Help Center

Frequently asked questions.

Everything about Squire™'s sovereign, jurisdiction-grounded legal AI - what it is, how it stays accurate, where your data lives, and what it costs.

Product overview 5

The short version of what Squire™ is and who it's for.

What is Squire.law™?
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 grounded in your country's laws and your firm's data, and keeps your firm's information encrypted and stored in-region.
Who is Squire™ designed for?
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.
How is Squire™ different from ChatGPT or Google Bard?
Unlike general-purpose chatbots, Squire™ is enterprise-grade and private. It never sends your data to public consumer AI models and never trains on your content; instead it runs on dedicated infrastructure and calls only vetted providers under contractual no-training terms, with your data encrypted and kept in-region at rest. It includes a Hallucination Firewall that validates answers against legal sources. In short, Squire™ offers AI with lawyer-level accuracy and data governance, which generic bots do not provide.
What does "sovereign legal AI" mean, and why does it matter for South African law firms?
"Sovereign" means the AI respects your jurisdiction's laws and data. Squire™'s intelligence is built on local law content, and your data is stored in-region and encrypted under a key unique to your firm. This supports data-sovereignty requirements: your data stays under your control. Fully in-country and on-premise inference is supported for Enterprise deployments. It also means Squire™'s answers are grounded in your specific legal system. For a law firm this isn't just an infrastructure preference - it's an extension of attorney-client privilege and the duty of confidentiality: privileged matter data shouldn't leave the jurisdiction (or the firm's control) just to get an AI answer.
What data sources does Squire™ use?
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.

Features & technical 31

AI safety, the hallucination firewall, and how Squire™ works under the hood.

