AI can dramatically accelerate legal research orientation in family law. It cannot substitute for Westlaw, LexisNexis, or the current text of your state's statute. The research that appears in a memo to the attorney must be traceable, verifiable, and current — in your jurisdiction, not in the aggregate.
The three-layer research structure
Layer 1 — Primary sources. Your state's statute. Your state's appellate case law. Your state's rules of civil procedure and local court rules. The uniform acts your state has adopted (e.g., UCCJEA for jurisdiction in custody matters). This is the authority.
Layer 2 — Authoritative secondary sources. Your state bar's practice manuals. Treatises in your state. CLE materials. Judicial benchbooks where publicly available. This is how practitioners in your state actually apply the primary authority.
Layer 3 — Orientation tools. AI summaries. General legal websites. Non-jurisdiction-specific articles. This is vocabulary and framework — never the authority cited in a memo.
Layer Sort · 25 XP
Sort each source into its layer.
Click each to cycle: unknown → primary → secondary → orientation.
Memos cite from Layers 1 and 2, not Layer 3. AI lives entirely in Layer 3 — the orientation layer. If it gives you a statute, you open the statute. If it gives you a case, you open Westlaw. The memo is built from what you verified, not from what the AI summarized.
The research prompt that works
The single most valuable use of AI in legal research is as an orientation tool that gives you the vocabulary, concepts, and search terms to take into Westlaw or Lexis. The worst use is asking AI to produce a research memo directly — because the memo it produces may look right, read right, and be wrong in ways you cannot see without primary source verification.
Research Orientation Prompt · 15 XP
I am researching [issue] in [state] family law for a matter involving [brief factual framing]. Please help me with orientation only:
1. What are the key statutory provisions in [state] likely to govern this issue?
2. What are the specific terms of art and search phrases I should use in Westlaw/Lexis to find controlling case law?
3. What are the general analytical frameworks courts use for this type of issue?
4. What factual elements are likely to be pivotal?
I will verify every statute, case, and rule in primary sources before anything reaches the attorney. Do not provide case citations — I will find them in Westlaw.
Two features of this prompt: the explicit instruction to not produce citations (removes the hallucination surface) and the explicit instruction to verify in primary sources (reinforces the discipline in your own workflow).
Never trust AI-generated citations — verify every one
If you receive AI output that contains a case citation, a statute number, a rule reference, or a secondary source citation: you open that source in Westlaw, Lexis, the state code, or the official court rules, and you confirm it exists, is current, and says what the AI claims it says. Every time. No exceptions.
Scenario · 15 XP
An AI gives you this citation in a research summary. What's your next step?
Smith v. Smith, 385 N.C. 412, 891 S.E.2d 221 (2023) (holding that a unilateral change in the obligor's employment constitutes per se changed circumstances warranting child support modification).
Never ask one AI to verify another AI's output. Never include a citation in a memo the attorney will rely on without opening the source yourself. Citation hallucination in legal research is what produced the widely-publicized sanctions cases — and the verification step that prevents it takes sixty seconds per citation in Westlaw.