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Legal Research Memo Template

The research memo a supervising lawyer expects, plus sheets that record whether each authority binds the court, is still good law and supports your point.

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Pack of 7 files: 4 documents, 3 spreadsheets

Legal Research Memo Template
  • Reading an Authority RegisterDocument
  • Authority RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Adverse Authority RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Currency Check ProtocolDocument
  • Research MemorandumDocument
  • Authority SummaryDocument
  • Open Question LogSpreadsheet
RiverLegal Research Memo Template

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 onlyCriticized 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. The sheets ship filled in for a fictional matter, and every case in them is made up.

Page 1 of 1154 words

How to write a legal research memo

A legal research memo is an internal document that answers a specific legal question for the lawyer who assigned it. It predicts how a court would likely rule on your client's facts, rather than arguing for one side. A good one follows a standard order: a heading, then the question presented, brief answer, facts, discussion and conclusion. It names the jurisdiction, relies only on authority you have read and checked, and deals openly with the cases against your client.

Write it for the reader who may later sign a court filing built on it. Every authority you cite should be one they can safely cite too.

Rows of bound volumes of the Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports on wooden shelves
Before you cite a reported decision, check whether it binds your court. Photo: Nasser Eledroos on Unsplash

Pin down the question before you research

A memo that answers the wrong question is wrong from the first page. Before you open a single case, settle these points with the assigning lawyer and write the answers down.

  • Which court will decide this, in which state or federal circuit?
  • What is the procedural posture: no lawsuit yet, a motion to dismiss, summary judgment or appeal?
  • What legal standard applies, and who must prove what?
  • Which facts are documented, which come from the client, and which are assumed?
  • What is out of scope, such as damages or choice of law?

If the question turns on a contract, read the whole agreement before you research. A contract review checklist helps you log the clauses that matter.

Research from the top down

Start with secondary sources such as treatises, legal encyclopedias and law reviews. Georgetown Law Library notes that secondary sources do the initial legwork for you1 by citing the authorities on a topic and often explaining that area of law. On their own, they can persuade a court but don't bind it.

Then turn to primary law. Read the governing statute or regulation itself before any case that applies it, and look first for cases from the courts that bind yours. Keep a log of sources and searches, and stop when new searches return only authorities you have read.

Sort each case as binding or persuasive. Cornell's Legal Information Institute sums up the general rule: decisions from other states don't bind your state's courts2, and trial court decisions aren't binding even in the same trial court.

Check every authority before you rely on it

Give each authority four separate checks, because each can fail on its own. A case can be binding and current and still not say what you cite it for.

Four checks for every authority

CheckWhat to askWhat failure looks like
Where it comes fromWhich court decided it, at what level, and when?A trial court order cited like appellate law
Whether it binds your courtMust the court deciding your question follow it?Another state's appeals decision cited as controlling
What has happened sinceHas it been overruled, reversed, superseded, amended or criticized?A case overruled since the old memo that cited it
Whether it says what you citeIs the point on the page cited, and is it the holding?The point is two pages later, or only in a dissent

Run every case and statute through a citator, such as Shepard's on Lexis or KeyCite on Westlaw, and note the date. A stale citation can be an ethics problem, not only a research one. In California, the rule against knowingly misstating the law to a court covers citing an overruled decision or a repealed statute3, and failing to correct such a citation.

Read every authority yourself, especially one an AI tool suggested. In Mata v. Avianca (2023), a federal judge in New York fined two lawyers and their firm $5,0004 for citing cases ChatGPT had invented, then standing by them. Even the real decisions they cited, with one exception and part of another, didn't support the points they were cited for.

The State Bar of California's 2026 guidance says a lawyer must review AI output for accuracy, including citations to authority5, before it goes to a court.

Use the standard legal research memo format

The standard memo has six parts, which CUNY School of Law's writing center lists as heading, question presented, brief answer, facts, discussion and conclusion6. If your office has its own format, follow that.