What is the "Hallucination Firewall"?
The Hallucination Firewall is a core Squire™ feature that grounds every answer in your verified legal data and links each claim to its source, so you can check any statement against the original text. It also verifies citations against the source document and scores how well each response is supported. This is designed to keep outputs rooted in real law rather than invented - though you should always verify important findings yourself.
What core AI functions does Squire™ offer?
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.
How does Squire™ ensure accurate citations?
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.
Can the AI create a document for me from chat?
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.
What can Squire™ AI do inside a draft?
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 / Times New Roman / Helvetica / Cambria), set the list-numbering style (1. / a. / i., decimal, legal 1. / (a) / (i), or outline 1.1.1) and heading capitalisation (Preserve as-typed, Title Case, Sentence case, UPPERCASE), 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.
How does Squire™ export drafts to Word?
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. Exported documents follow your house style (font, size, spacing, heading capitalisation, and list numbering), and if your organisation has uploaded a style template they also pick up its headers, footers, margins, and branding. Markdown export is also available. For documents imported in Word review mode, choose "Word with Squire™'s track changes" - it returns the original document with your decisions and suggestions applied as native track changes.
Can I set a default document style for my firm or for myself?
Yes. Squire™ has a house style you control - font, body size, paragraph and line spacing, heading capitalisation (e.g. Title Case or UPPERCASE), and list numbering. Set the firm-wide default under Organization Settings -> House Style (owners and admins), and your own personal style under Account Settings -> Drafting style; your personal choices override the firm default for the drafts you create, and any single draft can still override both from the editor's Numbering and Heading case menus. The style is applied automatically in the editor, the preview, and the Word export, so documents come out looking the way your firm writes them without anyone reformatting by hand. You can also just ask the assistant - for example "make Cambria and 1.1.1 numbering my default". Numbering and capitalisation are computed at export, so they never alter the words in your document, and acronyms like POPIA or VAT are left untouched.
Can Squire™ work with Word documents that contain track changes?
Yes - this is Word review mode. Upload the negotiated .docx to your document library and click "Review in Squire™" (or use Import Word in the drafting editor). Squire™ displays the document with every existing tracked change - who made it and when - and you can accept or reject each one, ask the AI to propose changes, or suggest your own edits. Nothing is final until you export: download "Word with Squire™'s track changes" and email it straight to the other side.
Will the exported Word file keep my document's formatting and numbering?
Yes. In Word review mode Squire™ never regenerates your document - it amends the original file you uploaded. Styles, automatic clause numbering, headers and footers, images, and the other parties' tracked changes all remain exactly as they were. Squire™'s changes are added as native Word track changes, with the reasoning attached as Word comments, so opposing counsel can open the file in Word and accept or reject them as usual.
Do the clause and section numbers in Squire™ match my Word document?
Yes. Word generates clause numbers like "3.2" or "(a)" automatically from its numbering rules rather than storing them as typed text, so Squire™ reads those rules and shows the exact same numbers in the review view. That means when you tell the other side "we amended clause 3.2", the number you see in Squire™ is the number they'll see in Word - no more guessing or recounting.
How do I see everything I changed before sending the document back?
Open the redlines panel and switch to the "All changes" tab. It lists every change across the whole document - the other side's tracked changes, the AI's proposals, and your own suggestions - in document order, each labelled with its clause number and whether you accepted, rejected, or left it pending. It's the reference sheet for the note you send with the document: a clean run-down of which sections you touched and why. Click any entry to jump straight to it in the document.
Can I make my own edits in Word review mode?
Yes - select any text in the document and click "Suggest edit". Propose replacement wording or a deletion, with an optional comment explaining why. Your suggestion appears as a redline alongside the AI's proposals and the other side's changes, and exports as a track change under your own name. Direct typing is deliberately disabled so the original document stays intact for a clean export.
How do I preview the final document in Word review mode?
Click "Preview result" in the review banner. Squire™ shows the consolidated document - accepted and still-pending changes applied, rejected changes reverted - just like Word's "No Markup" view. Toggle back to "Show changes" to continue reviewing.
Can Squire™ track versions of my drafts?
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.
Does the AI ever do something without my permission?
