LiTL (Lawyer in the Loop) checks every citation in a legal draft against its source and records what the lawyer decided. Built for the Xtrylegal legal-tech hackathon.
AI now drafts first versions of bail applications and petitions. A wrong or misquoted authority is costly in court.
AI drafting tools produce citations that look right. Nothing separated “a source exists” from “a lawyer checked it”.
Defined a six-step verification loop and designed the web app, mobile app and design system around it.
A review flow where every reference ends in a recorded decision — including honest “unresolved” ones.
How might we help lawyers verify AI‑drafted citations quickly — while keeping the judgement, and the credit, with the lawyer?
“Located” and “verified” are different states. The interface has to keep them visibly apart.
Some references can’t be confirmed. Hiding them is worse than showing them honestly.
Lawyers reject tools that time, score or compare them. The record describes what happened to the draft.
Goals — verify every reference quickly; keep evidence of what was flagged
Pain points — citations look right until they aren’t; no record of the checks they did
Goals — know what was verified before filing; approve or return with context
Pain points — can’t see what was checked; won’t adopt tools that monitor the team
A “found” source was treated as a verified one.
A reference can be located with no decision recorded yet, and the Located filter always matches the Located count.
Numbers never contradict each other, and nothing looks checked before it is.
Comparing meant jumping between the draft and the judgment.
The claim is marked in gold, the located passage in blue; the claim only turns green after the lawyer confirms.
Colour never implies a check that didn’t happen.
Some references can’t be confirmed.
Leaving one open asks for a written reason that travels with it — amber and static, never blinking or red.
Honest uncertainty reaches the partner instead of disappearing.
Partners couldn’t see what was checked before a filing went out.
The partner sees what was confirmed, corrected and left open, then approves or returns it; the record keeps both versions.
Approval rests on evidence, not trust.
Final designs — upload and detection, reference review, correcting a quotation, and sending for senior review
The product says “source opened · 2m 41s away from LiTL” — never “read for 2m 41s” — because it can only know the first.
Gold for the draft’s claim, blue for the located passage, green only after a decision — so colour always tells the truth about state.
The product can know a source was opened — not that it was read — and the copy has to say exactly that.
Helping golfers plan every shot before the first tee.