The parts of a legal research memo

PartWhat goes in itWatch for
HeadingTo, from, date, and a Re line naming client and issueA Re line too vague to search for
Question presentedJurisdiction, legal rule and key facts, in one sentenceMissing the deciding facts
Brief answerYes, no or probably, then up to five sentences of reasonsCitations, which usually belong in the discussion
FactsEvery fact the answer turns on, favorable or notCommenting on the facts
DiscussionPer issue: the rule, how courts apply it, your facts, counterargumentsTouring cases instead of stating the rule
ConclusionYour answer and how confident you areHedging until there is no answer

Organize the discussion issue by issue, in whatever pattern your office uses: IRAC, CREAC or CUNY's CRRACC (conclusion, rule, rule explanation, application, counterargument, conclusion). All of them state the rule before applying it.

Say what each conclusion rests on. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)(2)7, a lawyer who presents a filing in a federal civil case certifies that its legal contentions are warranted. They must rest on existing law, or on a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying or reversing the law, or for establishing new law. A brief answer that only says "probably" doesn't tell the signer which.

ExampleA question presented and brief answerAn illustrative example written for this guide. Westmark and its law are made up.

Question presented: Under Westmark law, is a 14-month ban on a former sales rep soliciting any of the company's 300 customers enforceable when she served only 11?

Brief answer: Probably in part. Westmark courts enforce a non-solicitation clause only as far as it protects relationships the employee actually held. A court would likely enforce this one for her 11 accounts and refuse it for the rest. Enforcing it as written would need an argument to extend existing law.

  • Answer first. The brief answer opens with its conclusion and gives reasons without citations.
  • Clear footing. The last sentence says which part rests on existing law and which needs an argument for change.

Face the authority against your client

Leaving out a bad case only delays it: the reader meets it later, in the other side's brief. Put the strongest counterarguments in the discussion and say how you think a court would resolve them.

Flag any adverse authority the filing lawyer may have to disclose. California's Rule 3.3, for example, requires disclosure of legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to be directly adverse3 to the client's position and not disclosed by opposing counsel. All three conditions must hold, so record which ones each adverse case meets.

A comment to the rule adds that controlling authority can include a federal statute that decides an issue in a state case. The duty lasts until the proceeding ends, and the third condition lapses once the other side cites the case, so recheck before each filing.

When to involve a lawyer

A memo by a law student, paralegal or AI tool is a draft until a lawyer licensed in that jurisdiction checks it. If the question is about your own situation, see a lawyer before acting on it.

Check it before you send it

Close with what the research didn't settle, such as open points of law, missing facts or anything the assignment left out. Say whether each could change the answer, and date the memo.

Before you send the memo

  • The question names the jurisdiction and the deciding facts
  • You have read every authority you cite, in full
  • Every case and statute has a dated citator check
  • Every pin cite points to the page that supports it
  • Adverse authority is discussed, with disclosure flags noted
  • Open questions and scope limits are listed

If the memo concludes your client has a claim, the next document is often a demand letter or a cease and desist letter. The template on this page gives you the memo and its registers to start from.

How to use this template

Use the files as they are, or open them in River. River asks for your question, the jurisdiction, the procedural posture and what's out of scope, plus any cases, pleadings or earlier memo you already have.

It writes the framing into the memo heading and logs each authority you sent in the Authority Register, with its court, binding status, treatment and pin cite kept separate. It fills in the three disclosure conditions for each authority against your client, and lists what's missing or unresolved. It won't invent a citation: anything it can't find or read goes in the Open Question Log, and every disclosure call stays with a named lawyer.

  1. Download it or open it in River

    Download the four Word documents and three CSV sheets free, or open them in River to build the registers with AI.

  2. Frame the question first

    Write the jurisdiction, posture and standard into the memo heading, and log what's out of scope, before you open a single authority.

  3. Give each authority four checks

    Log every authority in the Authority Register: where it comes from, whether it binds, its treatment and its pin cite.

