Squire.law FAQ

Squire.law is a sovereign AI-powered legal assistant built for lawyers. It provides jurisdiction-specific legal research, drafting, and analysis using curated legal data. Unlike generic AI, Squire is trained on your country's laws and your firm's data, keeping all information in-country.

Squire is meant for legal professionals (attorneys, paralegals, in-house counsel) who need reliable AI legal research. It excels in complex tasks like analyzing case law, drafting documents, and finding key contract clauses. Essentially, any law firm or legal department that requires secure, accurate AI assistance benefits from Squire's specialized features.

Unlike general-purpose chatbots, Squire is enterprise-grade and private. It never sends your data to public cloud models; instead it runs on local servers. It includes a Hallucination Firewall that validates answers against legal sources. In short, Squire offers AI with lawyer-level accuracy and data sovereignty, which generic bots do not provide.

"Sovereign" means the AI respects your jurisdiction's laws and data. Squire's models are trained on local law content and run in-region (local cloud or on-site). This ensures compliance with data sovereignty requirements: your data stays in your country and under your control. It also means Squire's answers are grounded in your specific legal system.

Squire's intelligence is built on multiple layers of legal sources, including your jurisdiction's constitution, statutes, case law, and firm-specific documents. This curated legal data (legal codes, precedents, commentary, and internal work product) ensures every answer is evidence-based. As a result, Squire cites real cases and laws rather than guessing.

The Hallucination Firewall is a core Squire feature that checks every answer against your verified legal data. If an AI starts to fabricate ("hallucinate") an answer, Squire immediately flags it. This safeguards you from misleading or incorrect legal advice. In short, it ensures all outputs are factual and rooted in real law.

Squire includes document analysis (summarization, clause extraction), context-aware drafting, and deep research. It can automatically summarize long files, find relevant cases, and draft or edit documents with expert guidance. All AI tasks happen in a split-pane interface so you remain in control of edits. These features turn hours of manual work into minutes of automated efficiency.

Every AI-generated claim or summary is linked to its source. Squire's document intelligence engine verifies citations against the original text. You can click through to view the referenced statute or case. This transparency means you can trust the answers and double-check the details.

Yes. When you ask the assistant to produce a full document ("draft an NDA", "write a demand letter", "prepare an employment agreement"), it will offer to open a dedicated drafting session. Click "Start drafting" and Squire creates the draft, carries any research you've already done in the chat across to the new session, and opens the split-pane editor. For short snippets or quick replies the assistant will answer inline instead.

In the drafting editor the assistant can edit content, replace sections, insert new clauses, propose redlines, apply templates, save named version snapshots, restore previous versions, compare versions, change the font (Default / Garamond / Helvetica / Times New Roman), assign a DOCX style template, rename the draft, link or unlink it from a matter, change the lifecycle status (draft / in review / finalized), and offer Word or Markdown exports. You stay in control - nothing destructive runs without your click-to-confirm.

Ask the assistant to export your draft and it will post a Download card in chat. Click it to download a .docx file - either clean or with your redlines converted to Word track changes. If your organisation has uploaded a style template, every exported document will automatically use your firm's fonts, headers, footers, and margins. Markdown export is also available.

Yes. Every change to a draft is saved as a version automatically, whether it was made by you or by the AI. You can also save named snapshots at any point (for example, "Before client review" or "Signed version"), restore any earlier version at any time, and view a side-by-side comparison showing exactly what changed between two versions.

No. Any action that is hard to undo always requires your explicit confirmation. For example, accepting or rejecting all redlines, removing a team member from a matter, or changing firm-wide settings will show a Confirm / Cancel prompt before anything happens. Routine actions like making an edit you requested or saving a version happen immediately.

Yes. When the assistant produces a finding worth keeping, you can ask it to save it as a note. Notes can be private (only you), shared with a matter team, or visible to your whole organisation. You can also ask the assistant to append new findings to an existing note, which is useful for building up a research log over time. Notes are searchable and appear in the matter sidebar.

Yes, for chats linked to a matter. Squire accumulates research findings across all chats on a matter, so when you start a new conversation it already has context from previous sessions. This means you don't have to re-explain the background each time, and the AI can build on earlier research rather than starting from scratch. Chats that aren't linked to a matter start fresh each time.

Yes. Just ask - for example, "set up a new matter for client X" or "add Sarah to this matter". Creating a matter happens immediately since it can always be archived or deleted later. Removing a team member requires your confirmation before anything changes. The person you're adding must already be a member of your organisation.

