Safeguards: where you approve, and what stops the work

On the default full lane, the matter stops 3 times and asks.

1. The consult. After intake, you decide what the problem is, what the client wants, and which filing fits. Research does not begin until this checkpoint is stamped. The official court rules have already been fetched at this point, so the approval is made with the rules in hand.
2. Strategy sign-off. Before drafting, you sign off on the plan after it has been attacked, together with, for law firms, the one-page assessment. On a law-firm matter, the engine refuses to record this checkpoint without the assessment.
3. Final read. Before filing, by default, the matter stops until you approve the exact pages to be filed.

Each stamp records who approved, when, and on what basis.

On the express lane, used for routine filings such as a notice, there is no strategy stage, so there is no strategy checkpoint. The consult and the final read still apply.

Each checkpoint sits at the point where a wrong turn becomes expensive. The first comes before research, because researching the wrong filing wastes everything after it. The second comes before drafting, because a strategy is cheaper to change than a finished brief, and because it is where the candid analysis, the adverse authority and the preservation map are all on the table at once. The third comes after the attack, the verification, the end-to-end final read and the packet check, when the question is simply whether these exact pages are ready. Between them, the engine works without waiting on anyone, which is what makes it autonomous; the checkpoints are what make that autonomy supervisable.

A client may record a standing instruction to proceed on a matter. By default there is none, and every checkpoint stops and asks. When one is on record, it clears the checkpoints in place of your approval at each one, including the final read, and each clearance is stamped in the record, naming the checkpoint and the instruction it relied on. We disclose this plainly because it matters: under a standing instruction, a filing can move past the final read without anyone approving those pages at that moment.

The standing instruction has firm limits:

• Only the client can give it. It is a recorded instruction, never inferred from a conversation, and every checkpoint it clears is stamped as cleared by it.
• It can be revoked at any time. The checkpoints then stop again, and the record keeps the history, including the stamps already made.
• It never lifts a hold. If a check has stopped the work (for example, controlling authority against the theory has surfaced, a case citation failed verification, or a deadline is in dispute), the standing instruction does not move it. The hold stays until it is resolved on the record.
• The candid analysis still runs. The one-page assessment is still produced and kept in the matter's record, whether or not anyone reads it at the checkpoint.
• It is not a second-model waiver. If the second model family is unavailable, the matter still pauses, and it proceeds without it only on a separate recorded, logged waiver. That is the pause-or-waiver rule.
• The gates still apply. It clears the checkpoints only while every check after them keeps passing.

The person responsible for a matter can place a hold at any time. A hold stops the matter's autonomous progress wherever it is, and it stays until it is lifted. No standing instruction overrides it.

A check that fails closed stops the work when it fails; it does not warn and carry on. When a check can't run, it fails. It never passes quietly. Examples from the engine's process:

• No ledger row, no case citation. Each case citation in the draft must match a verified ledger row, or the draft is blocked. That is the unverified-citation rule.
• No rules, no strategy. The official rules for the court and filing type are fetched before strategy, and an empty result is refused, never read as "no such rule".
• Nothing counts as nothing. A missing record, an empty list or a set of zero documents is a refusal, not a pass.
• No identity, no work. Client name, address, filer capacity and party role come from the live matter; blank identity stops the work.
• No placeholders. A placeholder check confirms no unfilled field survives in the filing text.
• In order. A phase can't open before the phase before it has met its exit conditions.
• A send-back voids the earlier passes. If the final read sends the draft back, the attack and verification checks of phases 11 and 12 are voided and re-run on the new text.

Not every step in the process is machine-enforced, and we do not claim it is. Some steps are written obligations that people and models must honor, such as the recency sweep, a live search recorded as its own step. The process marks which is which, and we describe each step the way the process labels it.

Other steps stop the work as a matter of written process. The most important is the adverse sweep: if binding authority against the theory surfaces, the work pauses until there is a recorded pivot, and a standing instruction does not move it.

A search that could not run is recorded as a search that could not run. It is never reported as a search that found nothing. That distinction matters most for the adverse sweep: "no adverse authority" and "the adverse search did not complete" are different findings, and the record keeps them apart.

The engine separates duties the way a careful practice does. Wherever the roles allow it, whoever builds a draft does not verify it, and the verifier is not the final reader. At verification, a fresh verifier checks the draft. In the attack phase, each section is attacked by an agent that did not write it.

Every phase transition is stamped: who or what cleared it, when, and on what evidence. A matter's record keeps, among other things:

• the intake manifest, with a checksum for every document;
• each deadline's computation, the second computation by default, and the rule each relied on;
• the court-rules receipt: which rule book, which version, retrieved when;
• the Citation Ledger: for each case citation, its source, the four-part result, and who verified it and when;
• the model debates, word for word, with signed agreements;
• the one-page assessment, the attack memo, the survival table and the element sheet.

Receipts are voided when a draft is sent back. When a draft is sent back, the attack and verification receipts of phases 11 and 12 are voided.

Interruptions don't get lost. A matter interrupted mid-run comes back at the start of the next session.

The engine's gates are tested to show they block when they should, not only that they pass when things are fine. A check that cannot fail is not a check. Engineers can read about gates proven able to fail.

• They do not make the engine a lawyer, and they do not replace a lawyer's judgment. For firms, the attorneys of record supervise and sign, and remain responsible for what is filed.
• They do not promise an outcome.
• They do not mean you approve the final pages in each case: under a client's recorded standing instruction, that checkpoint can clear without one, as described above.

For firms, the details of supervision for firms are on the firm page. The disclosures explain how AI is used, and there are more questions about checkpoints in the FAQ.

Where do you approve? At 3 checkpoints on the default full lane: the consult, the strategy sign-off and the final read.

What is recorded at each approval? Who approved, when, and on what. If a client's recorded standing instruction cleared a checkpoint instead, that is what is stamped.

What is a standing instruction? A client's recorded instruction to proceed through the checkpoints. It clears them in place of an approval at each one. It never lifts a hold, the candid analysis still runs, and it does not waive the second model family.

What happens when a check fails? The work stops at that check. A blocked case citation, an empty rule book or blank client identity has to be fixed, and the check has to pass, before the matter moves on.

Do you approve the final pages before filing? By default, the matter stops at the final read until you approve the exact pages to be filed. If a client has recorded a standing instruction to proceed, that checkpoint clears automatically and the clearance is stamped in the record. We don't claim more than that.

Can the engine skip a checkpoint on its own? No. On the default settings, a checkpoint clears only with your approval or the client's recorded standing instruction, and either one is stamped.

Who can stop a matter? The person responsible for a matter can place a hold at any time, and it stops everything until it is lifted.

Email us with questions about each checkpoint and what is stamped in the record.

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Legal Ops Depot is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.