# Agents can’t practice law. They can call it.

> ONE API FOR EVERY KIND OF LEGAL WORK

The endpoint your agent hits the moment work turns legal — no SDK ceremony, no sales call, no law degree. Everything the law leaves open runs agent-native; the one act that needs a license is signed by an independent, verified professional.

**No filing, no charge — billing releases only on the government receipt.**

- **$400/hr** — the meter your product can’t build against — any legal work, the law-firm way
- **UPL** — the risk if your agent signs it anyway — a bar complaint, not a bug ticket
- **$0** — what you pay when the act doesn’t complete — the meter releases only on the receipt

*Incumbent figures are typical market rates for outside counsel. Targets, not live-service claims.*

## Quickstart

```sh
npx api.lawyer                       # CLI + MCP server
curl https://api.lawyer/matters      # keyless first value — a typed OK envelope
curl https://api.lawyer/pricing      # the Pricing Document ({"model":"free"})
```

## The line is where the law draws it.

Every capability is classified by its effect and gated exactly where the law gates it. Access is a function of authority, never a sales tier.

- **data** (read) — Dockets, registers, statutes, file-wrappers, chain-of-title. Reading a fact is never reserved, no matter how much AI does it — so reads are keyless from your very first call. `gate: none`
- **services** (record) — Drafting, assembly, analysis, monitoring. Agent-native end to end — assembly stays on the right side of unauthorized-practice rules because it selects mechanically and never tells your user what’s right for their matter. `scoped grants`
- **commerce** (act) — Money moves or an instrument executes. Some acts are unreserved (a fee payment, a provisional filing). Some are reserved — and there, an independent credential-holder signs under their own license. `Mandate + requiresSigner`

Two gates, both checked fresh at call time against the authoritative registry: requiresAccess — a restricted upstream (PACER, FinCEN BOI, private PAIR) your caller may only consume with a live credential. requiresSigner — a reserved act only a live credential-holder may perform.

## Every kind of legal work, one typed catalog.

One substrate for every practice area. The gate column tells your code which acts need a licensed human, before you call.

### data — read — gate: none · keyless

| method | path | note | gate |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/patent/search?q=` | prior-art & citation hits | none |
| GET | `/patent/{number}/status` | prosecution history / file-wrapper | none |
| GET | `/trademark/{serial}/status` | TSDR status + prosecution events | none |
| GET | `/entity/{state}/{id}/standing` | SoS good standing + registered agent | none |
| GET | `/lien/ucc/{state}/{filing}` | UCC-1 status & lapse window | none |
| GET | `/court/{district}/{case}/docket` | federal docket & filings | `requiresAccess: pacer` |

### services — record — agent-native

| method | path | note | gate |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| POST | `/patent/draft-claims` | adversarial §101/102/103/112 examiner panel | none |
| POST | `/trademark/oa-response-draft` | office-action response draft | none |
| POST | `/contract/review` | clause-by-clause risk report | none |
| POST | `/demand-letter/draft` | drafted for attorney review | none |
| POST | `/entity/de/formation-docs` | certificate + consents + bylaws assembly | none |
| POST | `/docket-watch` | deadline ladder on any asset — patent, mark, entity, case | `requiresAccess: patent-center-practitioner` |

### commerce — act — money moves · instrument executes

| method | path | note | gate |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| POST | `/entity/de/form` | files the certificate — open act | none |
| POST | `/patent/file-provisional` | pro-se-fileable | none |
| POST | `/patent/file-utility` | the reserved act | `requiresSigner: uspto-registration` ← reserved |
| POST | `/trademark/file-oa-response` | reserved — attorney signs | `requiresSigner: state-bar` ← reserved |
| POST | `/demand-letter/send` | reserved — attorney signs & sends | `requiresSigner: state-bar` ← reserved |
| POST | `/contract/advise` | legal advice — reserved at the utterance | `requiresSigner: state-bar` ← reserved |

The pattern holds across every practice area: reading facts is never reserved, drafting is agent-native (an inventor may even file pro se), and the reserved acts — a filing signature, a demand letter on attorney letterhead, legal advice itself — route to an independent credential-holder. Your agent runs 90–98% of the graph; a licensed human performs the irreducible rest.

