Summary
In this guide we will teach you how Eve can help you work through legal research quickly and efficiently. Give Eve a question to research, and add your case details as needed, and Eve will search through a collection of legal libraries to find, identify, and analyze the most relevant cases, generating a legal research memo draft.
Ask Eve a question about the law, using plain language, not keywords and boolean expressions. Supplement your search with your case facts and details, and have Eve parse through a database to find key cases.
Step-by-Step Instructions
In these instructions we will first guide you through uploading your key case documents and working with Eve to craft the best-in-class research questions that will optimize the results Eve provides and then instruct you on how to run those questions through Eve's Legal Research capabilities.
Although it is not advised, if you have a specific legal research question, you can skip to Step 2 to run your query.
Step 0: Upload relevant documents
First open a new session with Eve for your legal research. Note that this should be a new page, not a continuation of prior work.
In your new session, upload the essential documents that frame up your case. These may include your case overview file, your case notes and potential claims you want to explore, client emails, and more. The more comprehensive your documents, the more Eve will have to draw upon when brainstorming your research questions.
Step 1: Brainstorming research questions
First, you’ll want to come up with the questions that you are researching. In Eve, you can put in two parts to your query:
Legal Research Question: The specific question that you want an answer to
Case Details: The background for your research, including any relevant facts about the case - helping find precedent most relevant to the case at hand.
If you have a specific question in mind, you can proceed to Step 2, but if you want to brainstorm a question or ask Eve how to frame your question to get the best results, read on for Step 1a.
Step 1a: Have Eve help brainstorm questions
It’s simple, just ask. Ask Eve to help you in coming up with your research question and key case details that would be relevant in the question at hand.
💬 Example Message: I'd like you to help me brainstorm a single detailed and high quality legal research question based on a matter I am working on. I’d like you to give me two outputs:
Research question: A detailed legal research question on a specific legal issue that related to my case
Case details: Short summary details about my case that will help refine the legal precedent that is found during my research.
Use the key fact patterns, claims that we’ve identified, and other case details to come up with the most impactful question and case details.
💡 Pro Tip: Alternatively - run the “Brainstorm Legal Research Topics” playbook, which can be found by clicking on the (+) in your message bar. This playbook will ask you some questions about what you’d like your query to focus on and help come up with a question for you to move forward with.
Remember, you can always iterate on this question and the results that Eve provides. If you have a particular direction of questioning that you’d like Eve to help you research, you can provide those details in your message, or follow-up with a second message telling eve to focus on a particular type of claim or research question type.
Step 2: Run your Legal Research query
Now that you have a question and your key case details, you can proceed to running your query.
To run a Legal Research query, click on the 
button and find the “Legal Research” skill. Select the Legal Research skill to open up the research platform.
🚨 Note: You MUST use the “Legal Research” skill to perform research. Do not just enter your research questions into Eve as a normal message. When you run the “Legal Research” skill, you enable what we call “guardrails” which help prevent Eve from hallucinating and making up cases. If you enter research questions into the chat, you run the risk of Eve making up a case and giving you insufficient answers.
Once you’ve opened the “Legal Research” skill, you’ll have a new view in your conversation with Eve that looks like this:
Here you will provide Eve with the research question and the case details you’ve come up with. First you’ll add the research question you want Eve to investigate.
💡 Pro Tip: Provide as much detail as possible. With more details (e.g., jurisdiction, legal cause of action, etc.) Eve will be able to perform a more thorough search. Where possible, avoid abbreviations. Click on the “Examples” link to view a few good and bad examples of research questions.
Next, you will have the option to add your specific case details. This will help Eve look for cases that could be most pertinent to your case. Enter the key case background, relevant facts.
💡 Pro Tip: As with the research question, provide as much detail as possible. With more concrete details (e.g., parties, relationships, claims) Eve will be able to perform a more thorough search. Where possible, include descriptive adjectives instead of proper nouns. (For example, use middle-aged man or public college instead of Jane Doe or University of Texas). Click on the “Examples” link to view a few good and bad examples of case details.
Now, you can configure some advanced settings.
Configure Jurisdictions: Select and deselect jurisdictions that you want Eve to include/exclude in the search results. By default, all jurisdictions across state, district, appellate (and bankruptcy/special) courts will be included.
Configure Dates: Select date ranges for results search, filtering by filing date.
Step 3: Run Search
Once you’ve entered your research question and configured your parameters, run your query by clicking on the “Start” button.
Note: This can take 20-30 minutes, as Eve is parsing through vast libraries of legal precedent.
Step 4: Review Results
After Eve conducts a search and identifies key cases, you will receive a summary of findings in the form of a Legal Research Memo.
The Legal Research Memo includes a summary of the Issue in question, Conclusion (a summary of the finding), and Applicable Law (a summary of the relevant cases, laws, statutes, and a summary of each) including full citations.
You are encouraged to read through each summary, identify the cases that you want to dig into and conduct a thorough review of the full case details.
You can also continue to work with Eve to iterate on results, dig into case details - just as you would on any project.
If you would like to export the Legal Research Memo, select the print
By following these steps you should be able to get the first draft of a legal research memo in a matter of minutes.
If you have any questions about conducting legal research in the Eve platform, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team at support@eve.legal.