Stop 7 of 8 · Weekly
Research with a source
Use Research mode to find out where to look on a state employment question, then verify in Westlaw, and never cite Claude for anything.
The question outside her three states
Elena practises in three states. Clients hire in more than three. Twice a month a question arrives about a state where she does not know which agency publishes the guidance, let alone what it says, and the first hour used to go on finding the map rather than reading it.
Research mode runs across many sources in the background and comes back in a few minutes with a report and clickable citations. What that saves is the hour of finding. It saves none of the reading.
What the report is and is not
| It is | It is not |
|---|---|
| A list of which statutes and agencies govern | An authority |
| A note of what changed recently | Confirmation that anything is current |
| A shortlist for Dev to pull | A cite check |
What Claude is never cited for
Four things, and they cover most of what goes wrong. The holding of a case. The current text of a statute or regulation. Whether an authority is still good law. Whether a clause is enforceable. Every one of those comes back from Westlaw or Lexis or it does not go in the memo, and what the memo cites is the case, the section or the citator result. Claude never appears in a citation, in a filing, in a client memo or in a letter.
Try this
Research the written non-compete rules for a private sector employee in [name the state]. Return: which statutes and regulations govern, what each one requires, any salary or role threshold, what changed in the last 24 months, and the official government page for each point. Mark every source as either official publication or secondary commentary. Do not summarise case law and do not tell me whether any particular agreement is enforceable.
From the report above, build the verification list for Dev. One row per item: the authority, the exact proposition it is being used for, the official source to pull it from, and whether it needs a currency check as well as a text check. Order it by how much the answer changes if the item turns out to be wrong. Mark none of them as confirmed.
Write the client memo using only the authorities on the cleared list attached, and only for the propositions written next to each one. Three sections: what the rule is, how it applies to the facts I have given you, and what I still need from the client. Set out the arguments on both sides where the answer is not settled and state no conclusion. Cite the statute section or the case, never this chat. [paste the cleared verification list and the facts]