Step one
Set the jurisdiction and court
Pick your state and, if it matters, the court. Only courts that actually exist in that state are offered.
50 states, D.C. and federal law
Research the law in your jurisdiction, and see every source.
Locke Research Companion scopes a legal question to your state and court, retrieves the primary sources behind the answer, and tells you when an authority could not be verified.
Start with your jurisdiction, not a search box.
The law that applies to you depends on where your matter sits. Research is scoped before it runs, and the scope travels with the answer.
Step two
Ask in plain English
Describe the situation the way you would to a person. No citation format or legal phrasing required.
Step three
Read the answer with its sources
Every answer lists what it relied on, and flags any authority it asserted but could not match to a retrieved source.
Every answer carries its sources.
Research retrieves from primary-law providers, then checks the answer against what was actually retrieved.
Primary law, not a summary of one
Court opinions through CourtListener, codified state statutes, federal legislation, and the Code of Federal Regulations.
Citations are checked, not trusted
Asserted citations are matched against the retrieved sources. Anything unmatched is reported rather than presented as settled.
Your documents stay private
Only the research question reaches public search providers. Uploaded documents are never sent to them.
Court structures are verified
All 50 state hierarchies, plus D.C. and federal, were checked against each judiciary's own published structure, with the source recorded.
Your matter, organized in one case file.
Research, documents, dates, issues and facts belong to a case file, so the record stays together.
Documents explained
Upload a lease, letter or agreement and get a plain-English explanation, including scanned files.
Timeline and issues
Build a chronology across documents and track the questions your matter turns on.
Attorney preparation
Generate the questions worth asking before a consultation, and export what you have.
What this is not.
Worth stating plainly, before you rely on it.
- Not a law firm, and not a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney.
- Not a filing service. It does not file anything with a court on your behalf.
- Not a complete database of any state's code. Statute retrieval is search over published law, and coverage varies by state.
- Not a guarantee of outcome. It reports what it found and what it could not verify.