deterministic by design
AI helped build our tools. It doesn't guess about your case.
Some law firms now send their clients' private papers to an outside AI service and rely on it to weigh what matters. We put AI somewhere else: helping us build software that follows written rules, gives the same answer every time, and can be checked.
Broadview Family Law · King and Snohomish Counties, Washington
Same answer, every time
Our deadline rules work like a calculator: the same court order always gives the same dates.
Kept in-house
Any AI that works with your information runs on our own computers, from open-source models, and shares nothing outside the firm.
A lawyer decides
Advice, strategy and every filing come from your attorney, not from a model.
Two ways a law firm can use AI
AI is a remarkable tool, and we use it every day. The real question is where a firm puts it.
One way puts AI in the middle of your case. Your papers go in, the AI reads them, and its best guess comes out: what's important, what's missing, what to do next. It's fast. But it is a guess, made by a system that can't always show its work, and the guess can change from one try to the next.
We put AI at the workbench instead. It helps us write software, and that software, made of written rules, is what handles the routine parts of your case. The rules don't guess. They do exactly what they say, and every rule we use has been read by our attorney.
Same question, same answer
AI chat tools are built to be a little creative. Ask the same question twice and you can get two different answers, each one said with confidence. That's fine for writing a poem. It's not fine for a court deadline.
Our docket works like a calculator instead. Engineers call this deterministic: the same facts in always give the same answer out. The same court order always gives the same dates, and every date shows the court rule that set it. Our deadline calculator has no temperature setting.
How a rule earns its place
Our founder, John N. Phillips, spent eleven years building regulated data systems before becoming a lawyer. So we build our software the way regulated systems are built: AI helps write the code, but it never gets the last word.
Each rule starts as the court's own text. Automated tests check it against worked examples. Then our attorney reads it against the court's rule and signs off: a real review, not a rubber-stamp LGTM. Until then, the rule stays switched off. A new county's rules can't be used on a single case until our attorney has reviewed them.
Why in-house AI takes special hardware
Most AI is rented. It runs in an AI company's data center, on thousands of specialized chips, and your information has to travel there to be worked on. That's what makes it easy: the firm never has to own the machine.
Running AI in-house means owning that machine. An AI model is a huge file of numbers, and every word it reads or writes takes billions of calculations. An ordinary office computer works through them a few at a time, far too slowly. A graphics card, the same kind of chip that draws video games, does thousands at once. And the whole model has to fit in the card's own memory (engineers call it VRAM), so the bigger the model, the bigger the card it needs.
It also takes the right kind of model. The best-known commercial AI models can't be downloaded; they run only in big cloud data centers. Open-source models can be copied onto your own computer and run there without sending anything out. So that's how we do it: every AI that works with your information runs securely in-house, from open-source models, on hardware we own. No information is shared outside Broadview Family Law.
What's different for you
The shortcut
Our way
Fair questions
Do you use AI at all?
Yes, every day. Any AI that works with your information runs securely in-house, from open-source models on our own computers, and no information is shared outside the firm. No AI gives you legal advice or makes a decision in your case. Your attorney does.
Is AI bad for law?
No. It's a powerful tool, and we use it hard. We just think the parts of your case that have to be right every time should run on rules anyone can check, and the judgment calls should be made by a lawyer.
What happens to my private documents?
They're covered by your attorney's duty of confidentiality, and they stay inside the firm: nothing is shared with an outside AI service. Financial records can come straight from the institutions that hold them.
Will a person answer my questions?
Yes. A message in your Client Portal becomes a task for your attorney or legal assistant, and a person answers it. You can follow it until it's done.
Software you can check. A lawyer who decides.
Start with a consultation: a working meeting about your case, with your attorney.
This page describes common ways AI is used in law practice, not any particular firm.