DEEPLATHE
September 29, 2026
TO
Name withheld, managing partner of a US firm of two to ten lawyers
RE
Law firm answering service.
An AI receptionist for law firms, and a 24/7 answering service for lawyers. It answers, books the consult, and reschedules it. No legal advice.
1
Who does what. You practice law. We build software and keep it running. It is an AI, it says so on every screen, and it holds no license.
2
Scope. Four jobs your practice-management software leaves open: the plan ledger, the AI gate, the filing gate and the front door. Each one is working further down this page, on made-up records.
The scope line. The rest of the page hangs off it.
3
Outside the scope. It will not do any of the following, each struck out:answer a legal question,say whether work was in scope,write to your client,take a stranger's story.Refused in code, before the model is asked.
4
Starting, and fees. A working demo on made-up records before any fee. Then one monthly fee, no setup fee, stop at the end of any month. Never a share of a fee you earn. The steps are in clause 4 and the figures in clause 5.
A specimen, not a contract. Sample Street Law is made up, and so is every client, matter and letter on this page. Nobody at Deeplathe is a lawyer and nothing here is legal advice.
What we will not sell you, because you already own it.
Every line here is already sold to law firms, and most of it sits inside the practice-management subscription you pay for. If yours lacks one, the fix is a plan change, not us. The four clauses below are what that subscription leaves open.
Web chatWebsite formsConflict searchTime capturePre-bills and payment remindersTrust reconciliationCourt-rule deadlinesClient portal and status updatesReview requestsE-signature
Clause2.1
One client runs over the plan every month. Another pays and has not called in months.
For a firm with flat-fee or monthly-plan clients. If every matter is hourly, start at clause 2.2. Here you are the managing partner: ask Wren what a client has used, ask whether it was in scope, then ask it to write to the client.
| Client | Recorded | Difference | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAMPLE-A | 7 months | 6 h | 5 h | within the plan |
| SAMPLE-B | 9 months | 6 h | 4 h | within the plan |
| SAMPLE-C | 11 months | 6 h | 9.5 h | 3.5 h over |
| SAMPLE-D | 7 months | 6 h | 1 h | barely used, 7 months |
| SAMPLE-E | 7 months | 6 h | 3.5 h | within the plan |
| SAMPLE-F | 7 months | 6 h | 1 h | barely used, 7 months |
| SAMPLE-G | 4 months | 6 h | 7.5 h | 1.5 h over |
| SAMPLE-H | 5 months | 6 h | 5.5 h | within the plan |
Clause 3 of the made-up letter, in full, beside the figures
The monthly fee covers up to 6 hours of general legal support each month, taken as calls, reviews and correspondence. Hours are not carried forward. Work outside that support, including any contested matter, is quoted separately before it begins.
A lawyer typed that number in. Reading the clause against the work is the lawyer’s job.
Wren
AI scope ledger, not a lawyer
Sample Street Law is made up. Wren is software: it records hours against a plan, and it refuses to say whether any of it was in scope.
Sample Street Law. I'm Wren, the AI scope ledger. I'm software, not a lawyer and not a paralegal. I keep hours against what each plan says it buys, and I know the four clauses on this page. I don't decide what was in scope and I don't write to clients.
- The text
A quiet month is not a refund by itself, “[s]o long as the agreement is reviewed and adjusted from time to time”. But “if an unsophisticated client uses no services for several months, Disciplinary Counsel may assert that the trilogy requires a return of some or all of the funds to the client.”
D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Opinion 389 (Revised), August 2025, revised January 2026, read 20 September 2026. D.C. only. We did not check what your state says about subscription fees.
- Already in your software
- Hours recorded by client, printed to a report. Nothing in it holds what the flat fee was meant to buy, so scope creep shows up as a feeling and not a figure. We do not sell you that.
- What we would build
- What each letter says the fee buys, typed once by a lawyer, held beside those hours every month. That is the review the opinion asks for, on one screen. The quiet client is drawn as loudly as the one who went over.
- Still yours
- Reading the letter against the work, and every word the client reads. It refuses both.
Clause2.2
Somebody here pasted a client's facts into a chatbot last night.
Three made-up prompts from three made-up people. Send each through the gate and read what left the firm.
Typed at the firm
Put this lease dispute in date order for Dana Whitlock of 418 Alder Court, Unit 3B, Cedar Falls. The landlord is Brightwater Holdings LLC. She signed the renewal on 14 June 2026, and her account ending 4471 was charged twice. Her number is (319) 555-0142.
