# api.lawyer — legal work as an API api.lawyer is the demand side of legal work for agents: one HTTP surface where a Matter (one Client, one legal objective) is opened, advanced through the six Stage Verbs (intake, prepare, examine, review, sign, file), and settled — with every capability classified by its effect (read, record, act) and gated exactly where the law gates it. Blog: https://api.lawyer/blog.md (the posts as markdown), with feeds at https://api.lawyer/blog/rss.xml and https://api.lawyer/blog/feed.json; every post in full: https://api.lawyer/llms-full.txt. ## The typed catalog, in one paragraph Reads are keyless — dockets, registers, statuses, file-wrappers. Open workflows (drafting, review, assembly, docketing) run agent-native end to end. The reserved acts — a filing signature, a demand letter on attorney letterhead, legal advice itself — are the one class an agent cannot perform: they escalate to an independent, verified professional on the gigs.lawyer network who reviews and, in their own judgment, signs under their own license. Every outcome is typed: OK, EMPTY, BLOCKED — never a silent failure, never a faked success. ## The reserved-act boundary Agents can't practice law; they can call it. The Reserved-Act Catalog is platform-counsel-owned: where an act is reserved, the API answers with a typed pending state and routes the act to a licensed human whose refusal is final. Building on this API is how a product avoids practicing law, not how it risks it. ## Quickstart ```sh npx api.lawyer # CLI + MCP server (npx api.lawyer mcp serve) curl https://api.lawyer/matters # keyless first value — a typed OK envelope curl https://api.lawyer/pricing # the Pricing Document ({"model":"free"}) curl https://api.lawyer/healthz # liveness, typed ``` Preview build: in-memory stores, deterministic clock, no live filings. Nothing here is legal advice. ## The access-tier ladder 1. **anonymous** — keyless. Every read surface, and anonymous sandbox provisioning: POST /workspaces (a practice-management workspace), POST /tenants (an integrator Tenant grain), or POST /firms (the firm envelope grain — member-executed Enrollment grants and a lattice-derived roster) — no email, no approval, no key. 2. **identified** — an id.org.ai sign-in binds the grain to your principal (declared on the capability card only where the identity plane is wired). 3. **credential_verified** — id.org.ai license verification, fresh at act-class. Not live yet: the doors that need it answer a typed BLOCKED naming this upgrade path — they never pretend to verify. 4. **delegated** — a verified principal grants scoped authority to their agent; X-Actor/X-Mandate provenance is carried but no mandate verifier is live yet, so a door that requires a proven grant refuses with the cure. ## Sandbox doctrine A workspace, tenant, or firm from the doors above is a full-contract sandbox: the same routes, the same typed envelopes, synthetic seed state, and every response carries provenance { "environment": "sandbox", "simulated": true }. Escalations to gigs.lawyer never leave the building — a deterministic in-process counterparty answers the Gig post, and YOU play the Signer via the same gig-result door the live network calls back on. Fixtures are synthetic identifiers only. Anonymous grains expire on a TTL and creation is bounded per caller; reset is a fresh POST, never an in-place wipe. The guided rendering of this walk — order → Matter → stages → Gig → attest/decline → Meter release, every step a real call, labeled synthetic throughout — lives at https://api.lawyer/sandbox (keyless, shareable). ### Magic fixtures (deterministic, contract-tested) Every workspace honors named well-known values with promised outcomes — script against these, listed live at GET /workspaces/{id}/fixtures: - `sg_fixture_eligible` (attestation.signedBy) — always verifies eligible. - `sg_fixture_lapsed` (attestation.signedBy) — always fails standing; the gig-result answers 422 and the Gig stays pending. - `sg_fixture_lapsed_coverage` (attestation.signedBy) — always fails the coverage predicate: Coverage verified in force once, policy lapsed since; the 422 names the cure (re-verify the coverage in force) and the Gig stays pending. - `Conflict Fixture Industries` (adverseParties[]) — always a conflict hit: the Matter carries the conflict_hit Signal from intake. - `[fixture:ack-due]` (asset.title prefix) — the Deadline Ladder always sits inside the final week; the daily-ack rung is live from the first read. - `Declan Declines (fixture)` (client.name) — every reserved-act Gig is declined: the Matter lands in needs_client_direction (Declination Finality), reopened only by a journaled Client Direction. - `Fiona Fulfills (fixture)` (client.name) — every reserved-act Gig is attested by the eligible fixture Signer: repeated advances walk clean to the fulfilled terminal. Every firm grain holds a fixture BENCH the same way, listed live at GET /firms/{id}/fixtures: - `mb_fixture_eligible` (memberId) — always derives eligible on the roster. - `mb_fixture_suspended` (memberId) — always derives ineligible on the standing predicate, without any Register being consulted. - `mb_fixture_revoking` (memberId) — enrolls, then revokes mid-scenario; the next roster read blanks the row (derivation, not deletion). ## The data catalog (empty-but-real) GET https://api.lawyer/catalog lists the data SKUs sold on this surface — zero today, stated as a typed EMPTY envelope that also carries the declaration contract a SKU must satisfy: posted flat price, fee line, Merchant of Record, meter grain, and the data ProofPredicate — "no record, no charge": the served record releases the meter; an empty result inside a stated scope is a record; a not-found, an unreachable upstream, and a retried failed call never meter. A SKU appears only when it is live, priced, and metered. ## Run our tests The public-contract suite is published and digest-pinned: ```sh curl https://api.lawyer/verify/suite.json # the suite (api.qa/suite@1) npx autonomous-qa verify https://api.lawyer # the independent verifier ``` Details and the pin: https://api.lawyer/verify. Independent verdict: https://api.qa/api.lawyer. ## Machine surfaces - Capability card (AXP probe manifest): https://api.lawyer/.well-known/agents.json - OpenAPI 3.1 contract: https://api.lawyer/openapi.json - Pricing Document: https://api.lawyer/pricing - Self-classification (agent classes + ladder): https://api.lawyer/icp.json - Data catalog: https://api.lawyer/catalog - Published test suite: https://api.lawyer/verify - This file: https://api.lawyer/llms.txt - Conformance (independent verifier): https://api.qa/api.lawyer ## Blog Every post also answers as markdown at its address plus .md; the index is https://api.lawyer/blog.md. - [The market is solving the opposite problem](https://api.lawyer/blog/the-market-is-solving-the-opposite-problem): Legal AI puts AI inside the law firm. api.lawyer puts lawyers inside the AI, as the legal services layer for the agentic economy. - [The endpoint is easy. The substrate is the product.](https://api.lawyer/blog/the-substrate-is-the-product): Calling a lawyer is harder than calling software. Eight primitives sit underneath the call. Here is which of them run today, and which are still ahead. - [AI prepares. Lawyers judge.](https://api.lawyer/blog/ai-prepares-lawyers-judge): AI compresses the production of legal work. What remains is smaller, faster and concentrated in judgment, and a refusal is completed work, not a failed one. - [Agents need a legal path into the real world](https://api.lawyer/blog/agents-need-a-legal-path-into-the-real-world): Intelligence doesn't confer legal authority. When an agent reaches a boundary that needs judgment, a credential or a signature, api.lawyer is the escalation layer that lets the workflow continue.