Getting started

Platform overview

How matters, research, documents, playbooks, and tools fit together in 8rney

8rney is organised around a small set of objects that cover the full lifecycle of legal work — from the first research question to the final signed document.

The core objects#

Matters

The central unit of work. A matter groups all documents, research threads, chats, and drafts belonging to a single deal, dispute, or advisory task. Every piece of output can be traced back to a matter.

Research threads

Live AI-powered research sessions. Each thread holds the question, the AI response with live citations, follow-up questions, and the option to turn the answer directly into a draft.

Documents and SLPs

The drafting surface. Create documents from scratch, generate structured legal products from templates, or open any uploaded file for AI-assisted redlining and revision.

Review tables

Structured extraction grids. Define columns, add documents, and the AI fills every cell — giving you a spreadsheet-style comparison of any clause or attribute across a document set.

Playbooks

Firm-level practice intelligence. Encode your standards, risk thresholds, and preferred negotiation positions into a playbook, then benchmark any document against it in seconds.

Drive and library

The document layer. Upload files, connect Google Drive, and all your source material becomes available to research, the agent, and drafting surfaces — searchable by content, not just name.

How a typical workflow flows#

1

Create or open a matter

Anchor all activity inside a matter so the team knows where each piece of work lives.

2

Add source documents

Upload contracts, pleadings, policies, or notes into the matter. Connect Google Drive to pull in files without re-uploading.

3

Research the legal issue

Run a research question in the Research assistant. Set jurisdiction, attach relevant files, and review cited output before moving forward.

4

Draft or review the output

Open the Document editor to draft a memo, run an SLP to generate a full brief, or use a Review table to extract clauses from a contract set.

5

Benchmark against firm standards

Load a Playbook to compare the document against your practice area standards and generate a risk-scored findings report.

6

Save everything back to the matter

All research answers, drafted documents, and review outputs stay inside the matter — accessible to the whole team without side-channel rescue.

Apps and integrations#

AppWhat it is
Web appThe main 8rney product — research, matters, documents, playbooks, review tables
Word Add-inMicrosoft Word integration — research, draft, and redline without leaving Office
Google DriveJIT search and full sync — Drive files surface in research and the agent
8rneydocsInternal document ingestion and processing platform for high-volume document sets

AI models#

8rney runs on two provider backends selectable from the research composer:

ProviderModelBest for
Azure OpenAIGPT-5.5Default — fastest, best latency, Azure data residency
Claude Sonnet 4.6AWS BedrockAlternative architecture, adaptive extended thinking
Claude Opus 4.6AWS BedrockDeepest reasoning — Max thinking tier available

Each provider exposes Fast → Balanced → Deep → Expert pipeline modes. Claude Opus adds a Max tier with direct Bedrock maximum-thinking for the hardest research tasks.

Anti-hallucination guardrails are active by default across all providers — the AI is instructed to flag uncertain citations rather than fabricate them.

Note

All AI outputs are research and drafting assistance. Final legal judgment, advice, and sign-off remain with qualified human reviewers on your team.

See AI models and providers for the full provider configuration reference.