Plain writing for people who sign what they send.
What the regulator has said, what the courts have done, and what a supervising solicitor can actually check. Sourced to the primary document, every time.
Blog · 31 articles
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Regulation
Regulation · 7 min
The SRA's warning notice on AI: a line-by-line guide for COLPs
The notice is short and names two concerns: fabricated citations, and confidentiality when client material goes into public AI tools. Each needs a different fix.
Regulation · 7 min
Ayinde v Haringey, explained for managing partners
Two sets of submissions cited authorities that did not exist. The useful part of the judgment is not the story. It is the list of controls that were missing in both matters.
Regulation · 5 min
What the SRA can ask about your use of AI
Seven questions recur across a regulator's interest, a client audit and your own risk committee. A firm that can answer them from records is in a different place from one that can only produce a policy.
Buying
Buying · 6 min
Harvey, Legora or a private workspace
Most firms running this buying process are answering four questions at once. Answer them in order and the shortlist thins on its own.
Buying · 7 min
A managing partner's guide to buying legal AI without a procurement exercise
The Law Society published a buying framework for smaller practices in March 2026. Four steps, and most of the value sits in the first one.
Horizon scanning
Horizon scanning · 7 min
Horizon scanning for FCA, ICO and SRA changes: a 2026 playbook for in-house teams
A watch list is not a plan. What makes horizon scanning work in a small in-house team is materiality bands, named owners and dates that somebody has actually accepted.
Horizon scanning · 5 min
Legal horizon scanning for a firm without a knowledge team
Not an attempt to see everything. A short weekly list of developments that touch matters the firm actually has, each with a named owner and a date.
Conflicts
Conflicts · 6 min
Conflict checks should not be a separate step
A control that depends on somebody remembering to run it is a control that reports its best results in the quietest weeks. Conflict checking is the clearest example in a law firm.
Conflicts · 6 min
Conflict checks at matter open
A conflict check compares the new client and every counterparty against the names already in the firm. The software runs the comparison and writes down what it found. It raises a question for a partner. It does not answer one.
Verification
Verification · 7 min
AI hallucination cases: what UK firms should learn before it is their turn
The reported decisions are not a story about careless lawyers. They share a structure, and the structure is what a firm can actually design against.
Verification · 6 min
Why we refuse Westlaw, Lexis and Practical Law
The subscription databases are refused by name. The reasons are ordinary rather than principled, and the trade has a real cost that we would rather state than hide.
Verification · 6 min
Verification against an approved source list, explained
The check has a list. A source outside it cannot produce a verdict of verified, however certain the model sounds. That one sentence is the whole design.
Verification · 5 min
Fabricated case law from AI: Ayinde, and what to check
A general model does not look anything up. It produces text with the shape of a citation. The answer is not a better model, but a checker that refuses to pass an authority it has not opened.
Document review
Document review · 5 min
AI document review: grids versus reading everything
Documents are the rows. Questions are the columns. You read across a column to compare forty agreements on one point, rather than reading forty agreements from first page to last.
Document review · 7 min
Document review grids that cite themselves
Forty leases and eight questions is three hundred and twenty answers. The question that decides whether the grid is usable is what sits behind a single cell.
Clause library
Clause library · 5 min
Governing law clause and jurisdiction: not the same thing
Governing law and jurisdiction are two different things that get bundled into one clause and confused constantly. One decides whose law applies; the other decides whose courts hear the dispute. Getting them wrong is expensive.
Clause library · 5 min
Force majeure clause: what it excuses, and what it doesn't
Force majeure is not a general way out of a contract, and under English law it does not exist unless you draft it in. What a force majeure clause actually does, illustrative wording, and the conditions a party has to meet to rely on it.
Clause library · 6 min
Limitation of liability clause: example and legal limits
A limitation of liability clause caps what one party can be made to pay when things go wrong, but only up to the point the law allows. How the clause is built, illustrative wording, and the exclusions UK law will not let you make.
Clause library · 5 min
Termination clause: for cause, for convenience, the traps
A termination clause decides how, when and at what cost a contract can be ended, and getting the exit wrong can be as expensive as the deal itself. How the main types work, illustrative wording, and what to check.
Clause library · 4 min
Non-compete clause: when it is enforceable, and when not
A non-compete clause is void as a restraint of trade unless it goes no further than necessary to protect a legitimate interest. How English law treats them, illustrative wording, and the factors that decide whether one holds up.
Clause library · 5 min
Subordination clause: what it means and why it matters
A subordination clause decides who gets paid, or gets their security enforced, first when money is tight. It is quiet drafting with loud consequences in an insolvency. What it does, the two contexts it shows up in, and what to watch.
Clause library · 4 min
Indemnity clause: what it means and how to read one
An indemnity shifts the cost of specified losses from one party to another, often on far harsher terms than an ordinary claim for damages. How indemnities work, illustrative wording, and what to watch before you give or accept one.
Clause library · 5 min
Right of first refusal clause: meaning, example, pitfalls
A right of first refusal lets one party match a deal before the other can go elsewhere. It sounds simple and drafts badly. What the clause does, illustrative wording, and the mechanics that decide whether it is worth anything.
Clause library · 5 min
Confidentiality clause: what it covers and common traps
A confidentiality clause is only as strong as its definitions and its carve-outs. What one actually needs to do, illustrative wording, and the drafting choices that decide whether it protects anything when it is tested.
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