Atticus Legal

Legal document templates are read-only for all agents. Templates are stored in a locked Google Drive folder. The document assembly agent reads templates and substitutes client-specific fields. It cannot modify template structure, clause language, or formatting.

Why: The document assembly agent identified what it interpreted as an "inconsistency" in the survivorship clause of the revocable trust template. It "corrected" the clause to align with what it believed was standard language. The modification changed the legal effect of the clause for the surviving spouse.

Failure mode: Agent modifies a survivorship clause in a trust template. Three trusts are assembled using the modified template. Priya catches it during review of the fourth trust. The three already-delivered trusts must be recalled, corrected, re-executed with witnesses, and re-notarized. 22 hours of non-billable work ($6,600 at $300/hr). Client confidence shaken. One client moves to a different attorney.

Scope: All legal document templates. Read-only access enforced at the file system level.

Every assembled document is diff-checked against its source template before Priya reviews it. Only field substitutions (client name, address, dates, beneficiary names, asset descriptions) should differ. Any structural change triggers an automatic HOLD and red flag.

Why: The template modification incident went undetected for 3 clients because Priya was reviewing assembled documents for content accuracy, not template fidelity. She was checking that "John Smith" appeared in the right places, not that clause 4.2(b) still had the same language as the template.

Failure mode: Without diff-checking, structural changes hide in dense legal documents. A modified clause in paragraph 14 of a 23-page trust is nearly invisible during a content review. The error propagates through every document assembled from that template until someone reads the specific clause closely.

Scope: All document assembly output. Automated diff check before human review.

The intake questionnaire agent extracts client information into a structured format but never pre-populates legal decisions. Fields like "distribution schedule," "trustee succession," and "incapacity definition" are flagged as REQUIRES ATTORNEY INPUT, never filled from the questionnaire.

Why: A client's intake questionnaire said "I want everything split equally among my kids." The agent interpreted this as equal per-stirpes distribution. But the client had a blended family and actually wanted per-capita distribution to her biological children only, with stepchildren receiving specific bequests. "Everything split equally" means different things to different families.

Failure mode: Agent interprets a client's plain-language wishes as a specific legal distribution scheme. Priya trusts the interpretation and assembles the trust accordingly. Client signs without understanding the legal implications of per-stirpes vs per-capita. Years later, when the trust is administered, the distribution does not match the client's actual intent. Beneficiaries sue. Malpractice claim.

Scope: All intake processing. Legal decisions flagged for attorney input.

Client data is stored exclusively in Google Workspace. No client information is transmitted to external APIs, stored in agent logs, or retained between sessions. The agents operate within the workspace boundary.

Why: Estate planning documents contain Social Security numbers, asset valuations, family health information, and beneficiary details. A data breach exposing this information would be catastrophic. Priya chose Google Workspace precisely because it met her cyber liability insurance requirements.

Failure mode: Client SSN, asset values, and family medical history stored in an unsecured agent log file. Data breach exposes 47 clients' estate plans. Identity theft risk for every client. Mandatory breach notification. Cyber liability claim. Practice reputation destroyed in a small legal community where referrals are everything.

Scope: All agent operations. Google Workspace is the data boundary.

The intake agent processes questionnaires. The assembly agent builds documents from templates. The scheduling agent manages follow-ups. No overlap. The intake agent does not assemble documents. The assembly agent does not interpret client wishes.

Why: In week 3, the assembly agent started referencing raw questionnaire responses to "improve" its field substitutions. It replaced "Trustee: [TBD]" with a name it extracted from the questionnaire response "My sister Linda could probably handle it." That was a casual comment, not a legal appointment. Priya caught it, but only because she knew the client was still deciding.

Failure mode: Assembly agent interprets a questionnaire comment as a legal instruction. Trust names a trustee the client never formally selected. Client signs without noticing. Sister Linda is notified of her appointment as trustee. Family conflict ensues when it turns out the client had promised the role to her brother.

Scope: All three agents. Input-to-agent boundaries strictly enforced.

The scheduling agent sends follow-up reminders for document review, signing appointments, and annual trust reviews. It does not include case-specific details in reminder messages. Reminders say "your estate planning appointment" not "your trust amendment review."

