Legal AI that answers from your own case files, with the source passages

Why source passages matter more than a confident answer

A general chatbot answers from what it learned in training and from whatever you paste in. It can sound certain about a deposition it has never read. For a lawyer, the useful question is not "is the answer fluent?" but "where in the record does this come from?" A tool that shows its sources turns a guess into something you can check in a minute: open the passage, read it in context, and decide whether it says what the answer claims.

That is also what the professional rules ask of you. ABA Formal Opinion 512 applies the duty of competence to generative AI: you need a reasonable understanding of what a tool can get wrong, and you remain responsible for the work product. Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure makes the same point for filings: your signature certifies that factual contentions have evidentiary support after a reasonable inquiry. Source passages do not replace that inquiry. They make it faster.

How it works in Draftiro

1. Create a matter and upload its files. PDFs, Word (.docx) and text files go into the matter's Case Files, with folders, tags and search. The upload guide covers file types. Older .doc files are stored but their text is not read, so save them as .docx first.
2. Ask a question in the matter. For example: "When did the defendant first learn of the leak?" or "List every payment to the contractor and where each is documented."
3. Read the answer with its sources. Draftiro retrieves the passages that best match the question and answers from them. Each supported statement points to a numbered source naming the file, and a page only when the passage carries one. A page number is never invented.
4. Open the passage. Tap a source to see the exact passage in your own file, so you can read the surrounding text.
5. Draft from the record. Ask for a letter, a motion section or a summary. The draft is editable, keeps version history and ends with a "Sources used" line listing the files it drew on. Export it to Word (.docx), PDF or text.

What one answer actually reads

Precision matters here, because overstating it is how lawyers get hurt. A single answer draws on the passages retrieved for that question: roughly a dozen of the best-matching passages across the matter's files, not every page of every file. If a fact sits in a part of a long transcript that the question did not surface, the answer may miss it. Ask narrower questions, name the issue or the witness, and ask follow-ups. Draftiro also indexes a capped amount of text per file; when a very long file exceeds the cap, the file is marked as not fully indexed rather than silently treated as complete.

Image-only scans are the other limit. Draftiro works from the text it can read. For a PDF without a text layer it makes a best-effort attempt to read the image, and a file that stays unreadable is named as unreadable instead of being summarized from nothing.

Citations to authority are a separate question

Source passages show where a fact came from in your files. Case law is different. When an answer mentions a case, statute, rule or regulation, Draftiro shows it as "Not checked, verify before filing" with a look-up link that opens a free public search in your browser. Draftiro does not confirm that an authority exists, says what the answer claims, or is still good law. Read every authority before you rely on it; the citation flag guide explains the flag, and the AI hallucination entry explains why the check is yours.

A five-minute check before you rely on an answer

• Open every numbered source the answer depends on and read it in context.
• If the answer says "No file sources were used for this answer," treat it as general background, not as evidence from your record.
• Look for what is missing: ask "what in the file contradicts this?" as a follow-up.
• Check dates, amounts and names against the passage, not against the summary.
• Verify every case, statute and rule in primary authority before filing.

Confidentiality

Matter files stay private to your firm. Draftiro does not use your matter content to train AI models. Answers are generated by a third-party AI provider that receives the question and the retrieved passages; the Trust page and the AI ethics page describe how files are handled so you can decide what your engagement letter should say about AI use.