Drafts and redlines
Word documents with real tracked changes — not a chat window full of text to copy out. Comments in the margin where the judgment call is yours to make.
James
Nothing. Falls. Through.
James is a legal assistant for attorneys. He works behind the scenes — monitoring your client communications, keeping matters moving, and drafting responses to client requests. He contacts a client only with your express approval. You are always in control.
Currently in a private pilot with a small number of firms.
Acme Robotics — MSA
11:40
Acme Robotics — MSA redline v3 — ready for your approval
Redline attached. Three changes worth your eye:
- Liability cap — pushed back to 2× fees; they proposed 1×. Comment at §11.2 sets out the fallback.
- IP assignment — narrowed to deliverables. Accepted the rest of their markup.
- Term — struck the auto-renewal, replaced with 60 days’ notice.
Acme-MSA-v3-redline.docx· 84 KB · tracked changes
Cover email to Acme is drafted below. Reply APPROVE and I’ll send it; reply with edits and I’ll revise.
James
Acme sent the MSA back with markup. Three things I’d flag: cap cut to 1×, IP assignment widened, term now auto-renews.
push back on the cap, take the rest
Understood. Drafting the redline now — I’ll email it to you before anything goes to them.
Redline’s in your inbox, summary at the top.
iMessage↑
James
客户刚把签好的补充协议发过来了，我已经归到这个 matter 里。
第 4 条的付款期限有没有被改过？
改了。原来 30 天，现在写的是 45 天。要我起草一封回信问清楚吗？
要
草稿已经发到你邮箱，你点头我再发出去。
today
Good morning. Three things need you today.
1 Northgate — your approval on the settlement letter has been open since Friday.
2 Acme MSA — redline is with them, quiet 4 days.
3 Delaware filing — due Thursday.
7:58
snooze northgate till tomorrow8:02
Snoozed. I’ll put it back in front of you at 8am.8:02
Message◎
How it works
Three steps, and none of them are new to you.
-
01
Bring him in.
Email James, or copy him onto the thread. Text him if that’s faster. There is no app to install, no portal to log into, and nothing for your firm to migrate.
-
02
He opens the matter.
He works out who is involved and what it is about, then keeps one running record of it — every message, document, deadline and decision in a single file that he can answer questions from.
-
03
He works, and reports back.
Drafts, redlines, summaries, chasers. He reports where you already are — inbox or phone — and everything bound for a client stops at your desk first.
What he does
The work an assistant should be doing anyway.
Keeps the matter’s record
Every message, attachment and decision folded into one append-only file per matter. Ask him what happened and he answers from the record, not from memory.
Chases what’s gone quiet
A client who hasn’t replied. An approval sitting unread in your inbox. A deadline eight days out. He notices the silence before you do, and he chases it.
Briefs you each morning
One short standup: what moved, what’s stalled, what needs you today. One item is one line. If nothing needs you, he says that instead of padding it.
Handles the client thread
Drafts the reply, sends it once you approve, and files what comes back — in the client’s language when the matter calls for it.
Follows you between channels
Start on email, finish on your phone. He doesn’t lose the thread when you switch, and he never makes you say it twice.
Control
He works for you. That isn’t a slogan —
it’s how he’s built.
- Two approvals, not one
- He asks before spending real effort on a piece of work, and again before anything reaches a client. Neither is a rubber stamp: if a check-in has nothing new in it, he doesn’t interrupt you with it.
- Nothing reaches a client on its own
- Client-facing mail is always email, always of record, and only goes out because you approved it. The send is executed by code on your say-so — not by a model deciding it’s probably fine.
- Your instance is yours
- Each lawyer gets a private assistant with its own record. Matters are not pooled, and one lawyer’s work is not visible from another’s.
- Internal stays internal
- What you and James say to each other never crosses into the client thread. The two are kept apart in code, not by good manners.
- He’d rather tell you he failed
- If a draft didn’t get written or an email didn’t go out, he says so plainly. He is built specifically not to claim work he hasn’t done.
- Strangers get nothing
- Mail from an address he doesn’t recognize is not acted on, not answered, and not filed into one of your matters.
A day
Tuesday.
- 7:58
The standup lands on your phone. Three matters need you; one line each.
- 9:12
Acme sends back a marked-up MSA. James files it, reads it, and texts you the three changes worth your attention.
- 9:15
You text back: “push back on the cap, take the rest.” That is the entire instruction.
- 11:40
The redline is in your inbox as a .docx with tracked changes, and a two-line note on what he changed and why.
- 11:52
You reply “send it.” It goes to Acme, from you, on the record.
- 16:30
A client who went quiet eleven days ago gets flagged. You had forgotten. He hadn’t.
- 18:05
Nothing else needs you, so he doesn’t invent a reason to message you.
Questions
Frequently asked
What is James?
James is an AI legal assistant for lawyers. Instead of living in a separate application, he works over the channels you already use — email, iMessage, Telegram and WeChat — and runs a matter end to end: drafting and redlining documents, following up on what has stalled, and keeping the record of what happened.
Do I have to change how I work?
No. That is the point of the design. You email him or you text him, in ordinary sentences, the same way you would brief a paralegal. There is no prompt to learn, no dashboard to keep up to date, and nothing to install.
Which channels does he work on?
Email is the front door and the channel of record. For internal back-and-forth he also works over iMessage, Telegram and WeChat, and he replies wherever you last spoke to him. Switching channels mid-matter costs no context.
Will he email my clients without me?
No. Anything bound for a client waits for your explicit approval, and the send is then carried out deterministically by code rather than left to the model’s discretion. Internal conversation between you and James is kept structurally separate from the client thread.
What happens to my documents and my matters?
Each lawyer runs a private instance with its own matter record. Matters are not pooled across lawyers or across firms, and internal material is never carried into a client-facing thread.
Does this replace my document management system?
No. James keeps his own record of a matter so he can answer questions and chase what is open; he is not a system of record for your firm and does not ask you to move anything into him.
What kind of work is he built for?
Commercial and transactional practice — agreements, redlines, renewals, escalations and the correspondence around them. He is an assistant to a licensed attorney, not a substitute for one, and he does not give legal advice.
How do I get access?
James is in a private pilot with a small number of firms. Write to hello@fremontpartner.com with a line or two about your practice.
Access
James is in a private pilot.
A small number of firms are running him on live matters. If you would like to be one of them, tell us a little about your practice.