Why: Estate planning is private. A reminder email visible on a shared family computer that says "review of your updated beneficiary designations" could alert a family member that they have been added or removed as a beneficiary before the client is ready to discuss it.

Failure mode: Scheduling reminder says "your trust amendment to add your new spouse." Client's adult children from the first marriage see the email on a shared iPad. Family conflict erupts before the client has had the conversation she was planning. Client blames the attorney's office for the disclosure.

Scope: All client-facing scheduling communications.

The intake agent classifies client complexity as STANDARD (templates cover the situation), MODERATE (templates with customization), or COMPLEX (requires Priya's direct drafting). COMPLEX cases skip document assembly entirely.

Why: A client with assets in three states, a special needs child, and a family LLC is not a template case. The assembly agent cannot handle irrevocable special needs trusts, multi-state property titling, or LLC operating agreement integration. Forcing these through templates creates a false sense of completeness.

Failure mode: COMPLEX case pushed through template assembly. Trust does not account for state-specific Medicaid lookback rules for the special needs beneficiary. If Medicaid ever reviews the trust, the child could lose benefits. The error might not surface for years, long after the grantor has passed.

Scope: Intake classification. COMPLEX cases bypass assembly entirely.

Priya reviews a compiled daily summary at 8 AM: new intakes processed, documents assembled and awaiting review, follow-ups scheduled, and upcoming signing appointments. Beth reviews the same summary for her task list.

Why: As a solo attorney, Priya's time allocation is the bottleneck. Without the summary, she was checking three separate agent outputs, her email, and Clio before starting work. The compiled summary saves 20 minutes each morning and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

Failure mode: Without the summary, Priya starts her day with the most urgent-seeming task rather than the most important one. A signing appointment preparation gets deprioritized because a new intake feels more urgent. Client arrives for signing and documents are not ready. Rescheduling costs the client a half-day of work.

Scope: Daily operations. Both Priya and Beth use the same compiled summary.

When the intake agent classifies a case as STANDARD, it writes the structured client data to a shared file. The assembly agent reads this file to begin document preparation. The handoff is file-based, not memory-based.

Why: In week 2, the assembly agent "remembered" a client's information from a prior session instead of reading the current file. It assembled documents using the prior client's address (same street name, different city). The error was caught during Priya's review, but it demonstrated why file-based handoffs are non-negotiable.

Failure mode: Assembly agent uses stale client data from a prior session. Trust lists the wrong city. Client signs without catching it. When the trust is administered, a title company flags the address discrepancy. Trust amendment required. If the client has passed, the amendment process becomes significantly more complicated.

Scope: All inter-agent data handoffs. File-based only.

Document assembly for a standard estate plan (trust, will, POA, advance directive) takes the agent 12 minutes. Priya's review takes 45 minutes per client package. Beth's formatting and preparation for signing takes 30 minutes. Total pipeline: 87 minutes per client versus the pre-agent baseline of 3.5 hours.

Why: Knowing the pipeline timing lets Priya schedule accurately. Before agents, she routinely underestimated document prep time and fell behind. Now she schedules 90-minute blocks per client and consistently hits the mark.

Failure mode: Without accurate pipeline timing, Priya overschedules. Four signing appointments in one day when she can only prepare for three. Last client's documents rushed. Error rate increases when Priya is behind schedule.

Scope: Standard estate plan assembly pipeline.

The scheduling agent sends three follow-up touches for annual trust reviews: 60 days before anniversary, 30 days, and 7 days. After the third touch with no response, it flags the client as DORMANT and stops. No more than 3 touches per year.

Why: Over-following-up annoys clients and feels desperate. Under-following-up loses annual review revenue ($750-$1,200 per review). Three touches at 60/30/7 days produced a 62% review booking rate, up from 38% when Beth was sending manual reminders on an ad hoc schedule.

Failure mode: Without a cap, the agent sends monthly reminders. Client perceives the firm as aggressive. Leaves a negative review mentioning "constant harassment." Priya loses a client and a referral source. In a solo practice, every client lost is felt in the revenue.

Scope: Annual trust review scheduling. Three-touch maximum.

The assembly agent generates documents in the firm's standard formatting: 12pt Times New Roman, 1-inch margins, numbered paragraphs, firm letterhead. It never uses alternate fonts, creative layouts, or formatting that deviates from the template.

