How it works, in plain English.
Litigators are right to be careful with AI. These answers explain the technology, what makes ArsLex different from a general chatbot, and how we protect your confidential work — without the hype.
Understanding the technology
What is an LLM (large language model)?
An LLM is an AI trained on enormous amounts of text to predict the most likely next words in a sequence. That makes it remarkably fluent — it can draft, summarize, and rephrase — but it is fundamentally a language engine, not a fact database. It doesn't "look up" the law; it generates text that statistically resembles what it was trained on. Understanding that one distinction is the key to using AI safely in legal work.
Can an LLM actually "reason"?
It does something that looks like reasoning — it can follow a chain of inference and weigh considerations — but that ability is pattern-matching learned from text, not formal logic, and it can be confidently wrong. That is precisely why ArsLex never relies on the model for anything that has to be exact. The model drafts prose; the things that must be right — which authority is cited, how it is formatted, what page it sits on — are handled by deterministic, rule-based systems, not left to the model's judgment.
Why do AI tools "hallucinate" — and why has that gotten lawyers sanctioned?
Because an LLM produces text that is plausible rather than verified, it can generate a citation that looks completely real — a convincing case name, reporter, and court — for a case that does not exist. Courts have sanctioned attorneys who filed briefs containing these fabricated citations; the widely-reported Mata v. Avianca matter is the best-known example. ArsLex is built specifically so this cannot happen with your authorities: it drafts only from documents you provide, and it never asks the model to recall or compose a citation from memory.
What is RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)?
Instead of relying on the model's training memory, the system first retrieves the relevant passages from a known, trusted source — in your case, the documents you uploaded — and the model then drafts from those passages. "Retrieval" finds the right source; "augmented generation" writes grounded in it. It is the difference between an associate answering from memory and an associate answering with the actual record open in front of them.
What does "deterministic" mean, and why does it matter for citations?
Deterministic means rule-based and repeatable: the same input always yields the same output, with no guessing. It is the opposite of how an LLM works, which is probabilistic and can give different answers to the same prompt. ArsLex produces your citation formatting deterministically — by applying citation rules to a case's actual details — so a citation comes out correctly and consistently every time, rather than being improvised by the model.
How ArsLex is different from a general chatbot
How is using ArsLex different from using ChatGPT to write a brief?
Three ways that matter. Grounding: a general chatbot writes from its own memory and will invent authority; ArsLex drafts only from the record you give it. Citations: ArsLex anchors each citation to a real document at a real page and formats it by rule, rather than letting the model compose it. Confidentiality: your privileged material is never sent to a consumer AI service or used to train a model. It is the same broad class of technology, harnessed so it can't do the dangerous things.
Can ArsLex cite a case that doesn't exist?
It cites what you give it. ArsLex works from the documents you upload, so it will not produce a citation to authority you did not provide — it does not invent cases. As with any tool, you remain responsible for reviewing the finished work before it is filed.
How do I verify what ArsLex drafts?
Every cite-anchored passage traces back to the source you provided, so you can open the original document and check it directly — verification is built into the workflow, not an afterthought. We designed the product on the assumption that you will review everything, because a competent attorney always does.
Your role and professional responsibility
Does ArsLex give legal advice or "practice law"? Who is responsible for the work?
No. ArsLex is a drafting tool that the attorney directs — the same way a word processor or a research database is. It does not give legal advice and does not exercise legal judgment. The attorney remains fully responsible for the work product, for reviewing every output, and for the final filing.
What about my ethical duties — competence, confidentiality, disclosing AI to the court?
ArsLex is built to support them. On competence (ABA Model Rule 1.1, which is generally understood to include understanding the technology you use), every output is verifiable against a real source you provided. On confidentiality (Rule 1.6), your client data is never used to train AI, stays on infrastructure we control, and is purged on a schedule you set. On disclosure: some courts have standing orders about disclosing AI assistance, and those rules vary by jurisdiction and judge — check the ones that govern your matter. None of this replaces your professional judgment; it is designed to help you stay on the right side of it.
What can ArsLex not do?
It will not do your legal research from scratch, it will not tell you which argument to make, and it will not replace your judgment. It accelerates the mechanical, citation-heavy parts of drafting over evidence you have already gathered — and it expects you to review and own the result. We would rather be clear about the limits than oversell.
Your data and your confidentiality
Where does my data go — and is it used to train AI?
No. Your documents are never used to train any AI model — ours or anyone else's. AI inference runs on Amazon Bedrock under AWS's zero-data-retention and zero-operator-access terms, so the AI provider never stores or sees your content. Everything is encrypted in transit and at rest, isolated per tenant, and deletable immediately — and nothing is retained indefinitely. See how we handle your data for the full detail.
Can other firms see my data? What about deployment inside our own walls?
Each firm's data is walled off from every other tenant — isolation we enforce and test continuously. Access requires authenticated login with multi-factor authentication, and the database is never exposed to the public internet. For firms that require everything to stay inside their own environment, ArsLex is also available for on-premises deployment.
Still have a question? Email admin@arslex.ai — we respond within one business day.