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Separate the identity, proposition, formatting, treatment, and receiving-rule statuses in the Brown audit model.
Identity is checked by the cited CourtListener record; the historical proposition is checked at the inspected majority passage 495. Formatting is a separate component review. Current treatment remains unchecked through a commercial citator, and no actual receiving filing court was supplied. A truthful audit reports each scope separately rather than calling every aspect verified.
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Fictional training example — not legal authority. A generator supplies a case you cannot locate. What should happen before that citation enters the document?
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Locate the authority independently through appropriate research sources and inspect the actual document before using it. Verify identity, passage, pinpoint, and proposition. If it cannot be found, remove or hold the citation as unresolved instead of inventing details to complete the form. A generator's confident metadata is a candidate, not evidence the decision exists.
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Fictional training example — not legal authority. The source says a party alleged a fact; the draft says the court found it. Repair the attribution strategy.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Attribute the statement to the party's allegation and cite that passage, or find an actual judicial finding/evidentiary source supporting the stronger claim. Do not retain the court-found wording solely because the opinion mentions the allegation. Inspect its surrounding context and procedural posture. Speaker attribution is a substantive accuracy task distinct from punctuation.
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Fictional training example — not legal authority. A quotation differs from the source by one substantive condition. What must the audit investigate instead of merely adding a modification parenthetical?
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Determine whether the omitted condition changes the source's meaning or the sentence's claimed scope. Restore it or create a faithful excerpt/paraphrase with proper disclosures. A readability or omission parenthetical cannot excuse substantive distortion. Compare the source and quote in context, including whether the remaining words now imply a rule the original expressly limited.
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Explain why a final id. audit must occur after paragraph reorganization.
An id. depends on the immediately preceding citation in the final reading order. Moving paragraphs or inserting authorities can change that source without editing the abbreviation. Audit after structural changes to identify the actual referent and current pinpoint. Replace ambiguous references with a clear permitted short or full form.
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Fictional training example — not legal authority. A court's specific instruction conflicts with this handbook's ordinary house style. Describe the record and applicability checks needed to choose a treatment.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Save the specific court instruction and its date/URL, identify its document type and applicability, and compare it with the house choice. A controlling applicable receiving requirement governs that document. Record the selected treatment and any unresolved conflict rather than presenting the house default as mandatory. If the instruction is ambiguous, investigate or preserve a review question.
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Write a status note for an authority whose identity is checked but whose historical version remains missing.
Source identity checked; historical version unavailable, so proposition support and applicability to the stated period remain unresolved. Equivalent wording is acceptable if it distinguishes what was completed from what is missing. Do not mark the historical rule current or substantively verified from a metadata match. The next research step is retrieval and inspection of the applicable version.
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Explain why rendered-file inspection belongs in the audit even when the Markdown source is correct.
Export can alter symbols, italics, link destinations, table widths, heading/page breaks, and visible content. Inspect the actual rendered files and compare their structure/text with the source. A correct Markdown locator does not prove a working DOCX bookmark or PDF destination. Structural and visual checks supplement legal review rather than replacing it.
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Fictional training example — not legal authority. A review list includes one unsupported holding and three inconsistent spaces. Explain a sensible repair priority and why formatting repair alone cannot establish proposition support.
Fictional training example — not legal authority.
Resolve the unsupported holding before cosmetic spacing because it changes the document's substantive claim. Then repair the spaces in a controlled style pass and recheck any affected citations. The holding requires inspection of the actual source and its supporting passage. Correct spacing establishes only a formatting repair; it cannot establish that the source states or supports the proposition. Record both checks according to what was actually examined.
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