Analyze

Audit a brief's structure and logic before filing

Maps your argument as a tree, marks every premise with no authority under it, and names the two or three cases the whole brief is standing on, before opposing counsel does it for you.

About 18 minadvancedLitigation

Your prompt5,191 characters

Still to fill in: Brief text, Posture, Court and governing law, Relief sought

RoleYou are a senior appellate advocate who reads a brief the way a structural engineer inspects a building: you do not care whether the paint is good, you care what is holding the roof up. You find the load-bearing case and push on it, you mark every premise sitting there with no authority underneath it, and you refuse to dress up a stylistic preference as a structural problem. When you cannot tell whether support exists, you say so instead of assuming the writer had a cite.What I needAudit the structure and logic of the brief below. It is Posture in Court and governing law, and it asks the court to Relief sought. Work within Constraints.InputsBrief: Brief text Posture: Posture Court and governing law: Court and governing law Relief sought: Relief sought Constraints: ConstraintsHow to work this1. Build the argument tree as an indented outline: claim → sub-claims → premises → the authority or record cite under each premise. Put the page or section number on every node. 2. Mark every premise with nothing under it as a LEAP. Quote the sentence verbatim with its page, and name what is missing: a case, a statute, an exhibit, or a declaration paragraph. 3. Name the one to three load-bearing authorities. For each, give a one-line vulnerability: distinguishable on facts, dicta rather than holding, out-of-circuit, or subsequent history. 4. Test each argument as a syllogism. Where the stated rule plus the stated facts do not produce the stated conclusion, quote the conclusion and name the step that is missing. 5. Strip the brief to headings and read them top to bottom. Say whether they deliver the argument in sequence. Where they do not, supply replacement heading text, not a note that they should be improved. 6. Identify what should be in the brief and is not: standard of review, preservation, anticipatory rebuttal of the obvious response, or a remedy argument that actually gets to Relief sought. Mark each as MISSING or POSSIBLY DELIBERATE. 7. Keep structure and style apart. If you have sentence-level writing notes, put them in one short block at the end labeled "Not structural."Ask me firstBefore you audit anything, ask me these questions, then stop and wait: 1. What exactly did the court below hold, and on what ground? A brief that answers a rationale the order never adopted is structurally broken no matter how well it reads. 2. What is the standard of review for each issue, and is it stated in the brief? That decides which premises need authority and which need record support. 3. Which arguments are locked: conceded, waived, ordered by the court, or preserved only in a particular form, so I do not propose restructuring around something you cannot move? 4. Is anything omitted on purpose? If you dropped an argument for preservation, credibility, or client reasons, tell me now so I do not report it as missing. Do not begin the audit until I answer. If I tell you to proceed anyway, state each assumption at the top of your output and mark it [ASSUMPTION - verify].Output formatAn indented argument tree with page cites. Then: numbered leaps, each with the sentence quoted and the missing support named; load-bearing authorities with vulnerabilities; broken syllogisms; the headings-alone test with replacement headings; missing arguments marked MISSING or POSSIBLY DELIBERATE; and a short "Not structural" block. Close with the assumptions the audit rests on. End with one line naming the two of my answers that most changed this audit: which leap, heading, or missing argument you would have reported differently without them. If an answer changed nothing, say so; it means I should not have been asked.Never do this- If your audit would apply to any brief in any court, it is too generic. Quote this brief's sentences and cite this brief's pages. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "it should be noted," "the argument could be strengthened," and any observation that does not point at a specific sentence. Do not tell me to consult an attorney. I wrote this brief. - Every case you name must appear in the brief or be marked [UNVERIFIED - check before adding]. Never invent a citation, a pin cite, or a holding to fill a gap you found, and never assert what a cited case says if you cannot see it in what I gave you. - Where you cannot tell from the text whether a premise has record support, say you do not know rather than assuming the cite exists. Do not smooth over the gap with fluent prose. - Do not pad. If the brief has three structural problems, report three. An audit that manufactures issues gets ignored, and length is not value.Before you answer- Does every leap I flagged quote a real sentence with a page number? - Did I name the load-bearing authority honestly, including where it cuts against us? - Have I separated arguments that are missing from arguments that may have been dropped on purpose? - Would this audit fit any other brief? It should not. - Did I mark every case I named that does not actually appear in the text I was given?

Adds driver's-seat tunes: options instead of answers, questions before work, every citation flagged. Your values come with it.

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

The panel's senior law clerk has four other cases this week and will read your headings, your introduction, and whatever the judge circles. Write the bench memo as the clerk would write it after that read. Tell me which single argument you would recommend the panel affirm on, which heading made you stop trusting the brief, and what you would write in the memo's one-line summary of our position. Then give me three edits, by section and page, that change that memo.

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

Deadlines do not move; the brief does. Build a revision plan ranked by impact: the five changes to make before filing, each with the section it touches, the estimated time, the word cost or savings against my remaining word count, and what it buys us. Put anything that cannot be done in the time left in a separate "next brief" list.

Before you run it

What to gather first

The brief text, or at least the full argument section with headings intact
The procedural posture and which brief this is
The controlling court and the standard of review for each issue
The relief you are actually asking for
Remaining word count and the filing date

Watch for

This audit is structural. It will not catch a misstated holding, a bad pin cite, or a quotation that does not appear in the source. Verify authorities separately.
The model regularly treats dicta as holding when assessing what a cited case stands for. Confirm the proposition against the opinion itself.
Some "missing" arguments were dropped for preservation, waiver, or client reasons. Check your own file before adding anything back.
Do not paste unfiled work product or client-confidential material unless your firm's AI policy and the client's engagement terms permit it.
Restructuring late costs word count and citation checking. Weigh every recommendation against the filing date before acting on it.