  4. Write from completed rows

    Draft the memo only from rows with all four checks, list the open questions, and have a supervising lawyer verify every citation.

What's in the template

Nine authorities, one disclosure call, and the two words the brief answer has to choose betweenThe register, the three conditions that make an adverse case disclosable, and the memo that reads off both.
Legal Research Memo Template
RiverAuthority Register

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, persuasiveCriticized, 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 five is persuasive and criticized 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.

RiverAdverse authority

Three conditions, all of which have to be true

The two cases below both 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 anything they have 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. Not yet cited by the other side
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.

RiverThe memo

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.

  • Research MemorandumThe memo: heading, question presented, a two-part brief answer, facts, discussion by issue and open questions.
  • Authority SummaryOne entry per authority with its holding, its treatment and the quoted passage you rely on, page included.
  • Reading an Authority RegisterThe method: the four facts every authority carries, why they fail separately, and why each row is dated.
  • Currency Check ProtocolWhen to recheck the registers, such as before each filing, and what each recheck covers.
  • Authority Register sheetOne row per authority: jurisdiction, whether it binds, treatment, proposition, pin cite and whether it checks out.
  • Adverse Authority Register sheetEach case against your client, tested against the three disclosure conditions, with a named lawyer's decision.
  • Open Question Log sheetWhat the research didn't settle, why, what would close it and whether it could change the answer.

Common questions

What is the format of a legal research memo?

A standard legal research memo has six parts: a heading, the question presented, a brief answer, the facts, the discussion and a conclusion. The discussion takes one issue at a time, stating each rule before applying it. Use your office's house format if it has one. This template keeps that order, with a conclusion for each issue and a closing list of open questions.

How long should a legal research memo be?

There is no set length, so ask the assigning lawyer what they expect and how much time to spend. Then keep each part to its job: usually one sentence per question, a brief answer of no more than four or five sentences, only the facts that matter, and a one-paragraph conclusion.

What is the difference between a legal memo and a brief?

A memo predicts and a brief persuades. A research memo is written for your own side and tells the reader how a court is likely to rule, weaknesses included. A brief is filed with the court and argues for your client, though the lawyer filing it may still have to disclose directly adverse authority from the controlling jurisdiction.

Can I use AI to help write a legal research memo?

Yes, for organizing research and drafting, but not in place of reading the law. AI tools can produce citations to cases that don't exist, so read every authority yourself and check it in a citator. The lawyer who presents a filing built on the memo remains responsible for every citation in it.

Is this legal research memo template free?

Yes. The four Word documents and three CSV sheets download free, with no signup. The sheets come filled with a fictional example matter, made-up cases included, so you can see how each column works before you clear them. Edit with AI opens the same files in a free River workspace.

What does Edit with AI do?

It opens the template in a free River workspace. River asks for your question, jurisdiction, posture and scope, plus any cases or earlier memo you have. It frames the question, registers each authority you send, sets out the disclosure conditions for cases against your client, and reports what's missing. It won't invent a citation or make a disclosure call for you.

Who is this template for?

Associates, law clerks, paralegals and law students who answer legal questions in writing for a supervising lawyer. It suits any memo someone may later build a court filing on, because it records how each authority was checked. If you aren't a lawyer, use it to organize research, not as legal advice.

Sources

  1. Georgetown Law Library. “Secondary Sources Research Guide.” guides.ll.georgetown.edu (opens in a new tab)

  2. Cornell Law School. “persuasive authority.” law.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)

  3. State Bar of California. “2026 Rules of Professional Conduct.” calbar.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)

  4. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. “Mata v. Avianca, Inc.: Opinion and Order on Sanctions.” storage.courtlistener.com (opens in a new tab)

  5. State Bar of California. “Practical Guidance for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law.” calbar.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)

  6. CUNY School of Law. “Drafting a Law Office Memorandum.” law.cuny.edu (opens in a new tab)

  7. Cornell Law School. “Rule 11. Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers; Representations to the Court; Sanctions.” law.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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