Common use cases

CourtAid supports a range of legal research workflows. Here are the most common ways practitioners use the platform.

1. Quick legal research question

Scenario: You need to understand how courts have approached a legal issue.

Steps:

1. Go to New Chat (the landing page)

2. Make sure the correct country is selected

3. Optionally open Filters to narrow jurisdiction or court

4. Type your question — e.g. "What factors do courts consider when granting interlocutory injunctions in contract disputes?"

5. Review the AI response and click through to cited sources

Best for: Exploratory research, understanding legal principles, getting oriented on a new area of law.

---

2. Finding relevant cases by topic

Scenario: You want a list of cases on a specific subject, not a conversational answer.

Steps:

1. Open Search from the sidebar (or click Case Search on the landing page)

2. Enter your query in Search mode (not Chat mode)

3. Select Smart search mode for meaning-based results

4. Apply filters — e.g. NSW jurisdiction, Supreme Court, Judgements only

5. Scroll through the summary feed and open promising results

Best for: Building a reading list, finding leading authorities, scanning recent decisions.

See Semantic search and Using filters for detail.

---

3. Researching a specific jurisdiction

Scenario: Your matter is in Victoria and you only want Victorian decisions.

Steps:

1. Confirm your country is set to Australia

2. Open filters and set Jurisdiction to Victoria

3. Set Document Type to Judgements

4. Optionally select a specific Court (e.g. Supreme Court of Victoria)

5. Run your search or chat query

Best for: State-specific matters, avoiding noise from other jurisdictions.

See Changing countries and Using filters.

---

4. Working on a client matter

Scenario: You have pleadings, correspondence, and court decisions for one matter and want to research across all of them.

Steps:

1. Click New Project and give it a name (add Client ID / Matter ID if useful)

2. Upload your documents to the project

3. Save relevant court decisions from Search into the project

4. Click Chat on the project to ask questions across your files and CourtAid's database

5. Use Chronologies or Tabular views for deeper analysis

Best for: Matter-specific research, combining private documents with public court data.

See Projects.

---

5. Reviewing a specific judgement or Act

Scenario: You have a citation and want to read, summarise, or discuss a particular document.

Steps:

1. Search for the case or legislation by name or citation

2. Click the document title to open it, or click Summary for an AI-generated overview

3. Click Chat PDF to have a conversation focused on that document

4. Use Save to add it to a project for later

Best for: Deep-diving into a single authority, preparing for a hearing, checking legislative provisions.

---

6. Boolean / keyword search

Scenario: You need precise keyword matching — e.g. finding documents that mention specific terms together.

Steps:

1. Go to Search

2. Switch Search Mode from Smart to Boolean

3. Enter a query with operators — e.g. contract AND breach NOT employment

4. Apply any relevant filters

Best for: Finding documents containing specific terms, names, or statutory references.

See Semantic search for when to use Smart vs Boolean.

---

7. Cross-jurisdiction comparison

Scenario: You practise across Australia and New Zealand, or you're comparing UK and Australian approaches.

Steps:

1. Complete your research in one country (e.g. Australia)

2. Switch country using the sidebar selector or filters panel

3. Re-run the same or similar query in the new jurisdiction

4. Compare results side by side

Best for: Comparative law research, multi-jurisdiction practices.

See Projects.

---

8. Bulk document review with Tabular View

Scenario: You have a bundle of 20+ documents and need the same questions answered for each one — document type, sender, date, key content.

Steps:

1. Create or open a Project

2. Upload all documents to the project

3. Open the Tabular tab in the project workspace

4. Create a new review — choose E-Discovery Review or a custom workflow

5. Select the documents and run the review

6. Review the populated table, click View more on any cell for detail

Best for: E-discovery triage, due diligence, contract portfolio review, correspondence analysis.

See Tabular View.

---

Choosing the right tool

Goal	Use
Conversational answer with citations	Chat (New Chat or Search page Chat toggle)
Browse many matching documents	Search (summary feed)
Precise keyword matching	Search → Boolean mode
Meaning-based discovery	Search → Smart mode
Matter-specific research	Projects → upload docs, chat, run tabular reviews, build chronologies
Review many documents at once	Projects → Tabular tab
One specific document	Chat PDF or Summary on a result