How to verify AI output: a practical method
The Ayinde duty is simple to state and easy to skip under time pressure. Here's a method that makes verification a habit rather than an afterthought.
- Treat every AI output as a draft to be checked, not a result to be trusted.
- Verify all authority — cases, statutes, "market practice" — against the original source.
- Check the document's internal integrity: defined terms, cross-references, numbering, placeholders.
- Apply one final test before anything leaves your desk: is it accurate, is it clear, would you put your name to it?
Ayinde tells you that you must verify AI-assisted work. It doesn't tell you how to do it efficiently. This is the method — the same one built into the skills in The Lawyer's Prompt.
1. Verify the authority
This is the one the court cared about. Every case, statute, statutory provision, tribunal decision or assertion of "standard practice" the AI produces must be checked against the original source before you rely on it. If you cannot verify it, you do not use it — full stop. A model that sounds certain is not evidence; the only evidence is the source.
A useful discipline: have the AI flag its own unverifiable claims. A well-built tool marks anything it asserts but cannot ground with something like [VERIFY], turning a hidden risk into a visible to-do.
2. Check the document's integrity
Fabricated law is the headline risk, but AI also makes quieter mistakes that cause real problems:
- Defined terms — used but never defined, defined but never used, or used inconsistently.
- Cross-references — "see clause 8.3" pointing at the wrong clause, or one that doesn't exist.
- Numbering — gaps, repeats, or sequences that break.
- Placeholders — stray brackets, [DATE], [PARTY], or drafting notes left in the body.
These won't get you in front of a regulator, but they will embarrass you in front of a client or a counterparty.
3. Apply the final test
Before anything goes out, three questions — the ones a good lawyer asks instinctively:
Is this legally accurate? Is it clear? Would I be happy to put my name to it?
If the answer to any is "not sure," it isn't ready.
The Lawyer's Prompt — book + 15 Claude skills
Everything in this guide, built into tools you install once. Solicitor-trained skills that draft, review and verify to your house style, with the Ayinde discipline built in — and the book that explains the standard behind them.
See what's included — £99 →Making verification structural
The reason verification gets skipped is that it's a separate step, done under time pressure, easy to rush. The fix is to make it part of the tool rather than a discipline you have to summon each time. The Pre-Send Verifier skill in The Lawyer's Prompt runs this exact method over a draft you've written — checking authority, defined terms, cross-references, numbering and placeholders, and closing with the three questions — so the Ayinde standard is applied every time, not just when you remember.
Background: Ayinde explained and AI and SRA compliance.