No. Any action that is hard to undo always requires your explicit confirmation. For example, accepting or rejecting all redlines, adding or removing a team member on 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.
Can Squire™ save research as a note for me?
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.
Does the assistant remember what we did on a matter last time?
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.
Can the assistant set up a new matter or add team members?
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. Adding or removing a team member requires your confirmation first, since it changes who can access the matter's contents. The person you're adding must already be a member of your organisation.
Can I group matters into departments, like Employment or Commercial?
Yes. A department is a matter that holds other matters - one per area of your legal work. Departments are off until an owner or admin turns them on (Organization Settings, then Matter Types, then switch on Department). Create one as a matter of the Department type, give it a team, and choose a default visibility for new matters. Open the department and choose New Matter to file a matter in it - the new matter starts with the department's team and its default visibility, which you can change afterwards. Move an existing matter in or out from its menu with Move to Department; the matter's creator or an owner or admin can do this. On the matter list each matter shows its department, and the Department filter narrows the list to one department or to matters in none. Departments sit at the top level - a department can't contain another department - and deleting a department moves its matters back to the top level rather than deleting them. More about departments.
Does putting a matter in a department share it with the department's team?
No. A department groups matters; it never grants access. Every matter keeps its own team and visibility, and moving a matter into or out of a department changes nobody's access. The department's team and default visibility are only copied onto a matter when it is created in the department. A department itself is always visible to everyone in your organisation, so anyone can find it - but inside it they see only the matters they can open, and a private matter's title never appears to anyone who isn't on it. File sharing between a matter and its parent doesn't reach into or out of a department either.
How do I pin a matter to my sidebar?
Open the matter, open its menu and choose Pin to My Sidebar - it appears in the Pinned section at the top of your sidebar on every page. Pinning a department takes you straight to its matters. Owners and admins can choose Pin for Everyone on a matter, and under Organization Settings, then Sidebar, they can pin a whole type - such as all departments - and set the order everyone sees. Your organisation's pins come first, then your own. Hover a pin to remove it; a pin your organisation added is hidden from your sidebar only, and you can show hidden pins again at any time. Pins never give access: you only see pins to matters you can open. Pins show in the web app; the mobile app doesn't show them yet.
How do I invite a colleague or team member to join a chat?
Click the invite button (the person with a plus) in the chat's header, or "Invite teammates" in its participants menu, and pick who to add. Anyone already in the conversation can invite - not only the person who started it. In a matter chat you can invite people on that matter's team; if the person isn't on the team, an owner, admin, or the matter lead can choose "Add to matter & invite", which also gives them access to the whole matter. You can also just mention a colleague with @ - if they aren't in the chat, Squire™ offers to invite them; nothing happens until you click. The people you invite see the whole conversation, including earlier messages, Squire™'s answers, and attached files. A chat that was just you becomes a team chat: from then on Squire™ answers only when someone mentions @Squire™, and your personal memory is no longer used in it. Invitees get an in-app notification and an email, depending on their notification settings, and every addition and removal is recorded on the matter's activity timeline. Anyone who leaves or is removed loses access to the chat and the files attached in it straight away, and someone taken off a matter's team loses access to that matter's chats - including ones they started. A drafting chat can only be shared by the draft's owner, because inviting someone into it also shares the draft.
Can I share a document, matter, or chat with someone outside my firm?
Yes - invite them as a guest collaborator. On a matter's People tab, click "Add collaborator", enter their email, choose what to share (the whole matter or a single document), set their access level (view only, comment, or suggest changes on review-mode drafts), and pick how long the access lasts. To bring someone into a conversation instead, open the matter chat and click "Share externally" in its header - you invite each person individually, say in what capacity (client, their counsel, counterparty, and so on), whether they can reply or only read, and when their access ends. They don't need to be in your firm: if they already use Squire™ it's instant, and if not they're prompted to create a free account from the invite link. Only owners, admins, or the matter lead can invite guests. The guest receives an email and an in-app notification with Accept and Decline buttons, and you're notified either way. Every invite, acceptance, and revocation is recorded on the matter's activity timeline so your team is never surprised by who has access. If an outside practice looks after your organization's legal work generally, rather than one matter, see working with a partner practice.
