Draft affidavits and submissions for a contested estate
Key facts
- Human involvement
- RedLawyer-led
- How AI is used
- The tool writes no part of the affidavits. In this task the tool writes no part of the submissions either, because they restate the sworn material. Working only from the source documents — the will, the instructions file, the medical records and the estate accounts — build a strictly tabular, source-tagged chronology: date, actor, event, source document — a working chronology, not an outline or order of paragraphs, and never drawn from the deponent's own account. Against the lawyer's own affidavit draft, index the annexures and list every assertion in that draft with no source in the proofing note. Check affidavit form against the rules that actually govern the claim in the court it is filed in — the affidavit part of that court’s rules and its current approved affidavit form, and the family provision rules and practice note where the claim is for provision, rather than the probate rules, which govern a contest over the grant. Where the court requires a disclosure that generative AI was not used in preparing affidavit content, check that the disclosure is present in the form that court prescribes. Arrange the authorities the lawyer has selected beside the proposition the lawyer's own draft cites it for. The tool states no proposition of law of its own.
- What the lawyer must review
- The lawyer writes the affidavits from the deponent's own account and writes the submissions. The deponent reads and adopts the evidence before swearing. The lawyer verifies every authority and every exhibit reference in their own draft, checks the chronology entry by entry against the source document named for it, and confirms the affidavit form and the rule and form numbers current in the court where the claim is filed, and, where that court requires it, the disclosure about generative AI, before the affidavit is sworn.
- Written for / version
- US
Open a jurisdiction version of this task to see which instruments apply: US
Who does what
| Role | What they do |
|---|---|
| Assistance | Supporting preparation only. Potential support includes organising research leads and extracting and organising information. Confirm the tool’s capability and permitted scope. The tool writes nothing into the document. Substantive advice, judgement and any restricted content remain with the responsible human. |
| Lawyer | Perform the substantive analysis and decisions. Independently check any permitted supporting work and approve the exact output for its intended use. |
Checklist
- Open each relied-on authority independently. Confirm its existence, current status, proposition and any quotation or pinpoint reference.
- Confirm each factual assertion with the witness and original record. Preserve the witness’s own knowledge and words, and check the court’s rules for this document.
- Check the current court or regulator requirements, prescribed form and attachments for the intended document and filing.
- Verify dates, people and sequence against contemporaneous records. Preserve uncertainty and identify gaps or conflicting accounts.
- Verify the applicable jurisdiction and the version of each relevant law, rule or instrument in force at the material time.
- Confirm the output against the client’s instructions and the complete relevant source material, including omissions or contradictions.
- Resolve exceptions and record the responsible lawyer’s approval of the exact output and intended use.