Ask about UK law.
Get the passage, not a summary.
Gotham helps UK lawyers research judgments of the UK Supreme Court, the Privy Council and the courts and tribunals below them, with UK, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland legislation. Every answer cites the exact passage it relies on.
The operational problem
A fast answer is only useful if you can check it. UK lawyers must know which court's decision binds them, whether a case has been overruled or doubted, and whether a passage is part of the ratio. The High Court has warned lawyers about citing authorities that do not exist.
A research tool should make that checking faster, not skip it. It should show where each statement comes from, flag what it could not find, and leave the final judgment with the lawyer responsible for the work.
A defensible workflow, step by step
Frame the question
Set out the legal question, the jurisdiction (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland), the key facts and the relevant date.
Find the governing law
Identify the legislation in force on that date and the courts whose decisions bind on this question.
Search and refine
Search by principle, statute, court or outcome. Keep a note of the searches that changed your view.
Check each authority
Open the cited passage. Confirm the case binds here and has not been overruled, doubted or distinguished away.
Write it up
Build a research note or advice with a pinpoint citation for every statement, plus open questions and contrary authority.
Verify before use
A lawyer reads the authorities, confirms they are current and signs off before the research goes into advice or a skeleton argument.
What to evaluate before you buy
Coverage
Which courts, tribunals and legislation are covered, including Scotland and Northern Ireland, and from what dates?
Citations you can check
Does every statement link to a real source and the exact paragraph that supports it?
Binding or persuasive
Can you tell which decisions bind your court and which are only persuasive?
Currency
How does the tool show amendments to legislation and later decisions on a case?
Data location and retention
Where is your data stored, is it used to train models, and what do AI subprocessors keep?
Work in Word
Can you take the research into a note, advice or skeleton without retyping citations?
Where lawyer judgment remains essential
Gotham is a work product and decision-support system—not a substitute for professional judgment. Outputs should be reviewed by a qualified professional with the relevant matter context.
- How the question is framed and which facts are legally material.
- Whether an authority binds the court, is only persuasive, or has been overruled or doubted.
- Whether the answer differs in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
- Whether the legislation relied on was in force at the relevant date.
- The final conclusion, the advice given and anything put before a court.
Prove it in a bounded two-week pilot
Use representative work, a fixed baseline and named reviewers. The objective is not a polished demonstration; it is evidence about whether the workflow improves real work safely.
Design the pilot →Pilot scope
- One research question from a live or closed matter.
- The authorities a senior lawyer expects to see, and the review standard they apply.
- A fixed cut-off date and the jurisdictions in scope.
Measure
- Material authorities found and any citation that fails a check.
- Pinpoint support for each statement, and contrary authority surfaced.
- Time a reviewer spends correcting the work.