Ask about US law.
Get the passage, not a summary.
Gotham helps US lawyers research federal and state case law, the U.S. Code and federal regulations. Every answer cites the exact passage it relies on, so you can check it before you rely on it.
The operational problem
A fast answer is only useful if you can check it. US lawyers must know which court's decision binds them, whether a case is still good law, and whether a quoted line is a holding or a passing remark. Courts have sanctioned lawyers for filing briefs that cite cases which 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 who signs the work.
A defensible workflow, step by step
Frame the question
Set out the legal question, the jurisdiction, the court, the key facts and the relevant date.
Find the governing law
Identify the statutes, regulations and courts whose decisions bind on this question, federal or state.
Search and refine
Search by holding, statute, court or outcome. Keep a note of the searches that changed your view.
Check each authority
Open the cited passage. Confirm the case is binding or persuasive here and has not been reversed or overruled.
Write it up
Build a memo or note 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 filing.
What to evaluate before you buy
Coverage
Which federal and state courts, statutes and regulations are covered, and from what dates?
Citations you can check
Does every statement link to a real source and the exact passage 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, later decisions and reversals?
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 memo or brief 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 limited or overruled.
- Whether a circuit split, state variation or contrary authority changes the answer.
- Whether local rules or a judge's standing order add requirements for the filing.
- The final conclusion, the advice given and anything filed with 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 courts and 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.