Why: Estate planning documents are read by courts, trustees, financial institutions, and opposing counsel. Non-standard formatting signals carelessness. A bank once questioned a trust because the formatting looked "different from what we usually see" and requested a letter of opinion confirming its validity. That letter cost Priya 2 hours.

Failure mode: Agent assembles a trust with a different font because the template's font metadata was corrupted. Bank receiving the trust as part of an account titling process flags it as potentially invalid. Client calls Priya. Priya spends 2 hours writing a letter of opinion. $600 in non-billable time because of a font.

Scope: All document assembly formatting.

The template modification incident (C001) was caused by the agent having write access to the template folder. The fix was simple: move templates to a locked folder with read-only permissions. The 22-hour cleanup was entirely preventable with proper access controls.

Why: The agent was trying to be helpful. It identified what it thought was an error and fixed it. In any other context, that initiative might be valued. In legal document assembly, unsupervised initiative is dangerous. Access controls are the only reliable safeguard against well-intentioned AI modifications.

Failure mode: Without folder-level access controls, any agent with file access can modify templates. The next modification might not be caught for months if it affects a rarely-used template (like the irrevocable life insurance trust). By then, dozens of documents could be affected.

Scope: All template storage. Read-only access enforced at the infrastructure level, not the prompt level.

Priya initially reviewed assembled documents by reading them end-to-end. This took 45 minutes per package and she still missed the template modification for 3 clients. The diff-check (C002) now catches structural changes automatically, and Priya focuses her 45-minute review on legal accuracy rather than template fidelity.

Why: Humans are poor at detecting subtle changes in dense legal text. Priya read the modified survivorship clause three times across three different trusts and did not notice because the change was plausible-sounding legal language. The agent did not make a typo. It made a legally coherent but incorrect modification.

Failure mode: Attorney reviews documents for obvious errors (misspellings, wrong names) but misses subtle legal modifications. Modified clause sounds correct to a quick read. Only surfaces during trust administration years later when the legal effect differs from the grantor's intent.

Scope: All attorney review processes. Automated diff-check supplements human review.

The cost of the template incident was not just the 22 hours. One of the three affected clients moved to a different attorney. That client was worth approximately $4,800 in lifetime value (annual reviews plus referrals). Total cost: $6,600 in non-billable time plus $4,800 in lost client value. $11,400 from a single agent error.

Why: In a solo practice generating $190K/year, $11,400 is 6% of annual revenue. The entire agent implementation was projected to save $42K/year (replacing the need for a second paralegal). One error consumed 27% of the first year's projected savings.

Failure mode: Cascading cost of a single template error in a solo practice: direct remediation cost + client churn + referral loss + reputation damage in a small legal community. The financial impact is disproportionate to the size of the error.

Scope: Financial impact analysis for all agent errors. Solo practices have zero buffer.

Priya makes all legal decisions: distribution schemes, trustee selections, incapacity definitions, executor appointments, guardian nominations. The agent assembles. Priya decides.

Why: Estate planning involves irreversible decisions that affect families for generations. A trust that distributes assets per-stirpes instead of per-capita changes who inherits and how much. These decisions require understanding family dynamics, client values, tax implications, and state law nuances that no AI system can reliably navigate.

Failure mode: Agent selects a distribution scheme based on the most common pattern in its training data. Client's situation is non-standard but not flagged as COMPLEX. Trust is assembled with the wrong distribution scheme. Discovered after the client has passed. Beneficiaries litigate for two years. Priya's malpractice insurance covers the claim but her premium doubles.

Scope: All legal decisions in all document types.

Client meetings, consultations, and signing ceremonies are always conducted by Priya in person. The agent prepares materials beforehand and processes notes afterward. No AI presence in client interactions.

Why: Estate planning conversations involve grief, family conflict, end-of-life wishes, and deeply personal financial disclosures. Clients need to feel that a human being is listening to them and understanding their family's unique situation. The trust built in those meetings is what generates referrals.

Failure mode: Client mentions during signing that she has been estranged from her son and might want to reconsider the trust terms. This is a pivotal moment that requires human empathy and legal judgment in real time. No AI system can navigate a conversation where a mother is reconsidering disinheriting her child.

Scope: All client-facing interactions. AI prepares and processes. Human performs.