Capabilities in Workbench
Case Law Search in Irys Workbench
Case law search is something you ask for, not a screen you go to. You type the question in Workbench, and it searches U.S. case law and brings back what you asked for, with a citation on every case.
Asking for results you can scan
The shape of the answer follows the shape of your ask. Ask for prose and you get prose. Ask for results you can scan and you get a table.
Say what you are looking for
Write the question the way you would hand it to an associate, and name the courts that matter: "the standard for granting summary judgment in California state courts".
Say how you want it back
Add what you want the output to look like. "Show me the cases as results I can scan, not a written answer" returns a table instead of an essay.
Name the columns you want
Whatever facts you ask for become the columns. Ask for the decision date and the citation count and you get them as columns; ask for the holding and you get a column summarising it. Nothing is fixed, so say what you need to see.
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is something you say, not something you tick. Name the courts that matter in the question itself, the way you would when handing the work to an associate: "under California law", "in the Second Circuit", "federal and New York state courts".
If every matter for a client runs in the same courts, set it once as a client instruction and Workbench applies it to that client's work from then on. Most answers that cite the wrong jurisdiction come from a question that never named one.
Narrowing what came back
Narrowing is the next message, not a filter control. Ask in plain language and Workbench reruns against the results it already has.
From those results, show only cases decided between 2018 and 2024, cited more than 50 times.
You get a fresh table containing only the cases that qualify. The same works for a court, a date range, a judge, a topic, or a minimum citation count. Combine as many as you need in one sentence.
Checking a case
Every case carries a numbered citation, and nothing asks you to take it on faith.
- Click the number to open the source. Case law opens in a new tab at the publisher of the opinion.
- Open the Sources & Citations panel from the Sources button under the answer. It counts the citations and the sources behind them, groups them by source, and labels each group by what it is, such as Case Law or Web.
- Search citations inside the panel to filter to the ones mentioning a word.
- Copy citation takes one, Copy All takes the lot.
- The answer closes with a references line listing the authorities it relied on.
To read the opinion itself, ask for it: "show me the original court PDF for the top result" returns a link to the official opinion.
Saving a case
Ask Workbench to save a case to the Matter you are working in, and it joins that Matter's materials.
Two things have to be true before a case can be saved, and Workbench tells you which one is missing. The chat has to be attached to a Matter, which you do with Move to Matter at the top of the chat. Matter management also has to be switched on for that chat; if it is off, the answer says so and asks you to enable it.
Cases saved to a Matter are available to Irys as context, which sharpens later drafting and research in that Matter.
Next steps
Citation checking
Check the authorities in a document against legal data sources and catch anything that does not match a real case.
Learn moreDeep Research
Memo-quality research in one comprehensive pass, with aggregated citations.
Learn moreThorough Mode
A full investigation that reads your matter, checks case law, and cites every claim inline.
Learn more