Summary judgment is not a writing task. It is a logic problem.
Materiality, admissibility, burden and posture, all at once, before a sentence is drafted. The MSJ Engine is stage two: it takes the pathway the MSJ Qualifier has tested and turns it into a complete, grounded motion. Both are in Early access with a first group of firms.
Summary judgment demands undisputed and material facts.
Facts that don’t control the outcome
A fact can be true, documented and undisputed, and still legally irrelevant. When materiality is unclear, judges default to denial.
Evidence that won’t survive objection
Material facts fail when the supporting evidence gets excluded: hearsay, foundation, authentication, personal knowledge.
Law that no longer governs
The right rule from the wrong department, or a rule narrowed after the case you cite came down.
“Undisputed” facts that aren’t
Both inferences are reasonable. Motion denied. The credibility firewall exists so the workflow never papers over a genuine dispute.
The structure is validated before drafting.
Materiality certainty
Materiality is question-dependent, not element-dependent. Every fact is mapped to the element it supports under the applicable law; gaps become visible immediately.
Admissibility assurance
Every piece of evidence is screened for the same hearsay, authentication and foundation checks the court will apply. You find out your declarant never established personal knowledge before the court does.
Doctrinal precision
Summary judgment legal research, built into the structure: the correct rule for the stage, from the controlling court, still good law, with the burden framework applied correctly for the jurisdiction and claim type.
Adversarial testing
The system acts as the opposition before you file: it predicts the strongest counter-arguments, ranks each undisputed material fact by attack surface, and forces redrafting of weak inference chains.
Even if believed, legally insufficient.
Burden-shifting is the structural skeleton of summary judgment practice. Every motion turns on who must prove what, at what standard, at which step.
The burden of production shifts. The burden of persuasion never does. Experienced lawyers get this wrong in five specific ways, and each one independently kills a motion.
- Conflating production and persuasion
Briefs say the burden “shifts” without saying which. Courts assume persuasion, and the motion is built on the wrong premise.
- The wrong pointing-out standard
Using a “point out the absence of evidence” argument when the movant bears the trial burden, or in a forum that requires affirmative negation.
- Mixed-motive analysis where it does not apply
Applying mixed-motive causation to claims that require but-for causation.
- Citing overruled agency-deference doctrine
Relying on a deference framework the Supreme Court retired in 2024.
- Treating presumptions as burden-of-proof shifts
A presumption shifts production, never persuasion.
The burden framework is not a technicality. It is the architecture of the motion.
Get it right, and the motion writes itself. Get it wrong, and no amount of evidence saves you. Start with the MSJ Qualifier to decide whether to move, then let the MSJ Engine build the motion. Both are in Early access with a first group of firms.