Research Execution
Operationalizing legal work as a unified professional workflow governed by practice standards.
Beyond Isolated Skills
Before asking whether an LLM "knows law," we must define what legal AI is intended to do. LegalChain operationalizes legal work not as a collection of disjointed skills, but as Research Execution—the integrated professional competency of completing a legal research task from question to answer.
Authority Sources
The MacCrate Report
"Legal research is a fundamental lawyering skill... emphasizing devising and implementing a coherent and effective research design."
Principle IV: Effective Application
"A successful legal researcher applies information effectively to resolve a specific issue or need... synthesizing legal doctrine across similar cases."
Lawyering Effectiveness Factors
Identifies 26 performance measures including "Fact Finding," "Researching the Law," and "Integrity & Honesty."
The Integrated Workflow
These sources do not describe independent skills tested in isolation. They describe a workflow that succeeds or fails as a unit. In legal practice, accuracy is not a gradient; it is a binary requirement for professional utility.
Individual Skill Failure
A lawyer who finds the right case but extracts the **wrong holding** has not executed research competently.
Fabrication Failure
A lawyer who synthesizes brilliantly but cites **fabricated authority** has produced worthless work product.
LegalChain measures the Integrated Competency. Our scoring reflects the job performance reality: the chain either produces a usable legal product, or it fails.