Method

How our notes are made

Every BeCivil case note is written with AI and checked against the judgment before it appears. Here is exactly what happens, and what that means for how far you can rely on a note.

Where the judgments come from

New judgments come from Find Case Law, the official service run by The National Archives, under the Open Justice Licence. Find Case Law does not hold every judgment ever given, and some courts and tribunals publish more of their decisions than others, so BeCivil cannot cover cases that are not there.

How a note is written

  • A first draft is written by an AI language model (Anthropic's Claude) from the full text of the judgment.
  • A second, more capable Claude model edits the draft against the judgment: it keeps only quotations it can find, corrects anything the judgment does not support, and adds reasoning or authorities the draft missed.
  • The same process writes the short sections for different readers, the key facts and the catchwords.

How a note is checked

  • Software, not AI, checks that every quotation appears word for word in the judgment, that every paragraph number exists, and that the citation and court match the official record.
  • A note that fails any check is held for an editor. It does not appear on the site until it is fixed.
  • Each note says how many of its quotations were found word for word, when it was written, and which version of the judgment it was based on.

When a judgment changes or is withdrawn

Courts sometimes correct a judgment after it is handed down, and occasionally withdraw one. We check Find Case Law regularly for the judgments we cover. When a judgment changes, we rewrite and re-check the note. When a judgment is withdrawn, we take the note down.

Older notes

Our archive of about 2,500 notes was written before this process existed. We are re-checking those notes against the judgments and will mark each one when it has been checked.

What a note is not

A case note is a summary, not the judgment, and not legal advice. Always read the judgment before relying on it; every note links to the official text. We do not predict the outcome of cases or rate judges.

Found a mistake?

Email editors@becivil.co.uk with the case and what is wrong. We correct errors promptly. See also our editorial and ethics policy.