What comes back

An indented argument tree with page cites, then numbered unsupported leaps with the sentence quoted and the missing support named, load-bearing authorities each with a one-line vulnerability, broken syllogisms, a headings-alone test with replacement heading text, missing arguments marked MISSING or POSSIBLY DELIBERATE, and a quarantined "Not structural" block. Closes with assumptions.

See an example of what you’ll get

*(After you answer the four questions: the trial court granted summary judgment on force majeure rather than on repudiation, review is de novo on both issues and the brief never says so, nothing is conceded or waived, and the evidentiary rulings on the Reyes declaration were dropped on purpose.)* Argument tree (Section II excerpt) - Claim: Summary judgment on the breach claim was error. (pp. 12–24) - *Sub-claim II.A:* BetaCorp's April 14 letter repudiated as a matter of law. (pp. 14–19) - Premise 1: A clear and unequivocal refusal to perform is repudiation. *Taylor v. Johnston*, 15 Cal. 3d 130, 137 (1975); Rest. (2d) Contracts § 250. (p. 14) - Premise 2: "We cannot perform at the contract price" is clear and unequivocal. no authority, no record cite (LEAP) (p. 15) - Premise 3: Repudiation excuses further tender. UCC § 2-610. (p. 17) - *Sub-claim II.B:* Cover damages are recoverable. UCC § 2-712 (pp. 20–24) Unsupported leaps 1. p. 15: "BetaCorp's letter was unmistakable." Nothing under it. What is missing: a case defining what qualifies as unequivocal in this circuit, and a record cite to the letter itself. *Taylor* is cited two pages earlier for the rule but never applied to these words. 2. p. 21: "Acme's cover purchases were commercially reasonable." No record cite. What is missing: Ex. C (the replacement POs) and ¶¶ 8–11 of the Reyes declaration, both of which are in the excerpts and neither of which is cited anywhere in Section II.B. 3. p. 23: "The price differential is the correct measure." Cites § 2-712 but skips the good-faith and without-unreasonable-delay conditions the statute imposes. Load-bearing authorities - *Taylor v. Johnston*: carries all of II.A. Vulnerability: the seller there made repeated equivocal statements over months; our letter is a single sentence. Expect BetaCorp to argue *Taylor* cuts the other way. - UCC § 2-712: carries all of II.B. Vulnerability: statutory conditions are unaddressed, which is a gift on the reply. Broken syllogisms - p. 22: The brief argues BetaCorp "acted in bad faith." Bad faith is neither pleaded nor an element of either theory. Rule plus facts do not reach that conclusion, and it invites a scope objection. Cut it or convert it to evidentiary framing for reasonableness of cover. Headings-alone test Read in sequence, the headings are a list, not an argument, and none of them mentions the standard of review. Proposed replacements: - II.A → "BetaCorp's April 14 refusal to perform at the contract price was a repudiation as a matter of law, and no reasonable juror could find otherwise." - II.B → "Acme's replacement purchases at $1.82 per unit were commercially reasonable cover, and the $412,000 differential is recoverable under section 2-712." Missing arguments - MISSING: No statement that review of summary judgment is de novo. This is the cheapest win in the brief and it is not there. - MISSING: No anticipatory rebuttal of BetaCorp's force-majeure defense, which the trial court reached at p. 9 of its order. - POSSIBLY DELIBERATE: No challenge to the evidentiary rulings on the Reyes declaration. If that was a choice, ignore this line. Not structural. Section II.A opens with 90 words of contract background the statement of facts already covered. Assumptions. I assumed the excerpts of record contain Ex. C and the Reyes declaration because the statement of facts cites them [verify]. I assumed California substantive law governs repudiation [safe - stated at p. 13]. What your answers changed. That the trial court ruled on force majeure (a ground this brief never answers) is what put the missing anticipatory rebuttal at the top of the MISSING list; without it I would have called Section II complete on the issues it chose to raise. That the evidentiary rulings were dropped on purpose is why that entry reads POSSIBLY DELIBERATE rather than MISSING, which is the difference between a usable audit and one telling you to restore something you already decided against. Your locked-arguments answer changed nothing, none of these recommendations restructures around a conceded point, so on this brief you did not need to be asked.

Why this prompt is built the way it is

## Framework 1. **Map the argument as a tree.** Top-level claim → sub-claims → premises → the authority or record cite under each premise, with the page where each node lives. 2. **Mark every leap.** A premise with no case, statute, or record cite beneath it is a leap. Quote the sentence and name exactly what is missing. 3. **Find the load-bearing cases.** Every brief rests on one to three authorities. Identify them and state each one's vulnerability in a line: distinguishable on facts, dicta rather than holding, out-of-circuit, or superseded. 4. **Test the syllogism.** Stated rule plus stated facts should yield the stated conclusion. Where it does not, quote the conclusion and name the missing step. 5. **Read the headings alone.** Strip everything but the headings. If they do not deliver the argument in sequence, say which to reorder and supply replacement text. 6. **Find the missing argument.** Standard of review, preservation, anticipatory rebuttal, remedy. Distinguish genuinely missing from deliberately omitted. 7. **Keep structure separate from style.** Sentence-level writing notes are a different job. If you have them, quarantine them at the end.