Descrybe Review
User Guide
Descrybe Review
Check citations, quoted language, and source support in a brief
This guide explains how to use Descrybe Review in a straightforward, brief-centered way. Descrybe Review reviews a pasted brief or a single uploaded brief document, extracts citation occurrences, resolves authorities including short cites and many Westlaw/Lexis citations, and builds a citation-by-citation report that helps you spot unresolved citations, quote issues, support issues, and unusual uses of authority before you rely on the brief.
What Descrybe Review is best for
Descrybe Review is most useful when you already have a draft brief and want a structured way to check the citations inside it. It is designed for quality control and citation triage, not for open-ended legal research.
- Checking a draft brief before filing or circulation.
- Finding citations that do not resolve cleanly.
- Reviewing briefs that use short cites, chained cites, or Westlaw/Lexis cites that can be harder to resolve.
- Checking whether quoted language matches the cited opinion.
- Spotting propositions that may overstate or shift what the authority supports.
- Seeing whether a case is being used in line with how other courts usually cite it.
Before you begin
You will usually get the most useful report when you provide a complete stretch of brief text or a clean brief document, not a heavily clipped excerpt.
- Use either pasted text or one uploaded file, but not both at the same time.
- Upload only one PDF, DOC, or DOCX file per run, up to 2 MB.
- Per run, trial accounts analyze up to 15 citations and full subscriptions analyze up to 50 citations.
- Expect long briefs to take several minutes to process.
- If the brief is very long, be prepared to run it in sections.
How to use Descrybe Review
Most reviews follow the same straightforward pattern.
- 1
Choose one input method
You can either paste the text of the brief or upload one PDF or Word document. The page is designed for one input method at a time, so if you upload a file you should not also paste text into the form.
- 2
Start the review
Click Run Descrybe Review to begin. The tool will extract citation occurrences, resolve authorities, and prepare a report for each citation occurrence it finds.
- 3
Wait for processing to finish
Large briefs can take several minutes. While the review runs, the processing screen shows the current status and elapsed time so you know the job is still moving.
- 4
Read the summary at the top of the report
When the run is complete, the report begins with totals for all citations found, how many resolved, and how many remained unresolved.
- 5
Review the citation cards one by one
Each card represents a citation occurrence in the brief. Open the cards from top to bottom or jump directly to the warnings and unresolved items first.
- 6
Run another segment if needed
Per run, trial accounts analyze up to 15 citations and full subscriptions analyze up to 50 citations. If your brief is long or reaches that per-run cap, split it into sections and run another review. The tool is meant to help you triage efficiently, not replace final legal judgment.
What you will see while it runs
The processing screen is intentionally simple. It tells you where the job is in the queue or run cycle without forcing you to guess whether anything is happening.
Getting your review started
This appears when the job is queued and waiting to begin.
Reviewing your brief
This appears while Descrybe Review is extracting citations, resolving authorities, and evaluating quote and source support.
Status and elapsed time
These indicators help confirm that the job is still running, especially on longer briefs.
How to read the report
The report is organized so you can first scan the overall status and then drill into individual citation cards. Each card reflects one citation occurrence in the brief, not just one unique case.
Citation status badges
Each citation card starts with status badges such as resolved or unresolved, plus any important quote, support, or usage signals that deserve attention. You may also see reason labels and confidence indicators to help prioritize what to review first.
Brief context
This shows the relevant sentence or surrounding text from the brief so you can understand how the citation is being used without leaving the report.
Quick takeaway
This is the short plain-language summary of the main issue or strength for that citation. It is often the fastest place to start.
How the brief uses this citation
When useful, this section explains the apparent role the citation is playing in the brief, such as supporting a stated proposition or appearing in a string cite.
Quote Review
This section focuses on whether quoted or attributed language in the brief matches the source opinion. It now distinguishes exact, fragment, and unclear matches, and in same-caption matters with multiple opinions it works to match language to the right opinion variant. In closer cases, it may show the closest source language and highlight meaningful differences.
Support Review
This section evaluates whether the cited authority appears to support the proposition attached to the citation, not just whether the citation exists. Results may show supported, partially supported, unsupported, or not enough source text. It helps you spot overstatement, issue drift, partial support, or missing support.
How this case is usually cited
This section shows parentheticals and similar descriptions drawn from other opinions so you can compare the brief use of the case to the way courts commonly describe or rely on it. It is especially useful when Descrybe Review flags possible out-of-pattern use.
Pinpoint Check
When pinpoint analysis is available, this section helps you assess whether the cited page or pinpoint appears to line up with the proposition being attributed to the authority. It now does a better job with contextual "at" and page references and can separate directional support from pinpoint support that cannot be verified from available text.
Tips for better results
Descrybe Review works best as a practical quality-control step near the end of drafting, when the citations and propositions are already in reasonably final form.
- Paste enough surrounding text for the citation to have context. A clipped excerpt is less helpful than the relevant portion of the brief.
- Use one brief or one brief section per run so the report stays focused and easier to review.
- If your brief is large, split it into logical sections rather than trying to force everything into one run.
- Read unresolved citations first, then warnings, then the rest of the report.
- Treat the report as a quality-control and triage tool. Confirm important authorities and quotations before filing, sending, or relying on the brief.
- Pay special attention when the report says the case is being used differently from how other courts usually cite it.
When to use another tool instead
Descrybe Review is for checking a brief you already have. If you are still researching the law or developing the argument, another tool may be a better first step.
- Use DescrybeLM when you want broader legal reasoning, a memo-style answer, or help thinking through the underlying legal issue.
- Use Citation Lookup when you already know the citation and simply want to pull up the authority directly.
- Use Case Name Search when you already know the case name.
- Use Concept Search or Keyword Search when you are still researching the law and need to find authorities, rather than checking a finished draft.