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Documents

What are Documents in Recall?

Documents are the legal materials you upload to Recall — court opinions, briefs, motions, contracts, law review articles, and anything else in PDF format that you want to search and reference.

Once you add a document to Recall, you can:

  • Search through its contents using keywords or AI-powered semantic search
  • Pin important excerpts for later use
  • Have Clerk AI answer questions about it
  • Use it to support your legal writing

PDF files only

Recall only works with PDF files. If you have documents in Word (.docx) or other formats, you'll need to convert them to PDF first. (In Word: File → Export → PDF)

Uploading Documents

You need to select a Matter first before adding documents. Each document belongs to one Matter.

Drag and Drop (Easiest Method)

This is the fastest way to add documents:

  1. Select a Matter from the left sidebar (click on its name)
  2. Open a Finder window showing your PDF files
  3. Click and hold on a PDF file
  4. Drag it over to the Recall window
  5. Release the mouse button

The document is added and Recall starts processing it automatically!

Add multiple files at once

You can drag multiple PDF files at the same time. Select several files in Finder (hold Shift or Command while clicking), then drag them all into Recall.

Using the File Menu

If you prefer using menus:

  1. Select a Matter from the sidebar
  2. Click File in the menu bar at the top of your screen
  3. Click Import Document
  4. Navigate to where your PDF is saved
  5. Select one or more PDF files
  6. Click Open

What Happens After You Add a Document

When you add a document, Recall does two things automatically:

1. Text Indexing (Fast)

Recall reads all the text in your document and creates a searchable index. This usually takes just a few seconds and enables:

  • Keyword search — finding exact words and phrases

2. Semantic Indexing (Takes Longer)

Recall uses AI to understand the meaning of your document's content. This may take longer for large documents (a minute or more for long documents) and enables:

  • Semantic search — finding content by meaning, not just exact words
  • Clerk — AI-powered assistance based on your document content

How to know when it's done:

Look at the document in your document list. You'll see a status indicator:

Status What It Means
Indexing Recall is still processing — wait before searching
Indexed Ready to search!
Error Something went wrong — try removing and re-adding the document

Supported Document Types

Recall recognizes several types of legal documents and extracts metadata automatically:

Type What Recall Extracts
Westlaw Opinion Case name, citation, court, date (from Westlaw-formatted PDFs)
Lexis Opinion Case name, citation, court, date (from LexisNexis PDFs)
Brief Recognized as a brief for categorization
Motion Recognized as a motion for categorization
Secondary Source Treatises, law review articles, etc.
Other Any document that doesn't fit above categories

Automatic Metadata Extraction

When you upload a court opinion, Recall tries to automatically extract:

  • Case name — Who v. Whom
  • Volume and Reporter — Like "123 F.3d"
  • Page number — Starting page of the case
  • Court — Which court decided the case
  • Year — When the case was decided

This information is used for: - Generating proper citations - Creating Table of Authorities - Organizing your research

What if the Automatic Extraction is Wrong?

Sometimes Recall might miss information or get something wrong. You can fix it:

  1. Select the document in the document list
  2. Click the info or edit button (usually an "i" icon or pencil icon)
  3. Correct any fields that are wrong
  4. Save your changes

Organizing Documents with Categories

Categories help you organize documents within a Matter. For example, in a complex case, you might have:

  • Cases about liability
  • Cases about damages
  • Statutory materials
  • Secondary sources

Assigning a Category

  1. Select one or more documents (hold Command/Shift to select multiple)
  2. Right-click on your selection
  3. Choose Set Category
  4. Either:
  5. Select an existing category, or
  6. Type a new category name

Filtering by Category

Once you have categories set up:

  • In Research mode: Use the category dropdown above the search results
  • In the document list: Click a category to show only those documents

This makes it much easier to focus on relevant materials when you have many documents.

Viewing Documents

Opening a Document

  1. Switch to Research mode (use the toggle in the toolbar)
  2. Click on a document in the document list
  3. The document opens in the PDF viewer on the right side
Action How to Do It
Go to a specific page Type the page number in the page field
Next/previous page Click the arrow buttons
Scroll through pages Use your mouse scroll wheel or trackpad
Zoom in/out Use the zoom controls in the toolbar

Jumping to Search Results

When you search and click on a result:

  1. The document opens automatically
  2. Recall jumps to the exact page where the match was found
  3. The relevant section may be highlighted

Document Management

Removing a Document

If you added the wrong document or no longer need it:

  1. Find the document in your document list
  2. Right-click on it
  3. Select Remove
  4. Confirm when prompted

Pins are removed too

When you remove a document, any pins you created from that document are also deleted. Make sure you don't need those pins before removing.

Re-importing a Document

If a document seems corrupted or you have an updated version:

  1. Remove the existing document (see above)
  2. Add the new/updated version
  3. The document will be indexed from scratch

Rebuilding Indexes

If search results seem incomplete or outdated:

  1. Click the gear icon (⚙) → Model Settings
  2. Under Semantic Search, click Rebuild Index
  3. Wait for reindexing to complete (may take several minutes for many documents)

Tips for Working with Documents

Tip Why It Helps
Use good PDF files PDFs with actual text (not scanned images) work best. If your PDF is a scan, use OCR software first.
Let indexing complete Wait until documents show "Indexed" before searching. Searching while indexing may give incomplete results.
Organize with categories In complex cases, categorize documents by issue. It makes finding things much easier.
Fix metadata early If citation info is wrong, fix it right away. Correct metadata means correct citations later.
Keep original PDFs Recall imports documents — your original files aren't modified or moved.

Common Questions About Documents

What types of files can I upload?

Only PDF files. Convert Word documents, images, or other formats to PDF first.

Where are my documents stored?

Documents are stored on your Mac in Recall's application data folder (~/Library/Application Support/Clericus/). Your original PDF files are not modified.

Can the same document be in multiple Matters?

Not directly. You would need to import the document separately into each Matter.

Is there a limit to how many documents I can add?

No specific limit, but more documents mean longer indexing times and more storage used.

Why isn't my document appearing in search results?

Check if it's still indexing (look for status indicator). Also check your filters — you might have a category filter active that's hiding it.

What if my PDF is a scanned image (not searchable text)?

Recall works best with text-based PDFs. For scanned documents, use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software like Adobe Acrobat to make the text searchable first.