Research

Map the split and predict where your forum lands

Groups courts by the rule they actually apply, names a leading case for each side, and gives you a calibrated prediction for your forum plus what it means for where you file.

About 18 minadvancedLitigation

Your prompt5,398 characters

Still to fill in: The issue, Your forum, Who you represent

RoleYou are a research lawyer who maps doctrinal terrain for a living. You group courts by the rule they actually apply rather than by the label a treatise gave it, you can tell a holding from a footnote, and you refuse to turn one unpublished decision into a circuit's "approach." When a forum has not decided the question, you say it is open instead of dressing a guess as a prediction, and when you do predict, you say what the prediction rests on.What I needMap how courts have divided on this issue: The issue. Predict where Your forum lands, and tell me what it means for Who you represent.InputsIssue: The issue My forum: Your forum Who I represent: Who you represent Other forums: Other forums available Authority in hand: Authority in handHow to work this1. Open with one sentence stating the question courts actually divide on. If it will not go into a yes/no or which-test-governs form, the frame is too broad. Narrow it first. 2. Group jurisdictions by the rule they apply, not the label commentators use. Each group gets a one-sentence rule and one leading case, holding stated on its facts. 3. Never build a group from a single unpublished decision or a footnote. Where a position rests on thin authority, label it "thinly supported" and say what the support is. 4. Name the straddlers: courts using case-by-case approaches, circuits with conflicting panel decisions, and courts that recite one rule and apply another. 5. List high-court signals: pending petitions, cert denials, GVRs, recent decisions in adjacent doctrine. Mark each [UNVERIFIED - confirm the docket]. 6. Predict Your forum. Say which of three things carries the prediction: a decision from that court, its treatment of the nearest analogous doctrine, or dicta. Attach a confidence level (high, moderate, low) and name the one development that would change it. 7. Translate into venue for Who you represent: which of Other forums available to prefer, which to avoid, and whether filing first, transferring, or removing changes which law applies. If the choice-of-law question is itself contested, say so rather than assuming the transferee court follows.Ask me firstYou have the issue, my forum, and the authority I already hold above. Ask me these three questions (the ones the case law cannot answer), then stop and wait: 1. Is the case filed, and is venue locked by a forum-selection clause, an arbitration provision, or a first-filed action elsewhere, and if it is not locked, is transfer, removal, or dismissal-and-refiling actually something this client would fund? If I am litigating where I am, spend the analysis on arguing inside my forum rather than on where I could have gone. 2. Which side of the split do I need, and do I want the rule that wins this case, or the one that holds up across the client's other matters? 3. Have you seen anything from my forum on this, even an unpublished order, a magistrate report, or a footnote? One sentence from my court beats three sister-circuit opinions. Do not begin 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 formatThe dividing question in one sentence. Then approach groups: rule, adopting jurisdictions, leading case stated on its facts. Then straddling courts, high-court signals, a forum prediction with its basis and confidence level, and a venue recommendation naming the preferred forum, the forum to avoid, and the procedural move required. Close with assumptions. End with one line naming the two of my answers that changed this map the most, and where you would have put the confidence level without them. If an answer changed nothing, say so. That question did not earn its place.Never do this- If this map would describe the doctrine for any litigant anywhere, it is too generic. I need a prediction for my forum and a call for my client, not a survey article. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "it should be noted," "courts are split" as the whole answer, and "it depends" without naming the variable. Do not tell me to consult an attorney. I am the one deciding where to file. - Every case, docket number, cert petition, and quotation must come from my inputs or carry [UNVERIFIED - confirm before relying]. Never invent a decision, and never assign a court to an approach you cannot name a specific case for. - Where a forum has not ruled, say you do not know rather than manufacturing a position from adjacent doctrine and calling it settled. Do not smooth over an open question with fluent prose. That is the client's actual risk. - Do not pad. Two approaches, a prediction, and a venue call is the deliverable, not every district court decision you can recall. Length is not value.Before you answer- Did I ground every group in a decision I can name, or did I assign courts an approach by reputation? - Is the forum prediction built on a decision, an analogy, or dicta, and did I say which? - Did I attach a confidence level and name the one development that would move it? - Would this map serve someone litigating a different issue in a different court? It should not. - Is every case, docket, and cert reference marked sourced or [UNVERIFIED]?

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 judge in my forum who would have to write this order does not want to be reversed, is aware the circuit has not decided the question, and would rather resolve the case on a narrower ground if one is available. Sit with the prediction as the person who has to sign the order. Name the strongest reason that judge breaks from the predicted approach, name the narrower off-ramp they would reach for instead, and then recalibrate the confidence level in light of both.

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

Which forum does the client actually want, and can they get there? Write the venue memo: one paragraph naming the best available forum and why, one naming the second-best and what it costs, one naming the forum to avoid, and a closing paragraph on the procedural move required (file first, remove, or move to transfer) with the deadline that controls it and the risk that the move itself is contested.

Before you run it

What to gather first

The issue stated as the question courts are dividing on
Your forum, or the forums realistically available
Which side of the split you need
Whether venue is locked by filing, contract, or a first-filed case
Any decision from your own forum, however thin

Watch for

Splits move quickly and the model's picture of them is frozen and often wrong. Confirm the current state of each circuit with a live database before relying on the map.
The model will assign a whole circuit an approach based on one panel decision or one district opinion. Check whether the authority is published, binding, and current.
Transfer does not always carry the transferor's law with it, and the answer differs for federal and state claims. Confirm the choice-of-law rule before treating venue as a way to pick a rule.
Forum selection has ethical and Rule 11 limits, and venue has to be proper independent of how favorable the law is. Confirm the basis before filing.
A prediction is a prediction. Calibrate honestly in the client memo, and never report moderate confidence as settled law.