An associate, to: general chatbot, firm account. Signed consent for this tool, on the matter since 3 August 2026.
What left the firm
Nothing yet. Send it through the gate.
- 1Check the matter against the consent list
- 2Swap names, dates, numbers, addresses
- 3Write the register line
No field it has: is our AI policy good enough, was that consent informed. Those are a lawyer’s.
The firm’s consent list, made up
- M-1207Consent on file, 3 August 2026
- M-1214None on file
- M-1221Consent on file, 27 August 2026
A lawyer obtains each consent, in the lawyer’s own words. The gate only reads the list.
AI use register
Yesterday 16:40M-1221
An associate. General chatbot, firm account.
Released with 3 placeholders. Consent on file.
Every person, matter and prompt here is made up, and this demonstration takes no typed text. A web page is no place for a client’s facts.
- The text
Of “many of today's self-learning GAI tools”: “a client's informed consent is required prior to inputting information relating to the representation into such a GAI tool.” Boiler-plate in an engagement letter “is not sufficient.”
ABA Formal Opinion 512, 29 July 2024, read 20 September 2026. Also a copy that opens without the ABA's bot check. An ABA opinion, persuasive and not binding. Your state may have its own.
- Already in your software
- The AI inside your practice software answers for its own data handling. It keeps no record of any other tool your people open. We do not sell you that.
- What we would build
- A gate in front of the general AI tools. It checks the matter against your consent list, swaps names, dates, numbers and addresses for placeholders, holds the prompt when no consent is on file, and writes one register line per use.
- Still yours
- The policy, the list of allowed tools, each client's consent in your own words, and reading every output. The gate sees only a firm computer it is installed on, so a personal phone is the policy's job. It has no view on whether your policy is enough.
Clause2.3
A brief went out under your name citing a case that does not exist.
A made-up draft with four made-up citations. Run the gate, then initial what you have read.
Defendant's notice argument fails. A carrier's duty to warn runs to every passenger it has reason to know is at risk. Harlan v. Dunmore Transit Auth., 912 F.4th 1184 (14th Cir. 2031). Courts in this circuit have applied that duty to contractors working in the terminal as well. Okafor v. Pell Street Partners, 88 F.4th 301 (14th Cir. 2030); Velasquez v. Northgate Air Servs., 905 F.4th 77 (14th Cir. 2031). The two-year period was tolled while the claim was before the agency. Pruitt v. Dept. of Harbor Safety, 899 F.4th 640 (14th Cir. 2030).
Every case in this draft is invented, including the ones the gate finds. There is no Fourteenth Circuit, on purpose.
Harlan v. Dunmore Transit Auth., 912 F.4th 1184 (14th Cir. 2031)
Not looked up yet.
Okafor v. Pell Street Partners, 88 F.4th 301 (14th Cir. 2030)
Not looked up yet.
Velasquez v. Northgate Air Servs., 905 F.4th 77 (14th Cir. 2031)
Not looked up yet.
Pruitt v. Dept. of Harbor Safety, 899 F.4th 640 (14th Cir. 2030)
Not looked up yet.
Nothing is marked ready until a lawyer has initialed every line. The gate has no opinion on what any case says.
- The text
“existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings.” Two lawyers and their firm were sanctioned.
Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 22-cv-1461 (PKC), Opinion and Order on Sanctions (S.D.N.Y. 22 June 2023), read 20 September 2026. One federal district court order. Later orders exist and we did not count them.
- Already in your software
- A paid research subscription may include a brief checker, and somebody has to remember to run it. The chatbot that invented the case does not check itself, and nothing in a practice-management subscription stands between a draft and the court. If you have a brief checker, keep it. What is missing is the hold.
- What we would build
- A gate every draft passes before filing. It pulls each citation, looks it up in a public case-law database, and reports found, found under another name, or not found. Nothing is marked ready until a lawyer has initialed every line.
- Still yours
- Reading every case. Whether a case says what the brief says it says is legal judgment, and the gate has no field for it.
Clause2.4
Your website form says: tell us what happened.
Type a situation in, or use the example. Watch it go nowhere, then read what the firm gets instead.
A demonstration of software for law firms, not a law firm’s own screen
What every bundled form asks: Tell us what happened
What the door does answer. Ask it one.
Hours, the address and a callback. Nothing about a matter.
This is a demonstration of software for law firms. It is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney, it takes no facts about any matter, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship.
CALLBACK SLIPmade-up example
- Name
- J. Marlowe
- Number
- (515) 555-0117
- Office
- Main Street office
- Here before
- Not a client here before
- Call back
- Asked for a call after 2 pm
- The matter
- Not taken. The door has no field for it.
