Cross-practice legal support

Lawyer-led

Legal research memos

Research is the work most often done by the most expensive person in the room, because it cannot be handed to someone who does not understand the question. We take the research question and return a memo with the governing authority, the analysis, the authority that cuts against you, and an explicit list of what we could not resolve.

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Published price
$300–900 / memo
Turnaround
3 to 5 days
Without us
$1,500–4,500 / memo

Fixed per unit, not hourly. No minimum engagement. Quoted before we start.

Lawyer-led

How we actually produce this

A lawyer's judgement runs through the middle of the work. The pipeline accelerates the reading, searching and assembly around it rather than producing the answer.

The pipeline is ours. It was built for legal work rather than adapted from a general product, which is why the price for this service is a published number instead of an hourly estimate.

Why this work leaves a firm
Research is the work most often done by the most expensive person available because it cannot be delegated to someone who does not understand the question.
What our pipeline does
We run structured retrieval across the relevant authority, draft the analysis against the question as framed, then verify every single citation against the source database for existence, accuracy of quotation, and subsequent treatment. Verification is a separate mandatory stage, not a spot check.
Where a lawyer steps in
Throughout. This is a Partial-tier service by design and we price and schedule it accordingly.
What it changes
Research memos at a fifth of the internal cost, with a citation verification standard that protects you from the failure mode that has sanctioned attorneys across multiple jurisdictions.

What you receive

The governing authority, the analysis, the contrary authority, and the open questions stated rather than buried.

Priced per memo, with the range set by the breadth of the question and the number of jurisdictions. Multi-jurisdiction questions are usually better handled as a fifty-state survey, which is priced differently.

  • A research memo structured around the question as you framed it, not as we would have framed it
  • The governing authority in the relevant jurisdiction, with the analysis that connects it to your facts
  • Contrary authority stated plainly rather than omitted, with an assessment of how much trouble it causes
  • An explicit list of open questions and the assumptions we had to make to proceed
  • Every citation verified against the source and formatted to your citation standard
  • A short answer at the top, for the partner who will read the first paragraph and nothing else

What it costs, and what it replaces

Both figures are published ranges for the same unit of work. Ours is fixed before we start; if our process gets faster, that is our gain and your price does not move.

How engagements are structured →
Price per memo · same work, both sides
Adnah Legal
$300–900 / memo
Typical cost without us
$1,500–4,500 / memo

Roughly 80% lower at the midpoint of each published range.

How the work runs

  1. 01

    Frame and confirm the question

    We restate the question, the jurisdiction and the assumed facts in writing and send it back before starting. Most bad research memos are answers to a slightly different question, and this is where that gets caught.

  2. 02

    Search and read

    The pipeline runs the search across the relevant corpus and assembles candidate authority with the passages that matter surfaced; a qualified lawyer reads the authority and decides what actually governs.

  3. 03

    Draft with the contrary case included

    The memo is drafted with the analysis and the authority that cuts against it in the same document. Where the answer is genuinely unsettled, the memo says so rather than choosing a side for presentational neatness.

  4. 04

    Verify every citation and deliver

    Each citation is checked against the source it claims - that it exists, that it says what the memo says it says, and that it is still good law - before a lawyer signs and delivers.

What we need from you

  • The question, and the jurisdiction it has to be answered in
  • The facts we should assume, and which of them are still contested
  • Any authority you already have in hand, so we do not bill you for finding it again
  • The deadline and the use - a client memo reads differently from an internal note

What we check before delivery

  • Every citation is verified against the source rather than accepted from a search result
  • Contrary authority is required in the memo, not optional, and its absence has to be justified
  • Assumptions and unresolved questions are listed explicitly rather than papered over
  • A qualified lawyer writes and signs the analysis - this is not a service where the pipeline produces the answer

When firms send us this

  • A discrete question that would otherwise consume a partner's evening
  • Jurisdictional questions outside the practice's usual footprint
  • Preliminary research to decide whether a claim or defence is worth developing at all
  • Supporting a motion where the citation standard has to hold up under scrutiny

Questions about legal research memos

  • Is this AI-written research?

    No. This is one of the services where a lawyer's judgement runs through the middle of the work - the pipeline accelerates the searching and assembly, and a qualified lawyer reads the authority, writes the analysis and signs it. Every citation is verified against the source before delivery, which is the protection against the failure mode that has sanctioned attorneys in several jurisdictions.

  • What if the answer is that it is unclear?

    Then the memo says so, and says why, and sets out what would resolve it. An artificially confident memo on an unsettled question is worse than no memo, because someone will rely on it.

  • Do you give legal advice?

    No. We produce a work product for the engaging attorney's review, revision and adoption. The advice to your client is yours, as it must be.

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Legal research memos at $300–900 per memo, 3 to 5 days. No minimum, no scoping call, no onboarding cycle.

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