How do I delete a document? Does the AI stop using it, and can I get it back?
Open the matter, go to Documents, and click the bin icon on the document's row. You can delete a document you uploaded; owners and admins can also delete firm-wide documents. Deleting it removes it from the matter and from the AI's search straight away - the assistant stops being able to read it or cite it immediately, which is the point. The file itself is not destroyed immediately - it is retained for 30 days and then permanently deleted, along with every copy derived from it. Treat deleting as final: there is no undo in the app, so check before you confirm. Drafts work differently: deleting a draft is immediate and permanent, and it also removes that draft's chat conversation and version history, so there is no recovery window. A linked document that lives in another matter can be unlinked instead, which removes it from this matter and leaves the original untouched.
What can a guest collaborator see and do?
A guest sees only the specific matter, document, or chat you shared - nothing else in your firm. After accepting, they can switch into your organisation (clearly marked as a guest), where their home page is simply a list of the items shared with them. They can read a shared document and, depending on the access level you granted, leave comments or suggest changes on it. In a shared chat they see only the messages your team sends to everyone, and only from the moment they were invited - never earlier messages, your team's internal notes, or Squire™'s answers unless a team member chooses to pass one on. They can open files your team attaches to those messages, and with reply access they can post messages of their own. Guests cannot use Squire™ AI in any way, and nothing they write makes Squire™ respond. Access is time-boxed to the period you set and can be revoked in one click, taking effect immediately - even in a page they already have open.
Can I chat with my client in Squire™ - and will they see Squire™'s answers?
Yes, you can hold a conversation with a client (or their counsel, an expert, or the other side) in a matter chat: open the chat and click "Share externally". Your client will not see what Squire™ says. In a shared chat Squire™ answers only when someone on your team mentions @Squire™, and its answers are visible to your team alone. To pass one on, choose "Share with guests" on the answer - it opens in your message box so you can review and edit it, and it is sent under your name. Your team can also post internal notes the guest never sees - with the other side, an expert or anyone whose role you haven't set in the chat, your message box starts on an internal note, and you switch to "Everyone" to reach them - and anything written before a person was invited stays hidden from them. What the client tells you can be saved to the matter's knowledge with "Save to matter", recorded as their statement rather than as established fact, and you can put the matter brief's open questions to them directly and file their reply as the answer. Guests are told about new messages in the app and by email; the email never contains the message itself. Guests cannot upload files into a chat yet.
Can Squire™ extract deadlines from court orders and summons?
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.
What happens if a deadline depends on completing an earlier action?
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.
Does Squire™ automatically extract deadlines from documents I upload?
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.
Can I build my own automated workflows?
Yes. Open Workflow -> New Workflow (or go to /workflows) and choose how to start: pick a ready-made template, start from scratch in the builder, or ask the Squire™ team to build one with you. The builder reads as a sentence - When [an event happens] · Only when [optional filters] · Then [the steps Squire™ runs] - and narrates back in plain English what it will do. Events include a new matter opened, a document uploaded, a task completed, contract milestones, table changes, or a button you click on a matter. Steps can ask Squire™ AI to analyse or draft, create to-dos or notes, notify people, pause to ask someone for input, update records, or drive a table. "Save & test" runs the workflow against sample data so you see the result before it goes live, and AI steps pass an automated safety check. Templates include new-matter intake, summarising new documents, a one-click matter status report, and a human-in-the-loop document review.
Where can I see everything Squire™ can do?
Squire™ has a built-in Features page at /features - a guided tour of the product, with a card for each capability and a detail page explaining what it does and where to find it. It covers document drafting, Word review mode, Tables, action-timeline and deadline extraction, notes and matter memory, entity and conflict detection, automation (skills, commands, and triggers), guest collaboration, client conversations, and more. Newly shipped features appear there first with a "New" badge, and you'll see a short one-time announcement on your dashboard the next time you log in. Open it any time from the Features card on the Support page, or go straight to /features.

