The Precedent
Precision legal research powered by AI for modern lawyers
What is The Precedent? Complete Overview
The Precedent is an advanced legal research platform designed to address the pain points lawyers face in finding obscure case law quickly and accurately. Founded by a lawyer who experienced firsthand the inefficiencies of traditional legal research tools, The Precedent leverages AI to understand legal language and streamline the research process. The platform provides access to over 4 million cases across federal circuits and selected state jurisdictions, offering faster research speeds and significant cost savings. Aimed at legal practitioners, The Precedent integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, delivering contextually relevant results, AI-generated summaries, and structured case analyses without requiring users to adapt to unfamiliar interfaces.
The Precedent Interface & Screenshots
The Precedent Official screenshot of the tool interface
What Can The Precedent Do? Key Features
Natural Search
The Precedent's natural language search engine allows lawyers to input fact patterns or legal questions in plain English, going beyond basic keyword matching to deliver contextually accurate answers. This feature understands complex legal queries and retrieves relevant cases without requiring specialized search syntax.
Relevant Results
Search results are ranked on a five-star relevance scale and include concise, citation-linked summaries for quick assessment. This helps lawyers quickly identify the most pertinent cases without having to read through entire documents, saving valuable research time.
AI Overview
Users can ask legal questions in plain English and receive concise answers backed by case law citations. Each response includes direct source links, highlighted holdings and reasoning, and a confidence indicator to help assess the strength of the legal authority.
Structured Summaries
Complex cases are distilled into ten clear sections covering issues, reasoning, arguments, and other key elements. This structured approach allows lawyers to grasp even lengthy judgments in minutes, significantly reducing research time while maintaining comprehension.
Trace It Back
Every summary includes direct links to the precise sections of the original judgment, allowing users to verify information and conduct deeper analysis when needed. This feature ensures transparency and builds confidence in the research results.
Case Folders
Coming soon, this feature will allow users to organize research in secure folders, collaborate with AI for document insights, and access integrated tools designed to streamline the legal research workflow.
Best The Precedent Use Cases & Applications
Pre-Trial Research
A litigator preparing for trial needs to find supporting case law for a motion. Using The Precedent, they quickly locate relevant precedents with similar fact patterns, review AI-generated summaries to assess applicability, and trace key holdings back to the original opinions for citation in their filings.
Legal Memorandum Drafting
An associate drafting a complex legal memo uses The Precedent to research multiple angles of a novel legal issue. The structured summaries help them quickly understand the reasoning in lengthy opinions, while the natural language search helps uncover obscure cases that traditional research might miss.
Case Strategy Development
A partner evaluating case strategy searches for unfavorable precedents the opposition might cite. The relevance ranking and confidence indicators help assess the strength of contrary authority, while the ability to trace sources ensures all references are accurate and properly contextualized.
How to Use The Precedent: Step-by-Step Guide
Start by typing your legal question or fact pattern into the natural language search bar. You can phrase your query in plain English just as you would explain it to a colleague.
Review the AI-generated overview that appears, which provides a concise answer to your question backed by relevant case law citations. Pay attention to the confidence indicator to assess the strength of the response.
Examine the ranked list of relevant cases, each with a star rating indicating relevance and a summary highlighting key points. Click on any case to see the structured summary with key sections clearly outlined.
Use the 'Trace It Back' feature to jump directly to relevant sections in the original case documents when you need to verify information or conduct deeper analysis.
Save relevant cases to your account for future reference. When the Case Folders feature launches, you'll be able to organize these into project-specific collections.
The Precedent Pros and Cons: Honest Review
Pros
Considerations
Is The Precedent Worth It? FAQ & Reviews
The Precedent currently supports the U.S. Supreme Court, all Federal Appellate Circuits, and federal, state, and bankruptcy courts in California, New York, and Missouri. We're expanding to include additional states to provide comprehensive nationwide coverage.
All AI outputs are limited to our verified database of court cases. Every result links back to the exact source paragraph through our snippets feature, ensuring transparency and confidence that responses are grounded in authentic legal documents.
The Precedent offers a free 30-day trial. After the trial, access continues through a $99/month subscription, making advanced legal research technology affordable for all lawyers.
The Precedent doesn't require uploading confidential files. Research is conducted through questions only, ensuring no sensitive data is shared or stored unnecessarily.
Our database is updated weekly with the most recent decisions. We continuously enhance our case sources to maintain a robust and reliable research platform.