Yes. Run /extract-timelines on a court order, summons, notice of motion, or directive (or just ask "what are the deadlines in this order?") and Squire's action-timeline extractor produces a structured proposal: past procedural events go onto the matter's activity stream, and future required actions become todos with computed due dates. Deadlines expressed as relative offsets ("10 court days from service of summons") are computed using South African Uniform Rule 4 — court days exclude the first day, weekends, and public holidays. You always see a confirmation summary before any todo is created. Every todo carries a citation back to the originating page in the source document.

When you mark a predecessor todo complete, Squire automatically re-anchors and recomputes the due date of any dependent todo. For example, if "File plea (20 court days after notice of intention to defend)" depends on "File notice of intention to defend", and you complete the notice three days late, the plea's due date shifts forward to match — using the actual completion date as the new anchor. This keeps your matter timeline accurate as the case unfolds, without manually updating every dependent date.

Yes — there's a built-in trigger on file summaries that fires when a newly uploaded document mentions "court order", "summons", "notice of motion", or "directive". When it fires, Squire AI extracts the action timeline, creates the todos and activity entries, and notifies the matter team so you know automatic activity occurred. You can disable this for your organisation from /triggers — it's listed as "Auto-Extract Action Timelines" under the global triggers and can be turned off without affecting other organisations.

Table views are a spreadsheet-style surface where each row is an entity (a file, matter, todo, contact, etc.) and each column is an AI-extracted answer or summary. They're built for the comparison work that doesn't fit in a chat: "across these 30 NDAs, what's the assignment clause?", "for every open matter, what's the next deadline?", "list every active client with their billing contact". You can create one from /tables or ask the assistant to suggest one mid-conversation.

A table's rows come from a row source you pick when creating it. The supported sources are: files (your org file library), matters (your matter list), todos (tasks across matters), team members (people on a matter), notes, entities (people or companies tracked on a matter), clients (your client list), and custom (you type the row labels). Each source carries the right context to the AI — file rows let the AI cite specific pages of the source document; matter rows let it reference linked files and metadata.

Each column has a name and a prompt (e.g. "Termination notice period — answer in days, or 'N/A'"). When you click Regenerate, Squire runs the prompt against every row in parallel — locked cells are skipped — and writes the result with a citation back to the source page where applicable. Click any cell to open the inspector and see the AI's reasoning and any citations. Every cell is versioned, and you can edit any cell inline to override the AI.

Yes. Once a table has at least one populated cell, the header shows a download button that exports the table as an Excel workbook (.xlsx) with three sheets: the table itself, the citations, and metadata. New tables can also start from a template: blank, or one of the seeded system templates — Document review, SPA diligence, Open todos triage, Matter portfolio dashboard, Custom comparison. Templates carry a row source and pre-built columns so you can populate the table in one click instead of designing it from scratch.

Yes. Each table has its own chat pane on the right. You can ask the assistant to add or update columns, regenerate specific cells, set values, lock cells against AI overwrite, or refresh the row source — destructive changes ask for confirmation first. Tables also integrate with workflows: triggers can fire on table_view.created / .row_added / .cell_changed / .generation_finished events, and four trigger actions (populate_table_view, add_table_row, update_table_cell, regenerate_table_cell) let workflows drive table generation and writes.

Your data never leaves your jurisdiction. Squire is built with local-cloud deployment (or fully on-premise). By default, all processing occurs on servers within your country. If you choose self-hosting, everything runs on your hardware. This ensures compliance with local data laws and eliminates foreign data access.

Squire combines per-firm envelope encryption, opt-in personal-data tokenisation, and strict access controls. Each firm gets its own encryption key, used to encrypt all stored data (AES-256-GCM). Firms can enable PII tokenisation, which replaces personal data with reversible tokens before any prompt is sent to an LLM — the cleartext mapping stays in the firm's encrypted catalog and never leaves. Access is governed by multi-factor authentication and role-based permissions.

No. Squire offers private AI. Your firm's data is not shared with or used to train any public model. This means your confidential information stays with you and is never exposed to outsiders.

Squire is designed to meet GDPR and POPIA. Beyond regional data residency and per-firm encryption, Squire ships data-subject-access tooling (right-to-know via the DPO console), an erasure cascade that rewrites downstream artefacts when a token is forgotten, and a tamper-evident audit log of every LLM request. Each deployment can be audited and follows legal industry guidelines.

Yes. Squire supports self-hosted deployment on your own servers. This fully offline mode means Squire never connects to the outside internet. It's ideal for high-security environments. We provide installation support if needed as part of our Enterprise plan.

"Hallucinations" occur when generative AI makes up false information. In a legal context, this can lead to dangerous misinformation. Users must be wary because even plausible-sounding answers can be completely incorrect. Squire explicitly addresses this risk with its Hallucination Firewall, ensuring accuracy.

