terms. Reach for it the first time you read an unfamiliar statute on a live matter.
[STATUTE CITATION] ·[JURISDICTION] ·[MATTER CONTEXT OR CLIENT QUESTION] ·[PASTE FULL STATUTE TEXT]
## Context
You are helping a solo attorney read a statute fast. I will paste the full statute text below. Work only from the pasted text. Do not pull statutory language, case law, or interpretations from memory. Do not cite any case, statute, or regulation I did not paste.
Statute citation: [STATUTE CITATION]
Jurisdiction: [JURISDICTION]
Why I am reading it: [MATTER CONTEXT OR CLIENT QUESTION]
Full text: [PASTE FULL STATUTE TEXT]
## Task
Produce a plain-language summary with these numbered sections:
1. One-sentence answer — what this statute does.
2. Who it covers and who it exempts, per the text.
3. Elements or requirements, numbered. For each, quote the exact statutory language, then restate it in plain words beside the quote.
4. Deadlines and time limits, with what starts each clock.
5. Penalties, remedies, and who can enforce.
6. Cross-references — every other section, statute, or regulation the text mentions, listed for me to pull separately.
7. Open questions — terms the statute uses but does not define, and any language that could read more than one way, marked "ambiguous; needs case law."
## Standards
- Quote the statute exactly wherever word choice could matter. Plain-language restatements sit next to quotes; they never replace them.
- Flag every defined term and point to where the definition lives, if the paste includes it.
- Take no position on how courts have read ambiguous language. You have no case law in front of you.
- If the pasted text looks incomplete, cut off, or internally inconsistent, say so and stop rather than summarize a fragment.
BEFORE YOU RUN IT
- The full current text of the statute, copied from Westlaw, Lexis, or the official code — not from a secondary site
- Confirmation you copied the version in force on the date that matters to your matter
- The definitions section if your statute relies on one — paste it too
- Your one-line reason for reading it, so the summary points at your question
- If the matter context identifies a client, generalize it, or confirm your AI tool sits under your firm's confidentiality and bar guidance (see ABA Formal Op. 512)
VERIFY BEFORE IT LEAVES YOUR HANDS
- Compare every quoted phrase in the summary against your pasted text character for character — AI sometimes 'corrects' statutory language silently
- Confirm in Westlaw, Lexis, or the official code that you pasted the current version: check effective dates, pending amendments, and session laws. A summary of a superseded version is worse than no summary
- Pull and read every cross-reference in section 6 yourself before relying on the summary's account of the main statute — exemptions often hide there
- Treat section 7's ambiguity flags as a research list: run the disputed terms through case law in Westlaw or Lexis. Never act on the AI's plain-language gloss of an ambiguous term
- If the output cites anything you did not paste, strike it — then verify your suspicion that it was invented. Never use a citation you have not read in the reporter or code itself
- Check the deadline section against the text twice; off-by-one readings of 'within' and 'after' clauses are a known AI failure
Sample output
Sample output — AI-generated from sample inputs (a pasted state residential security-deposit statute):
1. One-sentence answer. This statute gives a landlord 30 days after the tenancy ends to return a residential security deposit or send an itemized list of deductions, and makes a landlord who misses the deadline liable for double the deposit plus attorney's fees.
3. Elements — landlord's return duty.
(a) Tenancy ends. Text: "upon termination of the tenancy." Plain restatement: the clock starts when the tenancy ends, not when keys come back. "Termination" is not defined here — see section 7.
(b) Thirty days. Text: "within thirty days thereafter." Plain restatement: day one is the day after termination; the duty must be complete by day 30.
(c) Return or itemize. Text: "return the deposit or deliver a written, itemized statement of deductions." Plain restatement: the landlord picks one; partial return requires the itemized statement for the rest.
6. Cross-references to pull separately: § 44-7-2 (definitions); § 44-7-34(b) (exemption for owner-occupied buildings of four or fewer units); § 44-7-49 (court costs).
7. Open questions: "normal wear and tear" is used but not defined. "Deliver" could mean mail or receipt — ambiguous; needs case law.
CUSTOMIZATION Works for any code section — swap the section list for criminal statutes (elements, mental state, grading, defenses) or tax provisions (triggering event, computation, exceptions). For multi-section schemes, run it once per section, then ask for a combined map. Add your state's effective-date conventions to Standards if your legislature uses delayed effective dates.
Regulation plain-language summary — compliance obligations table
Converts a pasted regulation into an obligations table sorted by actor, deadline, and penalty, aimed at a specific client business. Use it when a client asks "what does this rule make me do."
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Statute amendment comparison — which version governs
Compares the prior and current versions of a statute you paste and maps every change against your matter's timeline. Use it when an amendment lands mid-dispute and you need to know which text governs.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Legislative history orientation — source map and research plan
Produces a research plan for a statute's legislative history: which source types exist in your jurisdiction, where the official copies live, and what each might say about your disputed term. Use it before you spend an afternoon in the archives, not instead of it.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Committee report digest — pasted legislative materials
Digests legislative history documents you paste — committee reports, bill analyses, sponsor statements — for material on your disputed term, with pin quotes and harmful passages flagged. Use it after you have pulled the actual documents.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT All 152 prompts in this library are free with a VetsLearn account: every prompt, every checklist, synced to your account.
Unlock free with an account → Secondary-source synthesis — starting map from pasted excerpts
Synthesizes pasted treatise, ALR, and practice-guide excerpts into a map of the doctrine: rules as the sources state them, splits, and a verified-authority pull list. A starting map only — nothing in it is authority.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT Unfamiliar practice area orientation — vocabulary and research plan
Produces an orientation memo when a matter pulls you into a practice area you do not know: the vocabulary, the typical analytical structure, the malpractice traps, and a research plan with every legal claim flagged for verification. A map for your first day, not a substitute for the research.
FREE WITH ACCOUNT All 152 prompts in this library are free with a VetsLearn account: every prompt, every checklist, synced to your account.
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