Patent, trademark OA, contract review, demand letters, and DE formation run today; litigation, tax, and immigration clone the shape. Browse the catalog: https://api.lawyer/docs (746 capabilities)

## You never cross the line.

The acts your agent cannot perform are not a model-quality problem. They are reserved to licensed humans by definition. This API makes that boundary callable.

1. **Call the API.** curl your first read keyless — dockets, registers, good standing, file-wrappers — then let your agent run the open workflow: drafting, review, assembly, docketing.
2. **Hit the reserved act — and keep going.** The call returns a typed PENDING_SIGNER state instead of a dead end, while an independent, verified professional reviews and — in their own judgment — signs and files under their own license. Credentials are checked fresh at the call against the authoritative registry: suspended means BLOCKED, never degraded.
3. **Get the receipt.** The signed artifact, a verifiable Attestation, and the government receipt come back on a webhook. Your product moves on. You were never the lawyer — and never needed to be.

### what the API promises

- No filing, no charge
- Flat, posted pricing
- A live credential at every reserved act
- Independent judgment, structurally protected

The people who sign come through [gigs.lawyer](https://gigs.lawyer/) — independent attorneys and USPTO patent agents on the network, claiming work under their own license, with coverage in force on every act. Their flat Legal Fee is entirely their own, fixed when the work is posted. That independence is your regulatory safety, not our fine print.

## Three calls: a free fact, an open workflow, a reserved act.

### curl · data tier · keyless

```
$ curl https://api.lawyer/patent/US11123456B2/status

{
  "number": "US11123456B2",
  "title": "Distributed ledger for credential attestation",
  "status": "granted",
  "prosecution": {
    "artUnit": "3685",
    "examiner": "K. Tran",
    "events": [
      { "date": "2023-04-11", "code": "CTNF", "desc": "Non-final rejection" },
      { "date": "2023-09-02", "code": "A...", "desc": "Response after non-final" },
      { "date": "2024-01-17", "code": "NOA",  "desc": "Notice of allowance" }
    ]
  },
  "maintenance": { "nextWindow": "2027-07-17", "surchargeAfter": "2028-01-17" },
  "meta": { "gate": "none", "effect": "read", "metered": false }
}
```

### curl · services tier · contract review

```
$ curl -X POST https://api.lawyer/contract/review -F file=@msa.pdf

{
  "matter": "mtr_7c21fa",
  "effect": "record",
  "report": {
    "clauses": 41,
    "flags": [
      { "clause": "11.2", "kind": "indemnity",    "risk": "uncapped — no liability ceiling" },
      { "clause": "14.1", "kind": "assignment",   "risk": "silent on change-of-control" },
      { "clause": "17.4", "kind": "governing-law", "risk": "venue is counterparty's home forum" }
    ],
    "redline": "https://api.lawyer/artifacts/mtr_7c21fa/redline.docx"
  },
  "meta": { "gate": "none", "note": "analysis, not advice — /contract/advise is the reserved act" }
}
```

### MCP tool call · commerce tier · reserved act

```
// tool call
{
  "name": "patent_file_utility",
  "arguments": {
    "draft": { "claims": "…", "spec": "…", "ids": ["US10998877B1", "EP3456789A1"] },
    "applicant": { "name": "Acme Robotics, Inc.", "entityStatus": "small" },
    "mandate": "mnd_9f2ka7"
  }
}

// response
{
  "status": "PENDING_SIGNER",
  "effect": "act",
  "gate": { "requiresSigner": "uspto-registration" },
  "signer": {
    "routed": true,
    "credential": "uspto-registration",
    "verification": { "mode": "registry:USPTO-OED", "liveness": "FRESH" }
  },
  "eta": "PT24H",
  "then": {
    "attestation": "att_…  (authority: PatentAttorney)",
    "receipt": "USPTO e-filing acknowledgment",
    "webhook": "outcome.filed"
  }
}
```