Tables 5

Squire™'s spreadsheet-like surface for bulk legal extraction across matters.

What is the Table View?
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.
What can I put as rows in a table?
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.
How does Squire™ generate the cells, and can I trust the answers?
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.
Can I export a table to Excel? Are there templates?
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.
Can the assistant or my workflows drive a table?
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.

Contract management 10

The contract lifecycle repository - imports, approvals, key dates, and renewal reminders.

What is contract lifecycle management in Squire™?
Squire™ tracks contracts as first-class records, not just files. Every contract at /contracts has a lifecycle (draft → negotiation → approval → executed → active → expired/terminated/renewed), key dates that drive reminders, parties, attached documents, and an approval trail. You can create a contract from a Squire™ draft or import existing signed contracts, then filter the repository by status, type, counterparty, or expiry window. It's one system of record from first draft to renewal notice, with the AI already inside it.
How do I get my existing contracts into Squire™?
Use the Import page at /contracts/import - drop up to 20 executed contracts at a time. Each file becomes a contract record with the document attached, and Squire™ AI reads it to extract the parties, key dates, value, governing law, and renewal terms, with the exact source quote for every value. Extracted contracts land in a review queue where you confirm (or correct) the values before they count. Note: scanned documents without a text layer can't be read yet - they're flagged honestly in the review queue so you can fill the fields in manually.
Can I trust the AI-extracted contract dates?
You verify them - that's the design. Every extracted date and value is shown next to the exact contract wording it came from, with a confidence score. Until a person confirms a contract's extracted metadata in the review queue, those dates are treated as unconfirmed: they never create reminders, never fire automations, and Squire™ AI warns about them in chat. A hallucinated expiry date causing a missed renewal is exactly the failure a contract system exists to prevent, so the human confirmation step can't be skipped.
How do contract approvals work?
From a contract's Approvals tab, submit it to an ordered chain of approvers from your organisation. Approvals are strictly sequential - each approver is notified in-app and by email when it's their turn, and only the current step can be decided. Rejection returns the contract to negotiation with the reason recorded; when the last approver signs off, the contract moves to approved and execution can be recorded. Everyone's queue lives at /approvals ("My Approvals" in the sidebar), and every decision is recorded on the contract's activity timeline.
How does Squire™ remind me about contract renewals and expiry?
Key dates on an active contract - the expiry date and the renewal notice deadline - become todos on the contract's matter, and Squire™ sends reminders as they approach: in-app and by email at 14, 7, and 1 day out. Auto-renewing contracts roll their expiry forward automatically at the end of each term, and approaching expiry can also fire your own workflow automations via the trigger engine (contract.expiring). Every reminder email includes one-click unsubscribe, and you can switch to in-app-only from notification settings.
Can I send a contract for signature from Squire™?
Yes - Squire™ gathers signatures itself, no DocuSign account needed. From a contract's Documents tab choose "Send for signature": pick the PDF, add signers (name, email, signing order), and drag the signature, date, and text boxes onto the page. Signers need no Squire™ account - they get an emailed link, confirm a one-time code sent to their inbox, agree to sign electronically, and sign by typing or drawing their name. Signing runs in order, and you can nudge or withdraw at any point. When everyone has signed, Squire™ seals the document cryptographically, attaches the signed copy and a completion certificate to the contract, and moves it to executed. You can still record execution by hand for wet-ink and counterparty-papered deals. Because signing happens in Squire™, the document never leaves your region - it is not sent to a third-party e-signature provider.
Are Squire™'s e-signatures legally binding?
Electronic-signature law generally recognises tiers, and Squire™ produces the base one - a simple electronic signature (also called basic or ordinary). It is recognised under the electronic-transactions law of the jurisdictions Squire™ operates in - ESIGN and UETA in the United States, eIDAS in the EU, ECTA in South Africa, and their equivalents elsewhere - and is sufficient for most commercial contracts where no statute requires more. What makes it defensible is the evidence: who signed, the one-time code they passed, the exact wording they consented to, the SHA-256 of the document they were shown, and a tamper-evident log of every step - all set out in a completion certificate attached to the contract. Squire™ also seals the finished document so any later change to it is detectable, and anyone can check a signed PDF at /verify without an account (the file is fingerprinted in your browser and never uploaded). Squire™ does NOT produce an advanced or qualified electronic signature (the eIDAS terms; an accredited advanced signature in South Africa) - those are regulatory accreditations held by licensed providers, not product features. Every jurisdiction also carves out documents that can't be signed this way: wills and testamentary documents almost everywhere, and depending on where you are, land and property transactions, certain guarantees or negotiable instruments, and some family-law or court documents. The specific list is a matter of local law - Squire™ shows you the exclusions that apply to your deployment and asks you to confirm your document isn't one of them before it goes out. Where a statute requires a particular form of signature, use an accredited provider.
Can Squire™ AI answer questions about my contracts?
Yes. In any chat, the assistant can list and read your contract records - lifecycle status, key dates and the renewal notice deadline, parties, documents, approval state, and the extracted summary - always limited to contracts you can access. For portfolio-wide questions ("what's the termination clause across all our supplier agreements?"), start from the Contract repository table template, which extracts answers across every contract with citations and exports to Excel.
Why can't I delete a document that's been sent for signature?
Because it is the evidence. Once a document has been sent for signature, that exact file is what everyone signed against, and the signing record refers back to it - so Squire™ keeps it permanently and the delete button is disabled with the reason shown. If you no longer want the signature request to go ahead, void it instead: that takes the request out of circulation and stops anyone signing, while leaving the record of what happened intact. The same applies to the current executed copy attached to a contract - remove it from the contract's Documents tab first if you need to replace it, and to documents attached to a support conversation.
Who can see a contract?
You choose per contract: organisation-wide (any member), following the matter (a contract created inside a matter inherits that matter's visibility by default, so team-scoped or private matters keep their contracts confidential), or private to you. Approvers must be able to see a contract to be added to its approval chain, and the AI sees exactly what the asking user could see.

