# Grounding citations in a draft

## Run it

Open the document you are drafting. In the toolbar above the editor, at the
right-hand end beside **Export .docx** and **Translate this document**, is
**Ground citations** — a book icon whose hover help reads *Ground citations
against CourtListener and this matter's corpus*.

While it runs the button is disabled and a line under the toolbar says
*Grounding citations against CourtListener and this matter's corpus…*

When it finishes, the surface says how many citations were grounded — for
example *Grounded 4 citation(s) against CourtListener + the matter corpus.* —
and a panel appears under the toolbar. If you edit the draft after a run, press
**Ground citations** again; the panel then shows the matches for the text that
is currently in the editor.

## What it checks against

Grounding reads the **live text of the editor** — what is on screen right now,
including edits you have not saved — and looks for supporting authority in two
places:

- **CourtListener**, the public case-law database.
- **The matter's own corpus**, meaning the documents that have been uploaded
  and indexed into this matter.

Each result carries a tag saying which of the two it came from, so you can tell
at a glance whether a line is supported by reported case law or by something in
the firm's own file for this matter.

## Read the results

The panel is headed **Grounded authority (N)**. Each entry shows:

- The name — a case name for case law, or the filename for something from the
  matter corpus.
- A small tag naming the source it came from.
- The citation text, and the year in brackets where one is known.
- A link, where the source provides one. Following it leaves the app.
- A line reading *supports: …*, naming the proposition in your draft that the
  authority was matched to.

If nothing is matched, the panel says so plainly: *No supporting authority
found for the current text*.

## How to read an empty or thin result

An empty panel means nothing was matched against those two sources for the text
as it currently stands. It is not a verdict on your citations. Common reasons a
run comes back thin:

- The draft is still an outline, or the propositions are stated without
  citation language for the search to work from.
- The relevant authority is not in CourtListener and has not been uploaded into
  this matter.
- You ran it on a short passage rather than the finished section.

The useful move is usually to draft the passage further, or add the source
document to the matter, and run it again.

## If it fails

A failure is shown on the document as an error line rather than an empty panel,
so you can tell "nothing found" apart from "the check did not run". Try again;
if it keeps failing, say so in the composer and quote the message.

## Where the control is not available

**Ground citations** appears only for a document you are editing as text. It is
not offered for a document brought in with **Received file…** — that document
opens in its own editor and returns as the sender's own file.

## What grounding does not do

- It does not change your document. Nothing is inserted, reformatted, or
  footnoted; the panel is a reading, not an edit.
- It does not create or save a version. **Save version** remains the only thing
  that commits your text — the editor says the same of any text the assistant
  places for you.
- It does not report negative treatment. A result means supporting authority
  was matched, not that the case is still good law — checking subsequent
  history remains your own step.
- It does not tell you a citation in your draft is wrong or invented. A
  proposition absent from the panel is an unmatched proposition, not a flagged
  error.