Same API across the whole line. Reads return instantly and keyless. Open workflows — drafting, review, assembly — run agent-native and record their artifacts. Reserved acts return a typed PENDING_SIGNER, route to a verified credential-holder, and resolve to a signed artifact on a webhook. Typed BLOCKED and EMPTY — never a silent failure.

## Three motions. One API.

Who consumes is a per-matter setting, not a different product. Same surface, same typed gate.

- **B2A — Business → Agent. Your agent is the customer.** No human in your loop at all. Your agent holds the key and a hard spend ceiling and buys legal work at machine speed — good-standing sweeps across every entity you touch, deadline watches on the whole portfolio, contract triage on every inbound MSA, filings staged the moment a threshold trips. Everything the law leaves open, end to end.
- **B2H2A — Business → Human → Agent. Your users, with a licensed human at the one moment that needs one.** Your product serves people — founders, sellers, landlords, HR teams. Your agent does the work in-product; when a user’s matter hits a reserved act, it routes to an independent credential-holder on the network who reviews, and in their own judgment signs. Typed PENDING_SIGNER states mean your UI shows honest progress, never a dead end.
- **B2A2D — Business → Agent → Downstream. Your platform’s agents, serving their customers.** You run agents on behalf of downstream clients — a legal-features SDK inside your SaaS, a marketplace’s compliance bot, an enterprise deploying fleets. Each downstream client’s matter carries its own journaled consent, its own conflicts surface, its own receipts. The gate travels with the capability: you never build a professional network, and you never practice law.

Whoever’s calling, the constitution is identical: open work runs agent-native, reserved acts route to an independent licensed human, and every outcome lands as a typed webhook with the receipt attached.

## Priced like infrastructure, not like a law firm.

- **data** — Keyless first value. Free tier, then metered with a hard spend ceiling you set. Deep commercial corpora sit behind the paid meter.
- **services** — Metered per run. Drafting is compute, priced like compute — a contract risk report or an office-action response draft meters like the LLM call it is. Provisional patent draft: free; government fees pass through at cost; a done-for-you provisional filing lands the same afternoon for $199 flat.
- **commerce (reserved)** — Flat per act, fixed before you call — floored by the professional’s flat Legal Fee, not partner rates. A demand letter goes out over an independent attorney’s signature for a flat two-figure fee; a utility filing resolves to a USPTO receipt on a webhook for a few hundred dollars against the $8–15k, three-week incumbent path — and it ratchets down with volume.

*Exact rates are published with your key. Ceilings are hard: your agent can never spend past what you set — and if no filing issues, nothing is charged.*

## Get your API key.

One key covers the whole surface. Reads stay keyless, and nothing is priced by the hour or as a share of an outcome.

- `npx api.lawyer` — request your key from the terminal; it stores the key and manages delegated-authority tokens.
- `POST /keys` with form field `email` (optional `building`) — your key provisions by email.

Credentialed professional? You’re the supply side [gigs.lawyer](https://gigs.lawyer/)

*Keys are provisioned by email, patent surface first. Prefer the terminal? npx api.lawyer requests your key, stores it, and manages B2H2A delegated-authority tokens. Nothing on this page is a live-service claim, and nothing on it is legal advice.*

## Machine surfaces

- llms.txt (the model front door): https://api.lawyer/llms.txt
- capability card + AXP probe manifest: https://api.lawyer/.well-known/agents.json
- OpenAPI 3.1 contract: https://api.lawyer/openapi.json
- documentation (HTML register): https://api.lawyer/docs

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api.lawyer · nothing here is a live-service claim or legal advice · [AXP conformance](https://api.qa/api.lawyer)