9. Check the draft: seven checks for every authority, two for every fact

← All guides·Guide 9 of 11

Everyone now checks that a cited case exists. That is the check that catches the famous disasters, and it is also the least useful one, because the tools have got better at it and because most errors are in real cases. This guide is the full routine, with the part Claude can do and the part only a reader with the judgment open can do.

Why existence is not enough

The clearest illustration on file is the table of discrepancies in FJL v TGO (GJ, 31 July 2026), where a full bench in Johannesburg set out eleven problems with the citations in the judgment under appeal. What matters for this guide is the variety. A real Eastern Cape judgment, cited as a Johannesburg one with the wrong reference. A real Supreme Court of Appeal case cited under another case’s neutral citation. A Knoop judgment cited for prospects of success, when it is the other Knoop judgment that deals with that. A passage presented as the Constitutional Court’s own words, which was in fact the Constitutional Court quoting an older High Court judgment, with one sentence in the quotation that does not appear in that older judgment. And one case that does not exist at all: Lubbe v Volkswagon SA [2023] 4 All SA 289 (C), cited five times.

An existence check catches Lubbe. It misses everything else.

The seven checks, for every authority

1. Get the source. Not the headnote, not a summary, not Claude’s paraphrase. The judgment itself, as a PDF, in research/. If it is not on file, it is not cited. This one rule does more than any tool.

2. Confirm it is the case you think it is. Party names, court, date and citation, all against the PDF. Right name and wrong citation is the commonest error, in AI-assisted drafts and in others.

3. Compare the quotation, word for word. Draft and judgment side by side. Every word, in that order. Language models favour a well-turned quotation and will improve one without saying so; a quotation that starts right and then drifts is exactly what a misquotation looks like.

4. Read around it. The paragraph before and the paragraph after. Is this the court speaking, or the court recording what counsel argued? Is it the majority? Is it obiter? A made-up example that is the shape of a real one: the draft says “prescription does not run while the creditor has no knowledge of the debt”, citing paragraph 12. The words are there, exactly, at paragraph 12. Checks one to three pass. Then paragraph 12 begins “Counsel for the plaintiff submitted that …”, and paragraph 14 rejects the submission, because knowledge the creditor could reasonably have acquired counts too. The quotation is accurate, and the judgment holds the opposite of what it was cited for. Only this check catches that.

5. Test the proposition. Having read the passage in context, does the case support the point being made? Or a neighbouring point that sounds the same?

6. Is it still good law? Overruled, distinguished into nothing, or overtaken by legislation. This is the check the tools are worst at, because their knowledge stops at a date and they do not know which.

7. Look for the other side. A draft that cites only cases that help may be a draft that has not found the ones that do not. Ask.

Two checks, for every fact

Every material fact carries a record reference: page, paragraph or line. A sentence without one is the first sentence to check.

And the categories stay apart. An allegation is not an admitted fact. What a question assumed is not what the witness said. A summary that reports “the respondent admitted receiving the notice” when the affidavit says “I do not dispute that a notice was sent” has upgraded the evidence, and the words are close enough that only a comparison with the page shows it. Guide 7 has the five checks for a summary of a record; they apply to every factual passage in a draft.

What Claude can do in the check

The mechanical parts, and it does them well.

It can list every citation and quotation in a draft, so that nothing is missed. It can find, in a long judgment on file, the paragraph where a quotation appears, and say if it is somewhere other than the paragraph cited. It can compare a quotation with the source word for word and mark the differences. It can notice that the draft says 3 March and the affidavit says 13 March. Done across a whole set of heads, this produces a check sheet with one row per reference and a status for each.

Copy this prompt, with the matter folder connected, replacing the words in square brackets:

Check every citation and quotation in [draft file] against the judgments in research/. First list every case cited and tell me which have no PDF in research/. Then treat quotations and pinpoint-only citations separately. For each quotation: find the cited paragraph or page; check that the quoted words appear there word for word; if they appear elsewhere in the judgment, say where. Use the statuses VERIFIED, PARA MISMATCH, QUOTE INACCURATE, NOT FOUND and SOURCE UNAVAILABLE. A partial match is never VERIFIED. For each citation with no quotation (a pinpoint only): check only that the cited paragraph or page exists, and copy it into the sheet. Use the statuses PINPOINT ONLY, PINPOINT NOT FOUND, PINPOINT NOT CHECKABLE and NO PINPOINT GIVEN. Never give a citation with no quotation a quotation status. Put the result in an Excel sheet with one row per reference: the case and the paragraph or page cited; the quoted words, if any; the full source paragraph with any matching words highlighted; the status; and an empty column for the person who reads the paragraph. Do not change the draft.

The worked example the citation check shows the sheet on a made-up set of heads, and what each status means in practice.

What Claude cannot do in the check

It cannot give reassurance. “Are you sure?” produces “Yes”. Asking a second AI to confirm the first produces two confident answers. A “verified” label produced by a tool means that the tool ran, not that the thing is right.

More precisely: a word-for-word match confirms that the words are in the paragraph. It does not confirm that the paragraph is the court’s holding rather than a submission the court went on to reject. In one test of a checking tool, a false proposition was planted in a set of heads and attributed to a real judgment; the tool scored it as strongly supported, because the judgment set out that view before rejecting it. Checks four to seven are a person with the judgment open, and there is no version of the tool that changes that.

Keep a record

For anything going to court, keep a short note per authority: source and pinpoint; which of the seven checks were done; the result (fine, qualified, contradicted, source missing, not checked); who checked; when. It sounds bureaucratic. It takes a few minutes per case, and it is the answer to the question from the bench.

Check the version that is filed

Edits after the checks, including your own, put new errors in. It is easy to check draft four carefully, make small changes for draft five, and file draft five with the checks of draft four. The rule is that the checks are run on the version that goes out, and the record says which version that was.

Check yourself

At the end of this guide every authority in the draft should have a PDF on file, a confirmed identity, a word-for-word comparison, a note of what the surrounding paragraphs say, and a view on whether it is still good law; every material fact should carry a record reference that has been opened; the check sheet and the per-authority note should be in the matter folder; and the checks should be of the version that will be filed.

Sources on file: FJL v TGO (2025/220239) (GJ, 31 July 2026), Opperman J, paras [32]–[33] and the table of discrepancies. LPC Code of Conduct, para 57.1.