You can use Vincent in Clio Library to help understand and contextualise case law. Vincent can read cases, extract key legal issues, and automatically produce a summary, including headnotes and key phrases. This allows you to understand the issues addressed in a judgment at a glance.
Tip: Start a conversation with Vincent in Clio Work to analyse legal documents from your computer or ensure your analysis is connected to a matter in Clio Manage.
View case analysis with Vincent
- In Clio Library, open a case and select the Document tab, if not already selected. Alternatively, navigate to Clio Work and select the Ask Research Questions workflow.
- View the case analysis at the top of the screen, above the full judgment.
Access case law citators
Clio Library provides access to advanced citation tools to quickly assess the reliability of a case and comprehend its legal context. In case law, you can use treatment types to view how cases cite and relate to each other. You can view citator data by navigating to a specific document through either Clio Work or the Clio Library.
- Ask a research question, and you can view cases under the list of Legal Authorities, which link to documents in Clio Library.
- Click Library from the left navigation panel to begin a new search and select a document from your results.
- From the document viewer, once the document is open, select the appropriate subtab to view specific data: Judgment, Cited Authorities, Cited in, Precedent Map, Citation and Sources (jurisdiction-specific).
Interpret treatment types
Treatment types indicate how a subsequent document referred to the case you are viewing. While they vary slightly by jurisdiction, you can interpret them using the colour-coding system below.
- Grey tag: In some jurisdictions, a grey tag with a number to the right of the document name.
- US Case Citators (Cert), use the colour codes. Refer to the corresponding colour below to quickly assess a case's standing.
Treatment colour codes
- Positive (Green)
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Positive treatments indicate that a subsequent case actively followed the reasoning in the current case. These treatments also include decisions where an appellate court dismissed appeals from the first-instance decision.
- Interpretation: The case's legal principle has been upheld or successfully followed.
- Neutral treatments (Grey or Orange)
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Neutral treatments indicate that a subsequent case referred to the current case, but the judge did not assign an explicit or implicit value to it when resolving the issue in that subsequent case. These treatment tags are grey on all results pages, including the 'Cited In' tab. On the Precedent Map, these treatment tags are orange.
- Interpretation: The case was mentioned, but its legal authority was neither affirmed nor questioned.
- Caution treatments (Yellow)
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Caution treatments indicate that a subsequent case referred to the current case, but the judge declined to apply it because they considered it not relevant to their own matter. These treatment tags are yellow.
- Interpretation: The case remains good law, but its facts were found to be materially different from those in the current matter.
- Negative treatments (Red)
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Negative treatments indicate that a subsequent case referred to the current case, but the judge declined to apply it because they considered it no longer good law. These treatment tags are red.
- Interpretation: The case's legal principle has been questioned, limited, or overturned. Proceed with caution or seek alternative authority.
- Unclassified treatments (Grey)
Unclassified treatments are found and recognise the connection between the cases, but editors have not yet classified the treatment type. These connections are grey on your Precedent Map.