Here's something that kept bugging me: Louisiana is the only state in the country with a civil law legal system. Every legal AI tool on the market assumes common law. They flag issues based on case law precedent from New York and California. They don't know about community property. They've never heard of redhibition. Forced heirship? Lesion beyond moiety? Forget it.
So I built one that does.
The Problem
I live in Port Allen, Louisiana — West Baton Rouge Parish. I've spent the last year building AI systems, and when I started looking at what local professionals actually need, attorneys kept coming up.
The small firms and solo practitioners here don't have the budget for enterprise legal tech platforms. They don't have associates to do first-pass document review at 2 AM. What they have is a stack of contracts, leases, and pleadings that all need to be read carefully before anyone signs anything.
A 40-page commercial lease takes 2-3 hours to review thoroughly. Finding the one clause buried on page 31 that waives your client's right to redhibition — that's what those hours are for. And it's work that an AI can do in 30 seconds.
What CounselAI Does
You upload a PDF. Pick what you want to know. Get structured findings back in about 30 seconds.
There are seven analysis modes, and you can mix and match:
- Summary — document type, parties, key terms, important provisions
- Risk Flags — unfavorable clauses rated HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW with specific fix recommendations
- Deadline Extraction — every date, notice period, and time-sensitive obligation in chronological order
- Plain English — key provisions translated so your client can understand them
- Louisiana Law Notes — provisions that conflict with or are affected by LA Civil Code, with specific article citations
- Redline Suggestions — alternative language for risky clauses, with current text, suggested revision, and reasoning
- Client Questions — the questions you should ask your client before they sign
Why Louisiana Matters
This is the part that made the project worth building. Louisiana's legal system is fundamentally different, and those differences matter in every document an attorney reviews.
When CounselAI analyzes a contract, it checks for things that generic legal AI misses entirely:
- Community property implications — La. C.C. art. 2338. If a married person in Louisiana signs a contract that affects community assets, the spouse's consent may be required. Generic tools don't flag this.
- Redhibition — La. C.C. art. 2520. Louisiana's warranty against defects in sale/purchase agreements. A waiver of redhibition has specific requirements under Louisiana law that common-law waiver language doesn't meet.
- Forced heirship — La. C.C. art. 1493. Estate planning documents and property transfers need to account for forced portions. AI tools trained on common-law states don't know this exists.
- Non-compete scope — La. R.S. 23:921. Louisiana has specific (and narrow) rules about what makes a non-compete enforceable. A 15-mile radius that's standard in Texas may be unenforceable here.
- Lesion beyond moiety — La. C.C. art. 2589. If immovable property sells for less than half its value, the seller can rescind. This doctrine doesn't exist in common law.
These aren't edge cases. They come up in ordinary contracts, leases, and property transactions every day in East and West Baton Rouge Parish.
How It's Built
The technical architecture is deliberately simple. CounselAI runs entirely in the browser. When you upload a PDF, the text is extracted client-side using PDF.js. The extracted text is sent to Claude's API for analysis, with a system prompt that's been tuned specifically for Louisiana legal practice.
Nothing is stored on any server. The document text goes from your browser to Anthropic's API and back. Your API key never leaves your machine. This matters for attorney-client privilege — the tool handles documents the same way a human would handle a phone call to co-counsel.
The system prompt includes specific instructions about Louisiana's civil law tradition, relevant Civil Code articles, and the procedural requirements of the 18th and 19th Judicial District Courts. It's not a general-purpose AI with Louisiana as an afterthought — it's built from the ground up to think in civil law terms.
What It Doesn't Do
CounselAI doesn't practice law. It doesn't make legal judgments. It doesn't replace an attorney's analysis — it accelerates it.
Think of it as the world's fastest legal assistant. It reads the document, highlights the parts that need your attention, and organizes what it found. You still make every legal decision. The AI just makes sure you don't have to re-read page 31 three times to find that buried clause.
This distinction matters for ethical compliance. Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.1 requires competence, which the ABA has interpreted to include understanding the technology you use. Rule 1.6 requires protecting client confidentiality, which CounselAI addresses through browser-side processing and a clear data handling model.
Who It's For
Solo practitioners and small firms in the Baton Rouge metro area — that's where I started, because that's where I live and those are the attorneys I can talk to face-to-face.
But it works for anyone who reviews legal documents under Louisiana law. Real estate attorneys checking purchase agreements. Family law practitioners reviewing community property partitions. Civil litigators processing discovery materials. Title companies doing flood zone and deed review.
If you read legal documents in Louisiana and you don't have a team of associates to do the first pass, CounselAI is built for you.
Try CounselAI Free
Upload your toughest contract and see what it finds. No credit card, no signup.
Launch CounselAII'm Gina Martiny. I build software in Port Allen, Louisiana. If you're an attorney in East or West Baton Rouge Parish and you want a personal demo, I'm probably five minutes from your office. Reach me at [email protected].