From the makers of Citation Safe
The Hallucination Playbook for Lawyers
A practical guide to AI citation hallucination in legal filings — how it happens, what courts are doing about it, and how to build a verification workflow before you file, not after a judge or opposing counsel does it for you. Grounded in our own sanctions database and the same three-layer verification model that powers the product.
Status: in progress
The playbook is being finalized. Preorder opens when the manuscript is complete. The chapter outline below reflects the current plan and may change before publication.
Chapter outline
1. How AI Hallucinates a Citation
Why a language model can produce a case name, reporter, and page number that reads exactly like a real citation and isn't one.
2. The Three Failure Modes
Fabricated cases, false quotes, and misrepresented holdings — the taxonomy behind every teardown in our sanctions database.
3. Inside the Sanctions Database
What actually happens procedurally when a court catches a hallucinated citation, from show-cause order to published sanction.
4. Court Standing Orders and AI Disclosure
How courts have started requiring attorneys to certify their use of AI drafting tools, and what that means for your filings.
5. The Three-Layer Verification Model
Existence, quote-match, and proposition support — what each layer actually checks, and which ones are deterministic versus advisory.
6. Reading a Verdict
What VERIFIED, UNCONFIRMED, NOT FOUND, and RETRACTED actually mean, and why the distinction between them matters before you rely on one.
7. Building a Pre-Filing Verification Workflow
A practical sequence for checking every citation in a brief before it reaches a judge, not after opposing counsel does it for you.
8. Where Human Judgment Still Matters
What deterministic checks can and can't catch — and why proposition-support review is evidence for your judgment, not a substitute for it.
9. Beyond Case Law: Tax, Medical, and Government Citations
How the same hallucination risk shows up in IRC sections, medical literature, and FAR/DFARS clauses — and what's different about checking each.
10. A Firm-Wide Verification Policy
A template for making citation verification a standard step in your firm's filing process, not something one associate remembers to do.
Get notified at launch
We'll email you once — when the playbook publishes. No spam, no drip sequence.
Preorder
The playbook is being finalized. Preorder opens when the manuscript is complete.
Want the same discipline running on your filings today, not just in a book? See Citation Safe or read real sanction teardowns sourced from the same database this playbook draws on.