From legal question to editable work product
6 min read
RESOURCES
Build judgment around the technology.
The hard part of legal AI is not access to a model. It is deciding what may be delegated, what must be verified, and how a firm proves it did the second one.
Private beta · Model access by invitationEvaluating source-grounded legal AI
Coming soon
What changed in the workspace preview
Updated Sep 2026
THE PRODUCT PRINCIPLE
Adoption requires more than access to a model. It requires a shared standard for responsible legal work.
This section documents how the product is built and the reasoning behind it: what is implemented, what was deliberately not built, and what a lawyer should insist on before relying on a tool like this one.
How to evaluate a legal AI tool
The questions below are the ones we would ask of a competitor, and the ones this site tries to answer about itself.
Where does authority come from?
Is the tool retrieving from a licensed legal database, or producing citations from model weights? The answers are not comparable.
Can a finding be traced?
Ask to see the passage behind an extracted value. A summary with no provenance moves the verification burden back to you in full.
What happens to client data?
Where is it stored, who processes it, how long is it retained, and can deletion be verified?
What is claimed versus certified?
Distinguish a security page describing intentions from one describing an audit that someone else performed.
How this product is built
The development record is public in outline because the architecture decisions are the argument for the product.
Product development status
A maintained list of what is implemented, what is foundation only, and what is intentionally unavailable.
Architecture notes
How the workspace, matters, documents, review runs and work product fit together.
Security documentation
The implemented controls and, more usefully, the ones that are missing.
Release notes
What changed in the workspace and when, so the site and the product do not drift apart.
IN PRACTICE
The work lawyers bring to it.
Run a vendor comparison
Take the evaluation questions to every tool under consideration, including this one, and compare the answers.
Brief a partner
Explain what the technology can and cannot be trusted with, using the distinctions rather than the marketing.
Set an internal policy
Decide what may be delegated to a model and what must be independently verified before it leaves the firm.
Track what changed
Follow the development record rather than relying on a page that may have been written months ago.
HOW THE WORK MOVES
A visible record from input to review.
- 01Product decision
- 02Document the reasoning
- 03Publish guidance
- 04Collect feedback
- 05Revise the design
- 06Release notes
IN THE WORKSPACE TODAY
What you can use now.
Not yet available: Written evaluation guides; Attorney review standard; Public release notes.
- Product development status record
Maintained alongside the code and reflected in the status sections on this site.
Live - Security documentation
Implemented controls and missing controls, both stated.
Live
Astra for Law
Legal model integration coming soon
PRIVATE BETA