AI Principles

How we use artificial intelligence — and what we don't do with your data.

Our approach to AI

MatterReady™ takes a conservative, attorney-first approach to AI. Every AI feature is designed to assist — not replace — the attorneys and staff who use the platform. AI outputs are always informational and never constitute legal advice. AI features can be turned on or off for your firm.

We believe AI should reduce administrative burden without introducing risk. That means no hidden data sharing and no opaque processing. AI never sends anything to your clients on its own. The one place AI talks to the public directly is the website chatbot: it always says it's an AI and not a lawyer, never gives legal advice, and only collects intake information for your staff to review. Everything else AI produces — lead scores, email classifications, drafts — is a suggestion for your staff, and anything that acts automatically is off unless your firm turns it on.

What we use AI for

MatterReady™ uses AI in a targeted set of features, each designed to save time on operational tasks:

  • Chatbot intake — An AI-powered chatbot on your website helps prospective clients describe their legal needs and collects structured intake information for your firm
  • Contact qualification scoring — AI analyzes intake submissions to help prioritize leads by practice area fit, completeness, and urgency indicators
  • Billing intelligence — AI compares Clio tasks with time entries to flag potential unbilled work; other billing checks are rule-based
  • Email insights — When a firm turns on email filing, MatterReady™ files email to the right lead or matter by matching senders and threads (that matching is not AI). AI then classifies filed email and suggests updates, such as a new phone number, for staff to review; staff can move or un-file anything
  • Drafting help — AI can draft email and document templates and suggest edits to a firm's Word documents. Drafts are always reviewed by your staff before they are used
  • Setup and marketing suggestions — AI suggests branding from your firm's website and drafts ad and landing-page copy for your staff to edit before anything is published
  • AI assistant — Staff and attorneys can ask operational questions about their firm's data (e.g., "How many new personal injury leads came in this week?") and get answers sourced from your MatterReady™ data

Your data is never used for training

MatterReady™ does not use Customer Content to train, fine-tune, or improve AI or machine learning models — ours or anyone else's.

This is a firm commitment, not a default setting. Your client intake data, matter details, billing information, and operational data are never used as training data. Period.

Our upstream AI provider (OpenAI) is contractually prohibited from using data sent through their API to train their models. We use the OpenAI API with data-use protections — not consumer products like ChatGPT — and our agreement explicitly prohibits model training on customer data.

AI providers

MatterReady™ currently uses the OpenAI API as its AI provider. We chose a provider that offers contractual no-training protections for API customers.

Key protections in our agreement with OpenAI:

  • Data sent via the API is not used to train or improve OpenAI models
  • Data is processed only to generate responses for the specific request
  • OpenAI acts as a data processor, not a data controller

If we add or change AI providers in the future, we will ensure equivalent contractual protections are in place. A current list of subprocessors is available at /subprocessors.

Data handling by AI providers

Our AI providers are contractually restricted from using customer data to train models. Data is processed only to provide the requested functionality and is handled according to provider API data processing terms.

During processing, data is not used for training, is not accessible to provider employees except for abuse investigation, and is stored in encrypted form.

Every AI request MatterReady™ makes is sent with response storage turned off, and every AI use is logged (which feature, when, and how much — never the content) so your firm can account for its AI use. Email addresses, phone numbers and client names (wherever they can be detected) are masked before requests from the staff assistant and the document-drafting tool.

Permission scoping

AI features in MatterReady™ only access data that the requesting user is already authorized to view based on their role and permissions. AI does not create new access pathways or bypass existing access controls.

For example:

  • A staff member asking the AI assistant a question will only get answers based on data they can already see in the portal
  • The chatbot only accesses the firm's chatbot configuration and public-facing intake settings — not internal lead data or billing information
  • MCP (Model Context Protocol) API keys have explicit scopes that limit which data an external AI tool can access

Professional responsibility

We understand that attorneys have professional obligations when using technology that touches client data. MatterReady's AI features are designed to be consistent with:

  • ABA Model Rule 1.6 (Confidentiality) — We treat all client data as confidential. AI subprocessors are bound by contractual confidentiality obligations. Data is not used for training or shared with third parties beyond what is necessary to provide the Service.
  • ABA Model Rule 5.3 (Supervision of non-lawyer assistance) — AI outputs are presented as recommendations for your team to review. Qualification scores, conflict signals, and assistant responses are never self-executing, and AI never sends anything to a client by itself. The website chatbot replies to prospects directly, but only to gather intake information, and it always identifies itself as an AI. Your attorneys maintain supervisory authority over every AI-assisted process.

We encourage firms to review their state bar's ethics opinions on AI and technology use. MatterReady™ is designed to support — not replace — the professional judgment required by these rules.

Contact

If you have questions about how MatterReady™ uses AI, our data handling practices, or need information for your firm's ethics review, reach out:

For our full legal terms, see our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.