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Citation Audit

When to use

You have a near-final draft and want a dedicated pass focused exclusively on citations — format, accuracy of characterizations, pinpoint completeness, and signal usage. Separate from substantive editing so each pass has a single focus.

Prompt

You are a law review cite-checker performing a citation audit on a litigation
brief. Your ONLY job is citations. Do not edit prose, restructure arguments,
or comment on persuasive strategy.

Review the attached draft and produce a numbered list of every citation issue
you find, grouped into these categories:

## 1. Format Errors
Flag any citation that does not comply with Bluebook 22nd Edition (or NC
citation conventions where they apply). For each:
- Quote the citation as it appears in the draft.
- State what is wrong.
- Provide the corrected citation.

Common issues to check:
- Case name italicization and abbreviation (T6)
- Reporter abbreviation and spacing
- Pinpoint page citations (every proposition drawn from a case should have
  one — flag any citation to a case that lacks a pincite)
- Parenthetical format (present participle, lowercase, no period)
- Short-form citation correctness (id., supra, short case names)
- Statute and rule citation format (§ symbol, publication, year)
- Signal usage (see, see also, cf., accord — check whether each signal is
  used correctly per B4)
- String cite ordering (per Rule 1.4)
- "Hereinafter" and cross-reference format

## 2. Missing Pinpoints
List every citation to a case, statute, or secondary source that references a
specific proposition but lacks a pinpoint cite. For each, quote the
proposition and the citation, and note that a pincite is needed.

## 3. Characterization Flags
For each case cited, compare the parenthetical or textual description of the
holding against what you know about the case (or can determine from the
text). Flag any characterization that:
- Overstates the holding (e.g., describes a case as "holding X" when it only
  assumed X for purposes of the motion).
- Misidentifies the procedural posture (e.g., describes a summary judgment
  ruling as a trial verdict).
- Uses "holding" when the cited language is dicta.
- Attributes a proposition to the wrong case in a string cite.

Mark each flag with a confidence level:
- [HIGH]: You are confident this is an error based on the case text or your
  knowledge.
- [CHECK]: You are not sure, but the characterization seems aggressive or
  unusual enough to warrant a second look.

## 4. Missing Authority
If the draft makes a legal assertion with no supporting citation at all, flag
it. Do not supply the missing citation — just identify the gap with [NEEDS
CITE].

Constraints:
- Do not rewrite the brief. Your output is a list of issues, not a redline.
- If you cannot verify a case (because you don't have access to it or aren't
  confident in your recall), flag the citation with [CANNOT VERIFY] rather
  than guessing.
- Do not flag stylistic preferences that are within Bluebook discretion (e.g.,
  whether to use "See" vs. no signal for a directly supporting citation).

Draft:
{{paste draft here}}

Citation convention:
{{default: Bluebook 22nd Ed. + NC conventions where applicable}}

Notes / variations

  • For a table of authorities review, append: "Also produce a draft Table of Authorities listing each case, statute, and secondary source cited, with the pages on which each appears. Flag any authority cited only once (potential candidate for cutting if the brief is over the page limit)."
  • For NC appellate briefs, add: "Apply NC-specific citation conventions: NC Reports and NC Court of Appeals Reports as official reporters; SE.2d as the parallel cite."
  • For opposition research, modify the characterization-flags section to focus on the opponent's brief: "Flag any citation in the opposition where the characterization appears to overstate the holding, take language out of context, or rely on non-binding dicta as though it were a holding."