Squire's hallucination firewall cross-checks every answer against actual legal text. If an output can't be verified, Squire either corrects it or alerts the user. This process is automated and continuous, so you only see grounded, factual legal information. It protects your firm's reputation by minimizing AI errors.

Squire provides research assistance, not legal advice. All answers come with references so you can verify them. Since the AI references official law sources and local commentary, the output is as reliable as traditional legal research tools. We still recommend having an attorney review AI suggestions before final use.

Yes. Squire's database is regularly updated. This ensures Squire's answers reflect current statutes and precedents in your jurisdiction.

Squire generates its own analysis, not published opinions, so it's treated as a research tool. You can cite the original sources it provides (cases, statutes). We recommend citing the primary authority rather than Squire's text. Think of Squire like a very fast research assistant that points to what to cite.

We offer Student, Professional, and Enterprise tiers. The Professional plan (R3500/seat/month) includes unlimited queries, full citations, and automation features. Students can get a discounted rate (R1500) with limited features. Enterprise is custom-priced. All plans have fixed monthly fees (no usage caps).

Where Do I Stand? is our free public access tool. Full Beta testing is available on approval - join the Waitlist here.

We use fixed pricing for predictability. You pay a set monthly fee per user (like any software subscription). No hidden cloud or token fees means firms can use Squire freely without watching usage meters. This model suits legal budgets and lets you focus on value.

The Enterprise plan adds self-hosting, single sign-on, and premium support. It's ideal for large firms. Please speak with our sales team to tailor a package to your needs.

Pricing is per seat. Each active member of your organisation is one seat, billed monthly or yearly. The Subscribe flow asks you to pick a seat count, and you can adjust it later from the billing page or through Stripe's Customer Portal. For example, Professional is R3500 per seat per month — three lawyers on the Professional plan is R10,500/month.

Yes, if your plan has yearly pricing configured. At subscribe time, you can toggle between Monthly and Yearly on the plan picker. Once subscribed, the current-plan card offers a "Switch to yearly" (or "Switch to monthly") button when you toggle to the other cycle. Stripe prorates the difference on your next invoice - so switching mid-cycle is safe and immediate.

Every new organisation gets a 14-day trial with no credit card required. During the trial you have full access. We send reminder emails at 14, 7, 3, and 1 day before expiry. When the trial ends, the org enters a 14-day grace period (read-only access to most features, but the billing page stays open so you can add a card). If the grace period expires without a subscription, the org is suspended.

On /organization/billing, click "Add seat" on the Subscription card. This calls Stripe to increase your seat count by one, and Stripe prorates the cost on your next invoice. You can also adjust seats through Stripe's Customer Portal (click "Manage billing"). We use pre-paid seats: you can invite up to your purchased seat count, and beyond that the invite flow will prompt you to add a seat first.

The invite is blocked with a message explaining you've reached your seat limit, and you're redirected to the billing page. From there you can add another seat in one click — Stripe will prorate the cost — and then return to invite the new member. This keeps billing predictable: you never get surprise charges just because someone accepted an invite.

The billing page at /organization/billing shows your invoice history with links to download each one (hosted by Stripe or as PDF). To update your card or change your payment method, click "Manage billing" — this opens Stripe's Customer Portal where you can also cancel the subscription or change billing details. All invoice emails come from Stripe with full VAT breakdown where applicable.

For South African customers, 15% VAT is calculated by Stripe Tax based on your billing address and shown on every invoice. B2B customers can supply a VAT number at checkout to have it recorded on the invoice. Our listed prices (e.g. R3500/seat/month) are exclusive of VAT; the total charged will include VAT at checkout.

Yes, you can change plans at any time. Pricing will be pro-rated by day.

Where Do I Stand? is a free AI legal analysis tool on Squire.law that lets anyone describe a legal situation and receive an instant, structured analysis based on South African legislation and case law. It covers areas including employment law, contract law, family law, personal injury, business law, criminal law, real estate, immigration, intellectual property, and constitutional law. No account or payment is required.

Yes, completely. You don't need to create an account, join a waitlist, or enter any payment details. Describe your situation, select your jurisdiction and legal area, and receive your analysis within seconds. It's designed to give you a useful starting point - and to show you what Squire's full platform can do for legal professionals.

The tool currently supports analysis across contract law, real estate law, employment law, family law, personal injury, business law, immigration law, criminal law, intellectual property, and constitutional law. You can also select "Other" for legal situations that don't fit neatly into these categories.

You can select from South Africa, Namibia, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, or General International. The AI's analysis is tailored to the legal framework of whichever jurisdiction you choose - so a South African employment law query will reference the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Labour Relations Act, not US or UK legislation.

