Updated 29 September 2026. This entry first described an earlier design, in which matters were held in the browser's own storage and AI calls went out from the browser. That design is retired. Case files now live in an encrypted vault your firm controls, and on managed plans AI requests pass through our AI service on their way to the provider. The text below describes the product as it is now.

When we talk about where your matters live, we mean something specific and load-bearing, not a marketing phrase. It is the architecture the whole product is built on. This entry sets out what it means and why it changes the security question.

Where your matters live

Your case file lives in an encrypted vault your firm controls. On Solo, that is an encrypted folder on your own computer, run by a small service installed there. On Practice, it is the same vault on a server your firm controls, reached over your own network. Every record is encrypted, and the key stays on your side.

The browser is the screen. It keeps working copies while you work, but it is not where your case file is kept. Clear it, or change machines, and the file is still in the vault.

Your matters do not sit in a database we run. There is no Avantwerk store of your files. This is not a setting you switch on or a premium tier you upgrade to. It is how the product is built.

The security question this answers

Most conversations about AI security get stuck on how well a vendor protects the files you hand over: the encryption, the certifications, the retention policy. All of that assumes the vendor holds your files.

This architecture removes that assumption. If there is no vendor database of your matters, there is:

  • No store of ours to breach for your files. An attacker who gets into our systems does not find your case files, because we never held them.
  • Nothing to subpoena from us. A third party cannot compel from us a copy of a matter we do not hold.
  • No copy of ours to forget to delete. There is no case file on our side for a retention policy to govern.

The strongest protection for a privileged file is for it to stay under your control. That is what this design gives you.

What leaves, and through where

Using an AI model means some text has to reach it. So it is worth being exact.

What stays: your case file at rest. The documents, their full contents, everything the step in hand does not need. None of it is stored by us. None of it is synced to a cloud we control.

What leaves, and when: text can leave for a documented AI event: an automatic summary after an upload and the applicable privilege control; a draft or analysis request; or AI-assisted dictation clean-up, which intentionally sends the dictated text and selected matter vocabulary and can include names. Verbatim dictation sends nothing. Reading and editing alone send nothing. Request-applicable controls run before egress. On covered structured-text requests, recognised identifier classes are replaced with placeholders; image-only/scanned content and dictation names/vocabulary are documented exceptions. This is pseudonymisation, not anonymisation. A cleared managed route forwards the selected payload through our non-storing relay in Germany; the active provider entity and contract terms still require evidence. A supported own-credential route uses the firm's provider contract and may use the same non-storing relay or the firm's vault host, depending on configuration.

That is the custody boundary. The case file stays in your vault. What crosses is the text an AI step needs, checked first. Human review is enforced for consequential registered drafting, filing and signing skills on the attended registry path; direct and unregistered paths are outside that guarantee.

Why we built it this way

We could have taken the easier road: a server, a database, your files uploaded so the product had everything to hand. It is simpler to build. It is also the exact shape a careful firm should refuse, because it hands a privileged file to a party you do not control before the work even begins.

The vault was harder to build, and it is why the product can answer the question every solicitor should ask: where does my matter actually live? In your firm's own encrypted vault. Not with us.

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