A lawyer should not have to re-establish the facts, the jurisdiction and the client's position at the start of every session. The matter holds them, and everything opened inside it inherits them.
Prioritize enforceability under New York law. Treat the client's expansion plan as confidential.
THE PRODUCT PRINCIPLE
A lawyer should not have to re-explain the matter every time the work changes.
The matter is the container: instructions, documents, conversations and work product belong to it and stay with it. Research opened in one matter does not quietly inherit context from another, because the boundary is enforced where the data lives.
One container for the engagement
Matters exist so that context is a property of the work rather than something reassembled from memory each morning.
Persistent matter context
Create a matter, give it its standing instructions, and have every request opened inside it carry them automatically.
Scoped conversations
Research sessions belong to the matter they were opened in and are found there again, rather than in one undifferentiated history.
Matter documents
The agreements, exhibits and correspondence a matter depends on are uploaded to it and stay attached to it.
Work product in place
Drafts live inside the matter alongside the research that produced them, not in a separate filing system.
The boundary is enforced, not implied
For confidential legal work, separation that exists only in the user interface is not separation. This is enforced below it.
Row-level security
Access rules are enforced in the database. A request for another account's matter returns nothing, regardless of what the client sends.
Server-derived ownership
Ownership is established from the authenticated session on the server, never from a value the browser supplies.
Signed document access
Matter files are private and reached through short-lived signed URLs with integrity checks, not public links.
Deliberate context selection
Even within a matter, you choose which documents enter a given request. Nothing is swept in silently.
Built for a team, opened for one
The data model anticipates firms. The screens that would let a firm use it are honestly marked as unfinished.
Organization and roles exist
Organization, member and matter-member roles are present in the schema, ready for the collaborative layer above them.
Invitations are not built
There is no working invitation flow or team-administration screen today. A matter is worked by its owner.
Collaborative writes are next
Team invitations and role-scoped writes sit second in the production sequence, after verified retrieval.
Ingestion from firm systems
Pulling matter files directly from an existing document management system remains planned.
IN PRACTICE
The work lawyers bring to it.
Open an engagement
Create the matter, state the governing law and the client's position, and have every later request start from them.
Keep two clients apart
Run adjacent matters for different clients without the risk that context from one informs the analysis in the other.
Return after a month
Reopen a matter and find the documents, instructions, research history and drafts as they were left.
Assemble the file
Build the matter's document record as it develops, so the work product and its inputs stay in one place.
Hand over the matter
Leave a successor the instructions, the sources and the research record rather than a folder and a conversation.
HOW THE WORK MOVES
A visible record from input to review.
01Open matter
02State instructions
03Add documents
04Run research
05Develop work product
06Review
IN THE WORKSPACE TODAY
What you can use now.
Not yet available: Organization and matter-member roles; Team invitations and administration; Document management ingestion.
Matter creation and persistent context
Matters carry standing instructions into the requests opened inside them.
Live
Matter-scoped conversations and work product
Research and drafts belong to their matter.
Live
Row-level security and server-derived ownership
Access is enforced in the database, not in the client.
Live
Private uploads with signed access
Short-lived signed URLs and integrity checks.
Live
Astra for Law
Legal model integration coming soon
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PRIVATE BETA
Keep the research visible. Keep the document yours.