Researcher
Finds potentially relevant authority and frames the questions that require deeper investigation.
Supervised AI legal team
Legal work needs a process—not another confident chatbot
Usus is being designed to coordinate specialized AI roles for research, fact analysis, evidence review, counterarguments, citation checking, and drafting. The lawyer directs the assignment and makes every consequential decision.
Product direction · The harness is in development and validation, not generally available today.
The operating principle
A virtual legal team working under the lawyer's direction
“Virtual legal team” describes coordinated software roles, not licensed professionals. The system does not represent a client, exercise independent professional judgment, file, send, or advise on its own.
The human lawyer remains responsible for scope, confidentiality, authority verification, factual accuracy, judgment, communication, and the final work product.
From assignment to reviewed draft
Make the reasoning path inspectable
The exact workflow changes with the assignment. A research question, chronology, and document draft do not need the same team or checks.
- 01
Define
The lawyer sets the question, jurisdiction, scope, output, and matter materials.
- 02
Assemble
Usus gathers authorized structured facts, documents, prior work, and evidence references.
- 03
Investigate
Independent roles examine law, facts, evidence, and opposing interpretations.
- 04
Deliberate
Findings are compared so disagreement and uncertainty remain visible.
- 05
Challenge
A review pass searches for missing facts, weak authority, contradictions, and counterarguments.
- 06
Verify
Material claims and citations are checked against source material and marked when unresolved.
- 07
Draft
The harness prepares an organized work product with links to supporting sources.
- 08
Decide
The lawyer reviews, revises, and determines whether and how the work will be used.
Possible roles
Assemble the team the assignment requires
Fact analyst
Organizes known facts, distinguishes assertions from evidence, and identifies uncertainty.
Evidence reviewer
Links factual propositions to documents, testimony, communications, and other support.
Counterargument analyst
Develops contrary interpretations and the strongest credible opposing position.
Citation checker
Tests whether cited authority exists and supports the proposition for which it is offered.
Drafting and review
Prepares a work product, then identifies omissions, contradictions, and unsupported conclusions.
Assignments, not magic
Useful starting points for a lawyer's review
Research memoranda
Develop a first-pass treatment of the question with authorities, contrary authority, open questions, and verification status.
Fact and evidence chronologies
Organize events across pleadings, communications, testimony, and supporting documents while preserving provenance.
Argument testing
Expose a proposed position to competing interpretations, missing facts, and likely responses before the lawyer commits to it.
Document drafting
Prepare an initial memo, letter, motion section, agreement, or response from approved facts, templates, and instructions.
No time-saving percentage is claimed yet.
Usus will measure speed, correction burden, authority accuracy, and lawyer confidence with real early-access workflows before publishing performance claims.
Verification by design
Reduce error without pretending to eliminate it
Authority verification
Does the authority exist, remain good law, and support the proposition?
Fact provenance
Which source supports each material statement, and which statements remain allegations or inferences?
Adversarial review
What contrary authority, alternative reading, or missing evidence weakens the draft?
Human approval
Nothing becomes advice, a filing, or a client communication without the lawyer's decision.
Matter context without a copy-and-paste ritual
The practice system supplies the factual foundation
Usus can connect structured matter facts, first-class custom data, relationships, and local documents. That foundation gives the harness context and lets drafts point back to the record a lawyer can inspect.
Confidentiality choices remain visible
A local-model path is being designed for work that should not be sent to an external model provider. Any optional external model connection will be separately identified with its data flow, provider, retention terms, and controls.
Help validate the work
Bring a real workflow, not a hypothetical demo
Founders-program participants can help define assignments, review standards, and the evidence a lawyer needs before trusting a draft.