The regulatory constraint
Matter-segregated environments, no third-party training on client data, and a citation gate that blocks any output containing unverifiable authority.
How we work in this industrySituation
A commercial transactions group was absorbing roughly 900 third-party paper reviews a quarter. First-pass markup averaged six associate hours per agreement, and clients had begun refusing to pay for it at standard rates.
An earlier evaluation of a general-purpose assistant was halted by the general counsel after it became clear that prompts and documents were being logged outside the firm's control.
Approach
Month one: encode the firm's existing negotiation playbook — fallback positions, non-negotiables, and client-specific outside counsel guidelines — as reviewable rules rather than model instructions.
Month two: deploy into a matter-segregated environment with no third-party training, retention aligned to the firm's records policy, and full prompt-and-output capture inside the firm's own tenancy.
Month three: a citation and authority gate that blocks any output containing a proposition it cannot trace to the document or an approved source, plus supervision records for every AI-assisted work product.
What we built
- First-pass redlining against the firm playbook with a deviation report the associate reviews rather than reconstructs.
- A privilege-preserving audit log capturing who prompted what, on which matter, and what the reviewing attorney changed.
- A hard citation gate: unresolvable authority is withheld, never surfaced with a caveat.
“The first question our GC asked was not whether it worked. It was where the prompts live and who can subpoena them. That was the design conversation, and it is why this one shipped.”
Practice Group Leader, Commercial Transactions — Am Law 100 firm