Partner practices & counsel 7

When an outside legal practice looks after your legal work - or your practice looks after several organizations'.

What's the difference between inviting an outside lawyer as a guest and working with a partner practice?
A guest is for one piece of work: you invite them to one matter, document or chat, they can view, comment or suggest changes, they can't use Squire™'s AI, and their access ends when you choose. A partner practice is a legal practice - often fractional in-house counsel - that looks after your organization's legal work more generally: once one of your owners accepts its proposal, its lawyers work across your organization as lawyers do, with Squire™'s AI, and everything they open is recorded for you. For an advocate briefed on one case, or the other side's lawyer, use a guest (sharing with someone outside your firm). For the practice that is, in effect, your legal team, use a partner practice (Counsel from a partner practice).
Our legal work is handled by an outside practice. Can its lawyers work in our Squire™ organization?
Yes, if the practice is a Squire™ partner. Squire™ proposes the engagement to your organization: your owners are emailed, owners and admins see the proposal and its terms on Organization → Counsel, and only an owner can accept it. Accepting is your consent, recorded with who accepted, when and on which terms; until then the practice's lawyers can open nothing. Once it's accepted, its lawyers appear in your organization named with their practice ("Jane Doe · Acme Counsel"). If your practice isn't a Squire™ partner yet, ask them to contact us.
What can counsel from a partner practice see and do, and what do we see of their work?
They work as lawyers in your organization, never as owners or admins. They see the matters open to your organization and those they're added to, never a colleague's private matters or chats, and they can't change your settings, members or billing; your owners and admins can let them set up your matter types and the sidebar pins everyone sees. Your owners and admins see Counsel activity: every page counsel open, action they take and file they download, person by person, with monthly figures. If the terms you accepted say so, the practice sees those monthly figures too (days active, actions and AI calls), never what its counsel worked on. Your members can send counsel a request from the counsel panel in the sidebar; only the person asking and counsel see it.
Do counsel from a partner practice take one of our seats? Who pays?
Counsel take none of your seats. Who pays for your own seats depends on your arrangement with the practice, and differs from one engagement to another: you may subscribe to Squire™ yourselves as usual, or the practice may provide Squire™ as part of its service - reselling it to you - and pay for your seats. Your billing page says which, and when the practice pays, it can set how many seats you have. If a practice stops paying for you, you get 30 days of full access to choose a plan of your own. See pricing for subscribing directly.
How do we pause or end a partner practice's access?
On Organization → Counsel, an owner or admin can Suspend the engagement, which pauses counsel's access and removes nothing (and resume it later), or End engagement, which removes their access for good. What counsel created stays in your organization. If the practice was paying for your seats, ending the engagement gives you 30 days of full access to choose a plan.
What is a partner practice's library?
A partner practice can offer the organizations it serves its own templates, table templates, skills, house style and matter setup (matter types, sub-types and pins), one at a time or bundled in a pack. Your owners and admins install copies from Their library, in your counsel panel; counsel you've allowed to set up your organization can install templates and the matter setup. A copy is yours to change. When the practice publishes a newer version you see what changed - and what you'd edited in your copy - and choose to take it, keep yours, or install it alongside. A matter setup only adds: it never removes anything of yours, and a matter type you've turned off stays off. A practice's owners can also put a pack's templates straight into your organization; the rest of the pack waits for your owners or admins.
I run a counsel practice serving several clients. Can I use Squire™ across all of them?
Yes, as a Squire™ partner. Your lawyers work inside each client's own Squire™ organization once its owner accepts, each client in its own browser tab, named with your practice. Your Clients page lists every client you serve, with each person's unread notifications and open tasks there. You can offer clients your templates, skills and house style through your library, put your logo, colour and wording where they meet you, and - depending on the arrangement - provide Squire™ to them and pay for their seats on one monthly invoice. Squire™ sets partners up: see Squire™ for counsel practices and talk to us from there.

Data & security 7

Where your data lives, who can see it, and how it's protected.

Where is my data stored when using Squire™?
Your firm's data is stored in-region and encrypted at rest under a key unique to your firm. Fully on-premise or self-hosted deployment are possible for Enterprise.
How does Squire™ protect sensitive information?
Squire™ combines per-firm envelope encryption, personal-data tokenisation, and strict access controls. Each firm gets its own encryption key, used to encrypt sensitive stored data (AES-256-GCM). PII tokenisation replaces personal identifiers with reversible tokens before any prompt is sent to an LLM - the cleartext mapping stays in the firm's encrypted catalog. Access is governed by role-based permissions and phishing-resistant passkey (WebAuthn) sign-in.
Does Squire™ use my data to train its models?
No. Squire™ does not train models and your data is only accessible to the for request authorized in your organization.
Is Squire™ POPIA compliant?
Yes. Squire™ is designed to meet South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) as well as GDPR. Beyond in-region data-at-rest and per-firm encryption, Squire™ ships data-subject-access tooling (right-to-know), an erasure cascade that rewrites downstream artefacts when a token is forgotten, and an audit log of LLM requests - the operational evidence a responsible party needs to answer a data subject request or a query from the Information Regulator, not just a compliance claim in a privacy policy.
When I delete a document, does the AI still see it? What actually gets removed?
No - the assistant loses access the moment you delete it. Deleting a document immediately removes the searchable text the AI reads, so it can no longer find, quote, or cite that document in any answer, and any background processing still running on it is cancelled. Copies held by the AI providers we use are deleted too. The document leaves every list, search result and picker at the same time. The file itself is retained for 30 days and then permanently destroyed along with every derived copy - the extracted text, the de-identified text and the search index. There is no undo in the app, so treat deleting as final. Deleting a draft is immediate and permanent, with no recovery window. Some documents cannot be deleted at all, because they are signing or contract evidence; Squire™ tells you which and why rather than failing silently.
Can an external guest see my other matters or firm data?
No. Guest access is deny-by-default: a guest is never a member of your organisation and can only reach the exact matter, document, or chat shared with them. Sharing a matter does not share its chats - each conversation is shared separately, person by person, so a lawyer's own research chats on the matter stay private. They never see your other matters, your firm-wide content, or anything not explicitly shared, and they cannot interact with Squire™ AI. Every grant is time-boxed with an expiry you choose and can be revoked at any time, with access ending immediately. All guest invites, acceptances, declines, and revocations are logged on the matter's activity timeline, so your team always knows what's shared and with whom.
Can Squire™ run offline or on-premise?
Self-hosted, on-premise deployment options are available to our Enterprise customers. Squire™ currently runs as a managed service with your data encrypted and stored in-region. If a fully on-premise deployment is a requirement for your firm, talk to our team about exploring Enterprise options.