What the door may take
- A name and a number for a callback.
- Which office, and when it is open.
- Whether they have been a client here before.
- Nothing else. A person asks the rest, after the firm has checked it can act.
What the person said can disqualify the whole firm from the other side, not only the lawyer who read it. That is Model Rule 1.18(c), and states word it differently.
- The text
A consultation is likely to have occurred if a lawyer, “through the lawyer's advertising in any medium, specifically requests or invites the submission of information about a potential representation without clear and reasonably understandable warnings and cautionary statements that limit the lawyer's obligations, and a person provides information in response.”
ABA Model Rule 1.18, comment [2], as adopted word for word in Iowa Court Rules ch. 32, read 20 September 2026. Iowa's text. Each state adopts its own version, and only Iowa's was opened.
- Already in your software
- Forms, chat and lead inboxes, all bundled, all opening with a request for the story. We do not sell you that.
- What we would build
- A front door that gives hours and address, takes a name and a number, refuses the story out loud with the rule beside it, and hands your staff a callback slip with nothing about the matter on it.
- Still yours
- The conflict check and the callback. Every question about the matter is asked by a person, after that check.
Clause3
What it will not do, and who answers if it does.
Five texts on what software in a firm may not do, and three on whose money the saving is. Each one is quoted, linked and dated.
SCHEDULE A
It will not do any of these. Pick a line to read why.
What software in a firm may not do
The practice of law is “any service requiring the use of legal skill or knowledge”. Software is carved out only where it “clearly and conspicuously state[s] that the products are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney”.
Tex. Gov't Code §81.101(a), (c), read 20 September 2026. Texas only, read from a republication because the state's own server did not answer.
What it means for what you buyA tool that tells your caller what their facts mean is inside the definition, and in Texas the carve-out is a sentence on the screen rather than a line in a footer. Other states word the line differently and some do not draw it at all, so the sentence is on the screen everywhere.
A lawyer shall not practice law in a jurisdiction in violation of its regulation, “or assist another in doing so”.
Model Rule 5.5(a)
quoted from Iowa Court Rules 32:5.5(a), a word-for-word adoption, because the ABA's own site refuses automated requests.
ABA Model Rule 1.18, comment [2], as adopted word for word in Iowa Court Rules ch. 32, read 20 September 2026. Iowa's text. Each state adopts its own version, and only Iowa's was opened.
What it means for what you buyFour words, and the only hook that reaches a vendor at all. It reaches the vendor through you.
A consultation is likely to have occurred where a lawyer's advertising “in any medium, specifically requests or invites the submission of information about a potential representation without clear and reasonably understandable warnings and cautionary statements that limit the lawyer's obligations, and a person provides information in response.”
Model Rule 1.18, comment [2]
quoted from Iowa Court Rules 32:1.18, comment [2].
ABA Model Rule 1.18, comment [2], as adopted word for word in Iowa Court Rules ch. 32, read 20 September 2026. Iowa's text. Each state adopts its own version, and only Iowa's was opened.
What it means for what you buyA front door that asks a stranger what happened can make them a prospective client, and 1.18(c) can then disqualify the whole firm from the other side of it.
A lawyer having direct supervisory authority over a nonlawyer “shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer”, and the comment reaches services outside the firm.
Model Rule 5.3(b), (c) and comment [3]
quoted from Iowa Court Rules 32:5.3.
ABA Model Rule 1.18, comment [2], as adopted word for word in Iowa Court Rules ch. 32, read 20 September 2026. Iowa's text. Each state adopts its own version, and only Iowa's was opened.
What it means for what you buyThe duty to supervise does not thin out because the assistant is a subscription.
Lawyers “must not deploy agentic systems in a manner that allows the system to make substantive legal determinations, communicate legal advice, prepare and file pleadings, or otherwise act in a representative capacity without meaningful lawyer supervision and review”, and “[r]easonable efforts require more than reliance on generalized marketing assurances.”
California bar guidance on generative AI, 2026 revision
State Bar of California, Practical Guidance for the Use of Generative AI in the Practice of Law, 2026 revision, read 20 September 2026. California guidance, not a rule, and not binding anywhere else.
What it means for what you buyWhich is why everything on this page is published rather than promised, and why the ledger refuses to say whether anything was in scope.
Whose saving it is
A lawyer must bill for actual time spent, and where a tool saves time “the economies associated with the result must inure to the benefit of the client”.
