QualifyDataQualifyDataYes — a law firm's records can be licensed to AI companies, and a firm archive runs deep: every matter produced correspondence, drafts, research and billing records over years. Confidentiality comes first in this process, and the firm decides what is even considered.
AI developers pay to see how real professional work moved — how a matter was opened, researched, drafted, negotiated and closed. A law firm generates that record in writing, across many systems, on every file. Buyers license a cleaned copy of records like yours, with names and identifiers taken out. You keep your originals, and your practice does not change.
QualifyData is a broker. We put your archive in front of 15 AI companies, they bid, and we submit the best offer to you in writing. You go through the process one time instead of once per buyer.
Five minutes. See if your archive qualifies.No cost. No commitment. No logins, no records handed over — just a few questions about the size of your archive.
A firm's work product trail is long and connected. These are the categories of records firms commonly run through their systems:
What matters most is how many sources the work ran through and what kind of records they hold. Years of matters documented across correspondence, drafts, research, billing and administration is a deep archive — and depth is what buyers are pricing.
Five minutes. See if your archive qualifies.A law firm's first duty is to its clients, and this process is built around that duty rather than around it. Lawyers' confidentiality obligations are longstanding — the ABA Model Rules address them in Rule 1.6 — and no page on a website can tell a firm how those obligations apply to a particular file. That judgment belongs to the firm, with its own ethics counsel. Here is what we can describe: the mechanics.
One thing we will say plainly: this page is information, not legal or ethics advice. Whether any given material can be licensed is a call for the firm's own ethics counsel, and we do not advise on that call. Your counsel is welcome on the intro call and reviews every agreement before you sign it.
Law is one of the fields that qualifies smaller than most, because the written record is so dense. The general shape:
| Years the firm has been operating | 3 or more |
| People working at desks (attorneys, paralegals, support) | 10 or more |
| Software systems the work runs through | 5 or more is strong |
| Location | US or Canada |
Published fit criteria for the program, checked November 2026. The AI companies make the final call on fit — the five-minute check is where that call starts.
What counts is the desk team and the written record their work created — not headcount in the field, because a law firm has none.
A dissolved firm or a closed practice is measured as it was at its peak — the desk staff it had in its final stretch of real operation, the years of matter records it built, the systems it ran on. If the records still exist and you hold authority over them, they can still be licensed. There is one real deadline: records in accounts that get cancelled or left to lapse can go with the accounts, so the order is license first, cancel after. The full picture is on our page for closed companies.
Read the closed-companies page →Some firms are too small or too thin on paper for buyers to work with, and we would rather say so here than waste your time:
If your firm is close to the line, the five-minute check is still the fastest way to find out — the buyers make the final call, not us.
We walk through how your firm's work moves through its systems and answer your questions. No data, no logins.
A client services agreement lets us represent your firm. It does not commit you to a deal, and your counsel can review it first.
60 to 90 minutes covering counts and sizes only — system by system, how far back, how much. No records are shared and nobody gets a login.
Your archive summary — with no actual records in it — goes to 15 AI companies. They bid, and we submit the best offer to you in writing.
You and your counsel review the terms, and your firm signs directly with the AI company behind that offer.
Your team exports copies, typically 5 to 10 business days, and the buyer reviews the export over about 30 days. The AI company then pays your firm directly — typically 90 to 120 days from signing to payment. Timelines are typical, not promised, and no offer is guaranteed.
It depends on how many sources the work ran through and what kind of records they hold, how many people worked at desks, and how many years of records the firm has. Case studies from AI labs run from $150K to $550K, and higher for large archives. Your firm's number only exists as a written offer after the intake call — the estimator gives you the rough range first.
Confidentiality is the first question, and it is the firm's question to answer — with its own ethics counsel, not with us. We don't advise on whether any material can be licensed. What we can describe is the process the decision would apply to: the firm lists which systems and years are considered, identifiers are replaced with labels before any AI developer sees a line, and the firm can review a cleaned sample before anything is final.
The firm does. Nothing is included unless the firm lists it — system by system, year by year. If the firm's ethics counsel excludes a category of material, it stays out. The intake call covers counts and sizes of what the firm has listed, and no records are shared on that call.
No. You license a cleaned copy of your records for a set term. Your originals stay yours, your team keeps working exactly as it does now, and the license has an end date. It is a license, not a sale.
Yes, if the records still exist and you hold authority over them. A dissolved firm is sized as it was at its peak — its desk staff, its years of records, its systems. Our closed-companies page covers the details, including why the timing matters before old accounts are cancelled.
Nothing, at any step. Your business never pays anything.
We never touch or access your data. Not during the intake, not during the export, not ever. Your records go straight from your systems to the AI company you sign with — we are never in that chain. Your business never pays anything.