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Legal Research Memo Template

Four documents and three sheets that carry every authority's treatment, its controlling status and the disclosure call, beside the memo written from them.

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Authority Register

[Matter]  ·  [the question the memo answers]

One row per authority. Four separate facts, because they fail separately and each one has a different cure.

AuthorityControlling?TreatmentPin verifiedRuns which way
[cite]Yes, binding on this courtNo negative historyYes, [p.]For
[cite]Yes, outside this court's stateNo negative historyYes, [p.]Against
[cite]No, persuasive onlyCriticised in [cite]Yes, [p.]For
[cite]YesAbrogated in partNo, proposition not at cited pageFor

Row four is two failures, not one

An abrogated case and a pin cite that does not support the proposition are separate problems with separate cures. Collapsing them into a single good-law column means the memo reports one and carries the other into the brief.

Every bracket fills from your own question and your own jurisdiction. Nothing here ships with an authority already in it.

Citing a case that has been overruled is not a research quality problem. Comment [2] to Rule 3.3 of California's professional conduct rules puts it inside the paragraph (a)(1) prohibition on false statements of law. A repealed statute and one declared unconstitutional sit in the same sentence, and so does a citation already made that the lawyer fails to correct. Treatment is therefore not a footnote on the research. It is a column the memo cannot ship without, and a stale row is a live problem rather than an old one.

Disclosure of adverse authority is a different duty in a different subsection with three separate conditions. Paragraph (a)(2) reaches authority in the controlling jurisdiction, known to be directly adverse, and not disclosed by opposing counsel. All three, or it is not triggered, which makes it a register with three columns rather than a judgement call made once. Comment [3] then breaks the first one open: controlling-jurisdiction authority includes authority from outside the jurisdiction where the tribunal sits.

Then there is what the conclusion certifies. Rule 11(b)(2) offers two branches, warranted by existing law or a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying or reversing it. A brief answer saying likely names neither, and the two need different research behind them. The memo says which branch it is on, so the facts graded by what supports them meet a legal position that a filing can actually carry.

Nine authorities, one disclosure call, and the two words the brief answer has to choose between

The register, the three conditions that make an adverse case disclosable, and the memo that reads off both.

Halvorsen Diagnostics v. Priya Raghunathan  ·  enforceability of a 14-month customer non-solicit

Authority Register

Illustrative rows for a fictional dispute. Nine authorities found, six shown, each carrying a different combination of the four facts.

AuthorityJurisdictionControlling?TreatmentPin verifiedDirection
Statute, s.4(b)State, enacted 2021YesNo amendment since enactmentYes, text readFor
State Sup. Ct. 2019State high courtYes, bindingNo negative historyYes, at 412For
State App. 2023Intermediate, this districtYes, bindingNo negative historyYes, at 88Against
Fed. Ct. of Appeals 2020Federal, this circuitYes, on the preemption issueNo negative historyYes, at 1104Against in part
State App. 2011Intermediate, other districtNo, persuasiveCriticised, 2023 opinionYes, at 640For
State App. 2008Intermediate, this districtYesAbrogated by the 2021 statuteNo. Proposition is at 318, not 316For

Four facts, four different failures

Jurisdiction, controlling status, treatment and pin cite verification fail independently. Row four is persuasive and criticised and still says what the memo says it says. Row six is binding, abrogated, and misquoted. One good-law column reports whichever failure it happened to check for and carries the rest into the brief.

Controlling is not the same as local

Row four is federal and the case is in state court, and it is still controlling on its issue. Comment [3] to the candor rule says authority in the controlling jurisdiction may sit outside the jurisdiction where the tribunal sits: a federal statute determinative of an issue in a state proceeding, or a Supreme Court decision binding on a lower court. So jurisdiction and controlling are two columns and the second is not read off the first.

Row six is why the register carries a page number rather than a tick. The proposition was real and two pages away from where the memo cited it.

Three conditions, all of which have to be true

Two of the nine authorities run against the client. Only one of them is disclosable, and the difference is not how bad it is.

State App. 2023State App. 2016
In the controlling jurisdiction?Yes. Intermediate appellate, this districtNo. Other state, cited by nobody here
Directly adverse to the client's position?Yes. Holds a 14-month customer non-solicit unreasonable on materially similar factsNo. Adverse on duration generally, distinguishable on the employee's role
Disclosed by opposing counsel?Not in the opposition as filedn/a
DisclosableYesNo

Two rows that both read badly and are different obligations

Every memo template says address counterarguments. That is strategy, and this is not. The rule names three conditions and the second column fails the first two of them, so it is a case to distinguish in the argument and nothing more. The first column meets all three, so it is disclosed and then distinguished, and the register is what makes that a decision somebody recorded rather than one nobody made.

The third condition changes between rounds

DateEventWhat moves
3 FebMemo writtenState App. 2023 disclosable. Opposition not yet filed
27 FebOpposition filed, cites it at II.BThird condition now fails. Distinguish it, and the duty has been satisfied by them
14 MarReply drafted from the 3 Feb memoThe register is 39 days old and the answer has changed

The duties continue to the conclusion of the proceeding, which makes the register a live document rather than a snapshot. Every row carries the date it was last checked, and the memo names the event that makes it stale rather than leaving it to whoever picks the file up.