No. The tool provides general legal information and analysis - not legal advice. It's designed to help you understand your situation, identify relevant legal issues, and see what the law says. For serious legal matters, you should always consult with a qualified attorney or advocate who can assess the full facts of your case. Think of it as an informed starting point, not a replacement for professional legal counsel.

The tool uses the same AI engine that powers Squire's full platform - trained on verified South African legislation, case law, and legal commentary, with a hallucination firewall that validates citations. It aims to provide well-grounded legal information with relevant legal authority. However, legal situations are fact-specific, and AI cannot account for every nuance. Always verify important findings with a qualified legal professional.

The more specific you are, the more useful the analysis. Include relevant dates, amounts, locations, the parties involved, what has happened so far, and what outcome you're hoping for.

Squire automates research and analysis that traditionally take hours. Our clients report up to 10x faster legal research. It can instantly sift through statutes and case law, highlight key clauses, and draft summaries. This efficiency frees lawyers to focus on strategy, significantly reducing billable hours spent on routine tasks.

Squire excels at document-heavy tasks: contract review, due diligence, and case preparation. For example, it can compare agreements, extract obligations, and predict outcomes. Use Squire to analyze discovery documents, generate first drafts, or check compliance. Essentially, any workflow involving large legal texts can be accelerated by Squire.

Mid-size and large law firms, corporate legal departments have the greatest ROI. Professionals in litigation, corporate law, and regulatory law gain rapid insights from Squire's analytics. Even students can leverage the Student plan. In short, any legal team aiming for data-driven efficiency will benefit from Squire's AI.

Calculate savings by comparing hours spent on research/drafting before and after Squire. For example, if Squire cuts research time from 5 hours to 30 minutes per matter, that's a 90% time saving. Factor in billable rates to quantify revenue impact. We also provide analytics tools to track time saved and efficiency gains.

Squire is launching first in South Africa. Our legal models reference South African constitutional, statutory, and case law. We have plans to expand into African and Middle Eastern markets; Saudi Arabia and others are coming soon.

Yes. We are actively adding new jurisdictions. Each new region receives a model trained on that country's laws. If you have a specific country in mind, please contact us to discuss partnership or early access.

Currently, Squire's interface and legal content are English-based.

Our models incorporate both common law and statutory (civil) sources as applicable. For example, South Africa's mixed legal system (including Roman-Dutch law) is fully indexed. We tailor each jurisdiction's model to that country's system, whether common law, civil law, or hybrid.

Yes. Since Squire's database includes extensive statutory and case law, it can answer questions in any practice area covered by those sources. If your firm has specialized needs (e.g. local IP statutes), you can upload those documents to Squire's private data layer to extend its expertise.

No. Squire is a research assistant, not a lawyer. Its answers are for informational purposes only. We recommend having a licensed attorney review any AI output before acting on it. Squire's purpose is to augment your expertise, not replace professional judgment.

Squire is trained on authoritative legal sources, which reduces bias. We also vet content for offensive or unethical language. Because Squire learns from professional data rather than the open web, it avoids many common bias issues. However, users should remain vigilant - no AI is free from all bias, so we encourage human oversight.

Laws regulating AI are emerging, but currently no major jurisdiction bans legal AI tools. However, you should comply with attorney ethics rules (e.g. confidential data must remain protected). Squire's design (local processing, encryption) helps you stay within data privacy laws. We also advise consulting your legal ethics board if unsure about AI use in your firm.

All paid plans include in-app support chat, email support, and access to online documentation. The in-app chat is powered by Squire AI, which can answer product, account, and billing questions instantly. If you need a human, you can invite a Squire support staff member into the chat with one click. Our team is available to help with setup, onboarding, training, and troubleshooting.

Yes. Every account has a built-in product support chat at /support/chat. Squire AI answers product, account, billing, and usage questions instantly, using context about your organization and activity. If the AI can't help, you can invite a human Squire support staff member into the chat with one click - they only see the conversation after you tick an explicit consent checkbox. Support chat is for product help only; for legal research use your regular Squire chat.

Yes. Support chats have a side panel where you can upload screenshots, PDFs, and short log/text files (10 MB max, 5 files at a time). These attachments are intentionally kept out of the chat message stream - they are visible only to human support staff, and Squire AI cannot see or interpret them. If you want the AI to help with the contents of a file, paste the relevant text into the chat instead. If you need a human to look at the file, click "Invite support staff" and a Squire support agent will review it after you confirm.

For all plans, we include initial onboarding training for your team. Training covers system usage and best practices. Our goal is that your firm is fully comfortable with Squire's capabilities. Training can be booked here.

You can submit bugs or feature requests through our support portal or by emailing contact@squire.law. Feature requests from multiple firms are regularly reviewed for inclusion in our roadmap.