Pricing & trials 11

What Squire™ costs, how trials work, and what's included in each plan.

What are the pricing plans?
Squire™ has several tiers - a free entry tier, a discounted Trainee tier, a full-featured Professional tier, and custom-priced Enterprise - all billed per seat with fixed fees and no usage caps. Higher tiers add unlimited queries, full citations, and automation. For current tier names and prices, see the pricing page.
Is there a free trial or demo?
Yes. Where Do I Stand? is a free public tool - no account or payment needed. You can also book a live demo of the full platform with our team, or join the waitlist for a trial as we open access to new firms and jurisdictions - no credit card required. See "How does the trial period work?" below for what's included.
Why don't you charge by cloud tokens?
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.
What does Enterprise include?
The Enterprise plan adds single sign-on, premium support, and priority access to roadmap capabilities such as on-premise and self-hosted deployment. It's ideal for large firms. Please speak with our sales team to tailor a package to your needs.
Is pricing per seat or per organisation?
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. Your total is simply your per-seat price multiplied by the number of seats - see the pricing page for current per-seat rates.
Can I pay yearly instead of monthly?
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.
How does the trial period work?
Once you're through the waitlist (or accept an invitation from an existing organisation), your organisation starts a 30-day trial with full access and no credit card required. We send reminder emails 7, 3, and 1 day before it expires. When the trial ends, the organisation enters a 14-day grace period: most features become read-only, but the billing page stays open so you can subscribe. If the grace period passes without a subscription, access is suspended.
How do I add another seat to my subscription?
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.
What happens when I try to invite someone beyond my seat limit?
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.
Where can I see my invoices and update my payment method?
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.
Can I change plans (e.g. Trainee → Professional)?
Yes, you can change plans at any time. Pricing will be pro-rated by day.

Where Do I Stand? 7

Plain-language risk assessment - what the feature does and when to use it.

What is the "Where Do I Stand?" tool?
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.
Is the "Where Do I Stand?" tool really free?
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.
Which jurisdictions does "Where Do I Stand?" support?
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.
How accurate is the analysis from "Where Do I Stand?"
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.
What information should I include in my legal situation description?
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.

Use cases & ROI 4

How law firms are using Squire™ today and the returns they see.

How can Squire™ save time for my firm?
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.
What tasks is Squire™ best at?
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.
Who benefits most from 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 law students and trainees can get started on a discounted plan. In short, any legal team aiming for data-driven efficiency will benefit from using Squire.
How do I measure ROI on Squire™?
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.

Jurisdiction & localization 5

Which countries and areas of law Squire™ covers today.

Which jurisdictions does Squire™ support today?
Squire™ is live in South Africa. Its answers are grounded in 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.
Will more countries be added?
Yes. We are actively adding new jurisdictions. Each new jurisdiction gets its own curated legal sources. If you have a specific country in mind, please contact us to discuss partnership or early access.
Does Squire™ handle multiple languages?
Currently, Squire™'s interface and legal content are English-based.
Does Squire™ cover common law and civil law systems?
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.
Can Squire™ handle local practice areas (e.g. family law, intellectual property)?
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.

Compliance & ethics 3

POPIA, bar rules, and professional responsibility in the age of legal AI.

How does Squire™ address AI bias or fairness?
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.

Support & onboarding 5

Getting started with Squire™ and what happens when you need help.

What support is available after purchase?
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.
Can I chat with Squire™ support directly in the app?
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.
Can I attach screenshots or files to a support 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.
Is training included?
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.
How do I report a bug or request a feature?
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.