Research Memorandum

Written from the register. Every proposition in the discussion reads off a row that has all four facts filled.

ToSupervising partner
ReEnforceability of the 14-month customer non-solicit in the Raghunathan employment agreement, state law, post-2021 statute
Register versionv3, checked 3 Feb, 9 authorities

Brief answer

The predictionThe non-solicit is enforceable as to the eleven named accounts Raghunathan personally serviced, and unenforceable as drafted against the whole customer list.
Which branchWarranted by existing law as to the narrowed reading. A nonfrivolous argument for extending existing law as to the full list, which no case in the register supports and one binding case runs against.

Those two sentences are the reason the memo exists. A brief answer that says likely enforceable in part hands the person writing the motion a certification they cannot make, because the two branches are certified differently and they need different research behind them. Naming the branch converts a prediction into an instruction.

What the research did not settle

Open questionWhy it is openWhat would close it
Whether the 2021 statute reaches agreements signed before enactmentNo appellate decision on retroactivity. Two trial court orders, unreported, disagreeingThe legislative record, or the appeal pending in the third district
Whether the eleven accounts count as protectable relationshipsFact-dependent under the 2019 test and the record is not developedDepositions of the two account managers
Whether choice-of-law survivesNot researched. Out of scope as instructedA second memo, and it changes the answer if it goes the other way

The third row is the one worth having. A memo that stops where the instruction stopped, and says so in the document rather than in an email, is the difference between a scope boundary and a gap somebody discovers in the reply brief.

Edit with AI

What's in the pack

01

Authority Register

One row per authority carrying jurisdiction, controlling status, treatment, the proposition, the pin cite and whether the proposition is actually at that page.

02

Research Memorandum

The memo in IRAC or CREAC structure, written from the register, with the brief answer naming which of the two certifiable branches it sits on.

03

Adverse Authority Register

The three conditions as separate columns, so a case that fails one of them is distinguished in the argument rather than disclosed by reflex.

04

Authority Summary

Holding, pin cite and the sentence the memo relies on, per authority, so a reader checks the source rather than the summary of it.

05

Open Question Log

What the research did not settle, why it is open, and what would close it, including the questions the instruction put out of scope.

06

Reading an Authority Register

The method doc: the four facts, why they fail separately, and why the register carries a date rather than a verdict.

07

Currency Check Protocol

The re-check cadence and the events that make a row stale, because the duties run to the conclusion of the proceeding. It hands off to the rule-by-rule check on the filing package.

08

Space rule

An authority is four separate facts. Read by every prompt here before it writes a single row, and it is what keeps a verdict off the register.

How to use it

  1. 1

    Open in River, or take it blank

    Open the pack in River and give it the question, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets from the template library and fill them in yourself.

  2. 2

    Frame the question first

    The jurisdiction, the posture, the standard of review and what is out of scope. Everything the register decides is downstream of those four.

  3. 3

    Every authority gets four facts

    Jurisdiction, controlling status, treatment and pin cite verification, filled separately. A row missing one does not reach the memo.

  4. 4

    Then the memo writes itself

    The discussion reads off completed rows, the brief answer names its branch, and the attorney checks every citation before relying on it.

Frequently asked questions

Is this template free?

Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the other half: the agent frames the question, builds the register, and writes the memo from completed rows only. Other packs sit in the template library.

What format are the downloaded files?

Word (.docx) for the four documents and CSV (.csv) for the three sheets, zipped together. Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets open the registers straight off the download, and the memo opens in Word or Pages. Nothing to convert.

Does it find the authority for me?

It builds the register and drafts the memo from what goes into it. Every citation is checked by the attorney before it is relied on, which is not a formality: fabricated citations are a documented discipline problem and a register that records what was verified is how the checking becomes visible.

How is treatment different from a good-law flag?

A flag answers one question. The register answers four that fail independently: where the authority comes from, whether it binds this court, what has happened to it since, and whether the proposition is at the page cited. Row six of the worked example fails two of them at once.

Why is adverse authority a register rather than a judgement?

Because the duty has three conditions and all of them have to hold. Controlling jurisdiction, directly adverse, and not disclosed by opposing counsel. Splitting them into columns makes the case that fails one visible as a case to distinguish rather than one to disclose.

Is this the same as an IRAC memo generator?

The structure is IRAC or CREAC either way. Drafting a memo in IRAC format starts from the writing, and so does the walkthrough of memorandum structure. This starts from the register, so the discussion cannot cite a row whose treatment is blank.

What does 'Edit with AI' actually do?

It signs you up, installs this exact pack as a private workspace, and puts the agent in front of an empty Authority Register. Then you state the question and the jurisdiction, and the first thing back is the framing, before a single authority goes on the sheet.

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies along the way. He now leads River as co-founder and CEO.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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Four facts per authority, then the memo

Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or open this exact pack in River and start from the question rather than the search.

Edit with AI