Help centre · Marco research
Research with Marco.
How citation verification works, how to write sharper queries, and when to trust the output.
What Marco is — and isn’t.
Marco is a research assistant. It reads your question, finds the authority that bears on it, verifies the citations against primary sources, and drafts a structured analysis that you can edit, save to a matter, or discard.
Marco is not a lawyer. Marco is not an accountant. Marco does not give legal or financial advice and its output is not a substitute for professional judgement. Every firm using Marco Reid is responsible for reviewing research output before it informs client advice or work product.
That boundary is not a disclaimer. It is the reason Marco is useful. Marco does the search, the cross-reference, and the first-draft synthesis; you do the judgement.
Citation verification.
Every citation Marco returns carries a status. The status tells you exactly how much to trust it.
The citation was found in a trusted primary source — CourtListener, GovInfo, state statute databases, or a recognised regulatory publisher — and the quoted text matches. Safe to rely on after your own review.
The citation format looks real but Marco could not confirm it against a primary source. Treat it as a research lead, not a fact. Click through to see which sources Marco tried and run your own verification before using it.
No matching authority exists in any of the sources we query. The citation is almost certainly a hallucination. Marco surfaces this rather than silently dropping it so you know the model tried and failed.
Writing good queries.
Four habits that separate productive Marco users from frustrated ones.
Be specific about jurisdiction
Add the state, country, or court. “Statute of limitations for breach of written contract in New York” returns a sharp answer; “statute of limitations for breach of contract” returns a generic survey that you still have to narrow down yourself.
Include the factual context
One sentence of context dramatically improves results. “Can a CPA disclose client tax records to a successor accountant without written consent?” is better than “client disclosure rules.”
Specify the domain
If you want case law, say case law. If you want a statute, say statute. If you want a regulatory interpretation, say so. Marco honours the instruction and returns authority of the type you asked for.
Ask follow-up questions
Marco keeps the thread. After the first answer, ask “What about the equivalent rule in New Jersey?” or “Does this change if the agreement is oral?” — you don’t have to restate everything each time.
The ⌘K command palette.
Press ⌘K on macOS or Ctrl+K on Windows from anywhere in the platform. The palette opens over whatever you were doing without losing your place. Start typing a question and Marco begins work the moment you hit enter.
The palette is context-aware. If you trigger it from inside a matter, Marco inherits that matter’s jurisdiction, client context, and prior research. Trigger it from the global dashboard and Marco treats the query as firm-wide.
Every command palette interaction is keyboard-driven. Arrow keys navigate, enter confirms, escape dismisses, and ⌘S saves the result to the active matter.
Inserting citations into documents.
Inside the document editor, press ⌘J to open the citation inserter. Search your saved research or run a fresh Marco query, and click to insert. The citation drops in with the correct format for your firm’s chosen citation style — Bluebook, ALWD, or the style you configured per jurisdiction.
Inserted citations remain linked to the source. If the underlying authority is amended, superseded, or overruled, Marco flags the citation in any document where it appears and suggests a replacement.
Managing your query history.
Every query you run is saved to your personal history by default. Open “My research” from the sidebar to browse, search, and filter by date, jurisdiction, or matter. From any result you can re-run the query, save it to a matter, or delete it.
Queries saved to a matter leave your personal history and live with the matter instead, visible to every authorised team member. This is how research becomes an institutional asset rather than a private notebook.
Frequently asked.
Is Marco giving me legal or financial advice?
No. Marco is a research assistant. It surfaces authority, drafts analysis, and verifies citations — but the professional judgement, client advice, and final work product are yours. Every output is labelled accordingly.
How does Marco decide which sources to search?
Marco routes each query based on the type of authority requested and your firm’s jurisdiction. US case law goes through CourtListener and federal/state reporters; statutes go through GovInfo and state legislature feeds; regulations go through agency publications. You can see the full routing on the result page.
What happens when Marco is uncertain?
Marco tells you. If confidence is low, the response is labelled as such and Marco suggests how to tighten the query. We would rather return a short, honest answer than a confident wrong one.
Can I use Marco for non-US research?
Yes. Marco covers US, UK, Australian, and New Zealand primary sources, with Canadian coverage in progress. EU coverage is on the roadmap for late 2026. Citation verification is strongest in the US and New Zealand today.
How long is my query history kept?
Queries run inside a matter live with that matter for the matter’s full retention period. Ad-hoc queries live in your personal history for 12 months by default; you can change that in settings or delete individual queries at any time.
Can colleagues see my queries?
Only queries saved to a matter are visible to other authorised users of that matter. Your personal query history is private to you. Firm administrators can see aggregate usage but not the content of personal queries.
Does Marco learn from my queries?
Marco uses anonymised, opt-in signals — which citations you kept, which you rejected — to improve verification. We never train foundation models on your client data. You can opt out of the flywheel entirely in firm settings.
What if Marco returns a citation that doesn’t exist?
That citation is flagged NOT_FOUND and excluded from the drafted analysis. If you see an UNVERIFIED or NOT_FOUND citation that should be verifiable, forward it to support@marcoreid.com — we use the report to tune our source routing.
Still have a question about Marco?
Email support@marcoreid.com or browse the rest of the help centre.