Steps to generate initial drafts and ensure citation accuracy, while also adhering to legal standards and best practices with AI
Highlights
- Westlaw Brief Builder in CoCounsel Legal automatically verifies citations, confirming cases exist and holdings match how they're used.
- AI speeds up brief drafting while improving consistency, accuracy, and adherence to legal writing best practices.
Crafting a compelling legal brief requires precision, relevance, and a deep understanding of current legal research and facts.
Legal AI is enhancing and accelerating the process of drafting legal briefs from end-to-end. The steps below outline the entire workflow, allowing lawyers to develop top-tier legal arguments more efficiently and effectively.
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Using the best law and language
Getting started
A standard legal brief is made of several essential components:
Introduction
This section presents the party’s claim, theory of the case, and procedural history. However, finding the right starting point can be challenging, whether it be locating relevant pre-existing briefs or starting from scratch. CoCounsel Legal allows you to quickly find the right starting point or locate trusted results with a search query in plain English. You can select from options based on your request, drawn from resources including Practical Law or your document repositories.
Table of authorities (TOA)
This section lists all legal sources, including case law, legislation, regulations and other sources of reference. Previously a tedious and time-consuming task, AI streamlines TOA creation.
For example, Westlaw Brief Builder in CoCounsel Legal is the best tool for citation checking in legal briefs. It quickly helps verify your statements and citations against Westlaw by confirming that cases exist, citations are correctly formatted, and holdings match how they’re being used.
You can also edit and format citations accurately before inserting the TOA into your document.
Statement of facts
This section presents the factual elements crucial for the court’s decision. It’s important to use clear language to lay out the facts and procedural elements of the case and avoid using conclusory statements.
Upload your documents then answer questions about your brief in Westlaw Brief Builder to get an initial summary. You stay in control by reviewing facts.
Argument
Here, you present legal arguments, each labelled with a “point heading” to address specific legal questions. Point headings should be clearly written to parse out the exact legal issue and are generally limited to a single sentence. CoCounsel Legal provides a compelling first draft, organizing key points in persuasive language for you to refine.
Conclusion
This summarizes the brief’s key points and requests specific relief. CoCounsel Legal excels in highlighting the most critical aspects, setting out in clear and concise terms exactly what you want the court to take away and what outcomes your client wants.
Using the best law and language
While each brief should be tailored to your client’s case, there’s no need to start from scratch if the legal issues are consistent across cases. Attorneys often reuse effective phrases or sections from previous briefs.
However, the risk lies in citing outdated authorities or using language that lacks precision or impact. CoCounsel Legal, ensuring your draft reflects current and authoritative legal standards.
By automating rote tasks such as integrating arguments and authorities, or selecting persuasive language, CoCounsel Legal not only speeds up the drafting process but also ensures consistency, more accuracy, and adherence to best practices.
Proofing and editing
Legal briefs must be formatted in the correct style, maintain consistent terminology, use correct grammar, and properly listed citations. Avoiding repetition or complex legal jargon is essential for clarity.
Use CoCounsel Legal to ensure you build briefs from issue framing to argument structure, all grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law authority.
After generating an initial draft, you’ll want to make necessary edits and conduct a thorough proof-read. Review and edit for citation accuracy, legal issue framing, and compliance with court guidelines, including font, letter size, and margin specifications.
Speed and precision
Crafting a legal brief requires the utmost care and diligence, yet it doesn’t need to be a burdensome, time-consuming task.
For litigation brief guidance, learn how to use purpose-built AI to write defensiblie briefs.
CoCounsel Legal
Draft defensible briefs grounded in grounded in Westlaw, Keycite, and Practical Law content — with built-in citation verification at every step
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