MikeA legal AI workspace for appellate practices
Appellate lawyers use Mike to read the record on appeal, find where an issue was raised and ruled on, research the standard of review, and draft statements of the case and argument sections. Each record reference cites the volume, page and line, so every assertion can be checked.
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Attorney: Was the objection to the late expert disclosure preserved at trial? Show me where, and draft the preservation paragraph for the brief.
Mike: Yes. Counsel objected to the expert on timeliness grounds in the pretrial motion [1], renewed the objection when the expert was called [2], and the court overruled it on the record with a stated reason [3]. I drafted the preservation paragraph with those three record cites.
- [1] Clerk's record, motion in limine, pp. 88 to 91
- [2] Trial transcript, vol. 3, 412:5 to 413:2
- [3] Order on motion in limine, p. 2
Mike created Opening brief, preservation.docx.
Example matter. Names and documents are fictional.
An appeal is won on the record and on authority. The record is large, assembled by someone else and rarely organized around the issues you want to raise. Mike reads the transcripts, the clerk's papers and the orders, and answers questions such as where an objection was made, what the court said, and what the parties argued, with a pinpoint to each answer.
Cuanto Labs installs Mike for your firm, connects it to the folders where records and briefs are kept, and loads your brief templates and style rules. Sealed portions of a record stay inside your firm's own installation.
What Mike does for your practice
- Preservation checks
- Name an issue, and Mike searches the trial record for where it was raised, objected to, argued and ruled on, and lists each location with a pinpoint. Where nothing is found, it says so, so you can decide how to frame the issue.
- Statement of the case from the record
- Mike drafts the procedural history and statement of facts with a record cite after every sentence, in the citation format your court requires, for the attorney to edit.
- Standard of review research
- Mike searches published case law for the standard of review that applies to each issue in the jurisdiction, reads the opinions, and summarizes how courts have framed it before you rely on any of it.
- Argument section drafts
- Mike drafts argument sections from the record and the authorities it has read, as a Word document. Case-law citations are checked against CourtListener, record cites link to the page they point to, and the attorney decides what goes in the brief.
- Opposing brief analysis
- Upload the other side's brief, and Mike lists each argument, the record citations and authorities offered for it, and any record citation that does not support the statement it is attached to.
- Record index and cite check
- Mike builds an index of the record by volume and topic, and checks the cites in your own draft against the pages they point to, listing any that do not match for a person to fix.
- Oral argument preparation
- From the briefs and the record, Mike drafts a set of likely bench questions with the record pages and authorities that answer each one.
How we set it up for your firm
- Records and briefs, connected
- We connect Mike to the drive or document system where records on appeal, prior briefs and opinions live, so attorneys search the whole record without uploading it again.
- Your brief templates
- We load your brief templates, tables of authorities and style rules for the courts you appear before, so drafts begin in the right format.
- Record citation format
- How volumes, pages and lines are cited varies by court, so we set it once and Mike follows it in every draft.
- Record index conventions
- We agree how your office labels volumes and exhibits, such as clerk's papers, reporter's transcripts and supplemental records, so the index Mike builds uses the same names as your briefs.
- Issue-tracking table
- We build a Tabular Review template with one row per issue and columns for where it was raised, where it was ruled on, the standard of review and the relief sought, so a team can track every issue across a multi-volume record.
Questions attorneys ask
Can Mike read a full record on appeal?
Yes, within limits of size and scan quality. Mike reads documents in a matter and searches across them, so a multi-volume record can be queried by issue. Pages that cannot be read are reported as unreadable instead of guessed at, and we size the installation for the records you handle.
Can Mike check my record citations?
Mike can compare each record cite in a draft with the page it points to and list the ones that do not support the sentence they are attached to. It cannot make the legal judgment that a cite is persuasive. That remains with the lawyer, who should still check every citation before filing.
Does Mike write the brief?
It drafts the parts you ask for, such as the statement of the case, a preservation paragraph or a section of argument, from the record and the authorities it has read. The strategy, the framing of issues and the final text belong to the lawyer. Everything arrives as a Word document you edit.
Does Mike check the cases I cite in a brief?
Mike checks case-law citations against CourtListener, and each citation links to the opinion it found. It does not check statutes, rules or secondary sources, so those still need your own cite check. Some courts require certifications about AI use, and your firm decides what to disclose. An attorney remains responsible for every authority in a filing.
Can Mike help with a reply brief or a cross-appeal?
Yes. Load the opposing brief and your opening brief, and Mike lines up each argument against the record pages and authorities cited for it. It can draft a reply section that answers each point in turn and flag where the other side cited the record loosely. A cross-appeal is tracked as its own set of issues in the same table, so nothing is dropped between the two briefs.
What if a transcript volume has no reliable page numbers?
Mike cites the page numbers that exist in the file it reads. For a scanned volume without dependable pagination, it reports the PDF page and the transcript's own page where it can see one, and tells you when it cannot. We agree with you in advance how an unnumbered volume should be cited, since courts differ on the point.
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Bring Mike to your firm.
Book a 30-minute call. Tell us about your practice and the systems your documents live in, and we'll come back with a setup plan for your firm.
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