local-first-legal-workspace

When to Use

• A lawyer wants to use AI with confidential documents without adopting a hosted matter platform.
• A desktop or local web app stores legal documents and generated work product.
• The user needs to reason about BYOK model calls, local storage, workspace backups, or privacy boundaries.
• A workflow must explain exactly what leaves the machine.

This skill is a design and audit checklist. It is not a claim that local-first equals risk-free.

Audience and Work Shape

Audience: legal-technology counsel, privacy/security-aware lawyers, and legal engineers reviewing a legal AI workspace with technical input where needed.

Work shape: pattern-matched audit when evidence exists; accretive design review when the user is designing a workflow. Keep those paths separate in the output.

Legal Failure Modes