cocounsel-legal:citation-verification

Citation Verification

Validates legal citations by checking each against Westlaw's database for current status, negative treatment, and resolution accuracy. Works on citations from a completed Deep Research report or from user-supplied text.

Prerequisites

The cocounsel-legal MCP server must be connected. Verify it is available before starting verification. If the server is not connected, inform the user and stop.

When to Use

• After a Deep Research report is delivered and the user asks to verify citations before relying on them in a filing or memo
• When the user pastes a list of citations and asks "are these still good law?"
• When the user asks about the treatment of a specific case
• When preparing a brief or memo and the user wants a cite-check pass

When Not to Use

• Full-text document retrieval — suggest the traditional search box on Westlaw
• Finding new authority on a topic — use cocounsel-legal:deep-research
• Analytics on citation patterns — suggest Litigation Analytics on Westlaw

Communication Rules

• Never mention tool calls, internal identifiers, or implementation mechanics
• Report results in plain, professional language
• When a citation has negative treatment, clearly state what happened and when, without alarming language — the attorney decides significance

Record Fidelity

Every citation status reported by this skill must come from a Westlaw query via the CoCounsel Legal MCP server. Never report a citation's treatment status from model knowledge — model knowledge cannot reflect real-time KeyCite or Shepard's status.

Source attribution. Tag every verification result:

• [Westlaw verified] — status confirmed via MCP query
• [unresolved — verify manually] — query returned no result or an ambiguous match; do not guess the status

When a citation cannot be resolved. If the MCP server returns no match or an ambiguous result:

1. Report the citation as unresolved — do NOT infer status
2. Suggest the user check manually on Westlaw
3. Never downgrade a citation from "negative" to "good law" based on model knowledge — a stale override is worse than a false alarm

Verification Workflow

1. Gather citations

• If a Deep Research conversation is active (the user says "check those citations" or "verify the report"), extract all inline citations from the most recent answer_text.
• If the user pastes text or uploads a document, extract citations from the provided content.
• If the user names specific citations, use those directly.
• Parse each citation into its canonical form (e.g., "123 F.3d 456", "Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200").

2. Classify citations

Group extracted citations by type:

Type	Examples
Case law	Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 (9th Cir. 2020)
Statute	42 U.S.C. § 1983; Cal. Civ. Code § 1542
Regulation	17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5
Administrative	SEC No-Action Letter, FTC Advisory Opinion
Secondary	Restatement (Third) of Torts § 46

3. Verify each citation

For each citation, call the MCP server to check:

• Resolution: Does the citation resolve to a document in Westlaw?
• Status: For case law — is it good law, distinguished, questioned, or overruled? For statutes — is it current, amended, or repealed?
• Negative treatment: Any subsequent history that weakens the authority (reversed, vacated, superseded by statute, etc.)

Use legal_research_start_deep_research with a targeted verification query for each batch of citations (group by jurisdiction to stay within the 3-jurisdiction limit).

4. Present results

Output a verification table:

## Citation Verification Report

| # | Citation | Type | Status | Treatment | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | *Smith v. Jones*, 123 F.3d 456 (9th Cir. 2020) | Case law | ✅ Good law | Followed | — |
| 2 | *Doe v. Roe*, 456 F.2d 789 (5th Cir. 1998) | Case law | ⚠️ Caution | Distinguished by 3 courts | Review before citing |
| 3 | *State v. Black*, 789 P.2d 012 (Cal. 2015) | Case law | ❌ Overruled | Overruled by *White v. Green* (2022) | Do not cite as authority |
| 4 | Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 | Statute | ✅ Current | — | Amended 2023 — verify current text |

Status markers:

• ✅ Good law / Current — safe to cite
• ⚠️ Caution — cite with care, note the treatment
• ❌ Negative — overruled, reversed, repealed, or superseded
• ❓ Unresolved — could not verify against Westlaw

5. Summarize

After the table, provide:

• Total citations checked: N
• Good law: N
• Caution: N (list the citations)
• Negative: N (list with one-line explanation)
• Unresolved: N (list with reason)

6. Offer follow-ups

• "Want me to find replacement authority for the flagged citations?" (routes to cocounsel-legal:deep-research)
• "Want me to pull the full text of any of these from Westlaw?"
• "Want me to check additional citations?"