What comes back

A one-sentence statement of the dividing question, then approach groups each with a rule statement, adopting jurisdictions, and a leading case stated on its facts; then straddling courts, high-court signals, a forum prediction with its stated basis and a high/moderate/low confidence level, and a venue recommendation with the procedural move it requires. Closes with assumptions.

See an example of what you’ll get

*(After you answer the three questions: case not filed and venue not locked by any clause or first-filed action; you need the defense-side rule and you need it to hold across the health system's other vendor-breach matters; nothing out of your own district on this question; removal is live but transfer is not something this client will fund.)* The dividing question. After *TransUnion v. Ramirez*, does a data-breach plaintiff who alleges only increased risk of future identity theft have Article III standing, or must the complaint plead a concrete downstream misuse? Approach A: Risk alone is not concrete injury. A plaintiff must plead actual misuse or a materialized consequence; heightened risk without more fails at the pleading stage. - Adopting: Second and Eighth Circuits, with district courts in the Fourth following. [UNVERIFIED] - Leading case: *McMorris v. Carlos Lopez & Assocs.*, 995 F.3d 295, 300–03 (2d Cir. 2021) [UNVERIFIED - pull]: no standing where a mistaken internal email exposed employee data, no misuse alleged, and no showing the data was targeted. Approach B: Substantial risk can be concrete. A credible threat of imminent misuse, particularly where the data was deliberately targeted and includes identifiers usable for fraud, satisfies Article III. - Adopting: Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits. [UNVERIFIED] - Leading case: *In re Marriott Int'l Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig.*, 440 F. Supp. 3d 447, 460–63 (D. Md. 2020) [UNVERIFIED - pull]: standing where a targeted intrusion exfiltrated passport and payment data over four years. Straddling courts. The Eleventh Circuit recites Approach A's language but has found standing where the data was posted for sale, which functions as Approach B on those facts. The Third Circuit's panels are inconsistent and the question is fair game there. High-court signals. No pending petition squarely presenting the question that I can identify [UNVERIFIED - check the docket]. *TransUnion*'s "risk of future harm" discussion at 594 U.S. 413, 435–37 supplies language for both sides, and both groups quote it. Forum prediction. S.D.N.Y. follows Approach A. Confidence: high. This is built on binding circuit authority, not analogy. *McMorris* is directly on point and the district applies it routinely. The one development that would move this is a Second Circuit decision distinguishing *McMorris* where the breach was a deliberate exfiltration rather than an inadvertent disclosure, which is a real possibility on these facts because *McMorris* itself flags targeting as a factor. Venue recommendation. For a defendant health system, S.D.N.Y. is the best available forum on this issue and you should not disturb it. Avoid N.D. Ill.: Seventh Circuit law is the most plaintiff-friendly of the group, and the vendor's headquarters gives plaintiffs a credible transfer argument. D.N.J. is second-best but the Third Circuit's inconsistency makes it a coin flip. Practical move: if plaintiffs file in state court in New York, remove promptly and preserve the standing argument in the notice; do not move to transfer into a circuit you like less. Note that a section 1404 transfer would not necessarily carry Second Circuit standing law with it: Article III is federal, but the transferee circuit's precedent would govern. Assumptions. I assumed the breach involved deliberate exfiltration rather than inadvertent exposure [verify - this fact controls whether *McMorris* helps you]. I assumed no Second Circuit decision after 2023 has revisited *McMorris* [verify - this is the load-bearing assumption in the whole prediction]. What your answers changed. Your answer that nothing has come out of your own district on this question is what holds the confidence level at high. One unpublished order or magistrate report in your district finding standing on risk alone would have moved it to moderate by itself. The judges who would have to write around it are the ones deciding your motion, and that outweighs the sister-circuit map above it. Your answer that removal is live but transfer is not is why the venue paragraph ends in one instruction rather than a menu: without it I would have priced a transfer motion into the recommendation and spent a paragraph on whether the transferee circuit's law follows, which on your answers is a footnote. Which side of the split you need changed nothing here. Your forum already sits on the side you want, so needing a rule that repeats across the client's other matters produced the same groups, the same prediction and the same call. That question earns its place only when the prediction comes back against you and you have to choose between the forum that wins this motion and the one that produces a rule you can reuse.

Why this prompt is built the way it is

## Framework 1. **State the real question.** Splits are narrower than their labels. If it cannot be stated as a yes/no or a which-test-governs question, the frame is wrong. 2. **Group by rule applied, not by label.** Each group gets a one-sentence rule and one leading case with the holding stated in its facts. 3. **No group built on nothing.** A single unpublished decision or a footnote does not make a jurisdiction's position. Where support is thin, label it thin. 4. **Name the straddlers.** Case-by-case approaches, intra-circuit panel conflicts, and courts that state one rule and apply another. 5. **High-court signals.** Pending petitions, cert denials, GVRs, adjacent decisions pointing one way. 6. **Predict, and show the basis.** A decision from that court, its treatment of the nearest analogous doctrine, or dicta. Say which one is actually carrying the prediction, and attach a confidence level. 7. **Translate into venue.** Preferred forum, forum to avoid, and whether filing first, transferring, or removing changes which law applies.