How should a fee earner check an AI answer before relying on it?

Open the source and read it. That is most of the answer, and it is the step people skip. The rest is a short routine that takes a few minutes and turns an assistant's draft into work a qualified person can put their name to: check the passage, check the jurisdiction and the date, look for what is missing, ask for the working on anything counted, and leave a note on the file.

None of it is new. It is what a careful fee earner does with a research note from a trainee. What is new is the speed at which the notes arrive, and the confidence with which they are written.

Step one: open the source

An answer that names a section, a paragraph or a page is making a checkable claim. Check it. Open the provision, the guidance or the decision and read the passage the answer relies on, not the headnote and not the assistant's paraphrase of it. Ask three questions of the passage: does it say what the answer says it says, does it say it in the way the answer uses it, and is there anything in the surrounding text that changes the meaning?

If the source is one click away, this takes a minute. If it is not, treat the answer as an unsourced assertion and research the point yourself. An assistant that cannot show its sources has not saved you time; it has moved the work.

Step two: check the jurisdiction and the date

England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are three legal systems, and an answer that quietly crosses between them is wrong even when every citation is real. Check that the authority belongs to the jurisdiction the matter is in. Then check the date: legislation is amended, guidance is withdrawn and replaced, decisions are overturned. A source that was right last year is not evidence of what the position is today.

A good assistant declares the jurisdiction it is answering in and says where its coverage is thinner. That declaration is worth reading, not skipping.

Step three: look for what is missing

The most useful sentence an assistant can write is that it could not find support for a point. It is also the sentence people read past, because it is not an answer. Treat it as the opposite: it is the exact place where your own research is needed before the point goes anywhere near a client.

The same applies to silence. If a question had three parts and the answer addressed two, the third has not gone away.

Step four: ask for the working on anything counted

Dates and figures deserve their own step. A deadline stated as a bare date is a claim; the same deadline with its steps shown, each carrying the rule that allows it, is something you can check line by line. Deemed service on which day, under which rule; how many days for the next step; whether the period ends on a working day. Read every line, and read the note that says the diary system still governs. It does. An assistant that counts dates is a second pair of eyes on the diary, never a replacement for one, and a missed limitation date is not a technical error but a professional one.

Figures are the same. Nothing worked out "in the assistant's head" should be relied on. Ask how it was calculated, and expect steps you could reproduce.

Step five: leave a note on the file

Record what you relied on and what you checked, in the same way you would record any other research: which sources you opened, what you confirmed, and anything you decided to research further. Supervision applies to AI-assisted work as it applies to any other, and a supervisor who can see the checking has something to supervise. A file note also answers, in advance, the question a client or an insurer might one day ask about how the work was done.

Habits that make the routine stick

• Read the answer as a draft, not a conclusion. The confident tone is a property of the writing, not of the law.
• Never paste an assistant's text into a letter or a document without reading it against the sources first. The place a fabricated citation does its damage is on the way out of the firm.
• Prefer tools that make checking cheap. One-click sources, declared jurisdictions, working shown, and honesty about gaps are not features; they are the difference between an assistant that can be supervised and one that cannot.
• Teach the routine to everyone who will use the tool. It takes ten minutes to explain and it is the one habit that matters.

Where Alesis fits

Alesis is built to be checked rather than believed. Every point names the document, decision or provision it rests on, down to the page, and official sources open in one click without leaving the answer. It declares the jurisdiction it is answering in and says where coverage is thinner. Dates and figures arrive with the working shown, each step carrying the rule that allows it, under a notice that your diary system still governs. When it cannot find support for a point, it says what is missing. And it prepares; people send. Nothing leaves the firm until a qualified person has done exactly the routine above.