D.C. Bar Opinion 388, quoted in Texas Opinion 705; the actual-time duty is ABA Formal Opinion 512, 29 July 2024
the quoted sentence began in ABA Formal Opinion 93-379 and reaches Texas through D.C. Opinions 267 and 388. Opinion 512 does not contain the word “inure”.
Texas Professional Ethics Committee Opinion 705, February 2025, quoting D.C. Bar Opinion 388, read 20 September 2026. Also D.C. Bar Opinion 388. Texas and D.C. Other states were not opened.
What it means for what you buyAn AI that drafts faster does not create revenue at an hourly firm. It creates a smaller invoice.
“[A] lawyer may not charge a client to learn about how to use a GAI tool or service that the lawyer will regularly use for clients because lawyers must maintain competence in the tools they use”.
ABA Formal Opinion 512, 29 July 2024, read 20 September 2026. Also a copy that opens without the ABA's bot check. An ABA opinion, persuasive and not binding. Your state may have its own.
What it means for what you buySo the hours a vendor's onboarding costs are the firm's own, and we say so before anyone asks.
A monthly fee “will not be considered to have been ‘earned’ until the month (or other agreed period) in question has passed”. An odd quiet month is not a refund, “[s]o long as the agreement is reviewed and adjusted from time to time”. But where an unsophisticated client uses no services for several months, Disciplinary Counsel “may assert that the trilogy requires a return of some or all of the funds to the client”.
D.C. Bar Opinion 389 (Revised), August 2025, revised January 2026
D.C. Bar Legal Ethics Opinion 389 (Revised), August 2025, revised January 2026, read 20 September 2026. D.C. only. We did not check what your state says about subscription fees.
What it means for what you buyA billing screen is built to surface the client who went over. The client this opinion warns about is the one who went under, and the review it asks for needs both in front of you, which is why that row is drawn as loudly as the other one.
The vendor is never the respondent. You are.
Nobody selling software into a law firm answers a bar complaint about it. The license on the line is the firm’s, which is why the refusals on this page are built into the software and not promised in a brochure. This is a reading of published text by people who are not lawyers. It is not legal advice, and other states differ.
Clause4
Start with one clause of one letter.
Nothing here comes in a box. We build to your own letters, matter codes and consent list, and you see it working on made-up records shaped like yours before you pay anything.
Fifteen minutes on the phone
Tell us which of the four costs you most, and which practice software and plan you are on. We do not ask about any client or any matter, and please do not tell us.
You and Michael, who owns Deeplathe.
One clause, with the client taken out
For the plan ledger that is the sentence in one letter that says what the fee buys. For the gates it is your list of allowed tools. Nothing about a matter leaves your firm.
You choose what to send. A lawyer at your firm removes the names.
A working demo on made-up records
Built to the shape of your letter and your software, with the refusals in place. You press every button on this page again, on your own terms, before any fee.
We build it. You try to break it.
Then one monthly fee, or nothing
No setup fee, and you can stop at the end of any month. In the first 30 days after go-live you get your money back, prorated for the days it ran. The fee is never tied to a matter, a client or a fee you earn.
You decide. The rule on sharing fees decides the last part for both of us.
Whatever we build, it will not
Answer a legal question, from a client or from you.Say whether work sat inside a plan.Write anything a client reads.Take a stranger's story.Say whether a case supports your argument.Charge per lead, per matter or per fee.
Or call the number at the foot of the page. No client, no matter, no facts, on either route. The figures are next, in clause 5.
Clause5
What it would cost you.
Every figure comes off our published price list. No fee here is ever tied to a matter, a client or a fee you earn.
Fits Standard, $499 a month.
StandardYour answers
An AI agent built for your firm
Starts at
$499/mo
- minutes on the phone450
- emails3,400
- text messages1,200
- documents read2,000
No setup fee. Or $4,491 for the year, which is 3 months free.
Pro
An AI agent built for your firm, with the larger monthly allowance
Starts at
$999/mo
- minutes on the phone1,300
- emails8,500
- text messages2,500
- documents read5,400
No setup fee. Or $8,991 for the year, which is 3 months free.
Enterprise
A custom agent, scoped and run for you
Starts at
Custom
- no ceilingscoped to you
The number does not exist until the scope does.
- You see a working demo before you pay anything.
- One monthly fee covers the demo, building your version, and keeping it running. No setup fee.
- Stop at the end of any month.
- 30 days money back from go-live, prorated for the days it ran.
Estimated from the published price list, not a quote. What gets built is different for every firm, and that is what the fifteen minutes is for.