All articlesHow to Check AI-Assisted Legal Research
Caleto · October 17, 2026
An answer that sounds polished can still leave a researcher with the hardest part of the task: establishing what is supported, what is missing, and what needs further investigation. A practical research workflow keeps the question, the evidence, and the reviewer’s conclusions separate.
Give the research question boundaries
Specify the jurisdiction, relevant date, factual assumptions, and type of material you need. A question about a current rule is different from a question about how a rule changed over time. A broad survey is different from advice on a particular matter.
Ask the tool to show uncertainty and gaps in the material it used. If the available documents do not answer the question, that limitation should be visible in the result.
Open the sources
Check important propositions against the underlying material. A linked citation is a starting point for verification, not proof that the statement is correct. Use a repeatable checklist:
Does the cited source exist, and is it the document the answer describes?
Does the specific passage support the proposition?
Is the source relevant to the jurisdiction, date, and facts of the question?
Is surrounding text or a qualification missing from the summary?
What additional authority or subsequent history needs to be checked?
Record the sources you actually reviewed. Keep a distinction between a tool-generated citation list and your verified research record.
Test for omissions as well as errors
A result can accurately summarize the documents it found while missing a material source. Compare the response with an independently prepared reference set for representative questions. Include examples with conflicting material, incomplete evidence, and questions that should produce a qualified answer.
For a product evaluation, track whether citations resolve, whether the cited text supports the answer, and which important sources were missed. Review the amount of human work needed to reach a dependable result.
Treat retrieved documents as evidence, not instructions
Documents and websites can contain text that attempts to redirect an AI system. OWASP describes this as an indirect prompt-injection risk and notes that retrieval-augmented generation does not fully prevent it. Restrict a research workflow’s access and actions accordingly; reading a document should not silently authorize unrelated operations.
Source: OWASP: Prompt Injection.
Keep the final assessment with the reviewer
Use AI to support locating, organizing, and comparing material, with a qualified reviewer deciding how the evidence applies to the work. Keep the original question and verified sources alongside the reviewed conclusion so another person can follow the reasoning.
When exploring Caleto, bring a permitted research example and the standards your team uses to assess it. Confirm source coverage, available workflows, and limitations during the demo. This article describes a review approach, not a guarantee of a particular research result.