From draft to proof, in one pipeline.

What happens when you certify a filing?

• Resolve — every cited authority is matched against live case-law for existence; quoted passages are matched against the published opinion; good-law standing is overlaid from your firm's citator.
• Verdict — each citation is marked clean, flagged (fabricated, misquoted, or bad law), or incomplete, with the coverage of the check recorded honestly.
• Sign — the certification is signed with composite post-quantum signatures (ML-DSA + SLH-DSA, NIST FIPS 204/205).
• Seal — the result is appended to an RFC 6962 Merkle transparency log, making any later alteration detectable.
• Verify — anyone with the receipt can independently check the inclusion proof; no trust in RankShield required.

How is privilege handled along the way?

Privileged material takes a parallel path: it is withheld, redacted, tokenized, or processed only on a local model — never transmitted to a third-party AI in retrievable form — and the attestation binding that interaction to the approved tool, the policy, and the client's informed consent is signed and sealed the same way. Notably, the certification itself stores digests, not content: your filing's substance never enters the log.

Why the transparency log matters

A record you keep in your own database is a claim — it can be edited, and a skeptic must trust you. An append-only Merkle log is evidence: each entry is hash-chained, so deleting or editing the past breaks the chain visibly, and third parties can verify inclusion without access to our systems or yours. This is the same transparency-log construction (RFC 6962) the web's certificate infrastructure relies on, applied to legal AI accountability.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to change how my team drafts?

No. Drafting stays exactly as it is — with or without AI assistance. RankShield adds a checkpoint before signing: the filing's citations are certified and privileged interactions are attested. The work product flows through; what changes is that you end each filing with proof instead of hope.

What does RankShield store about my filing?

Digests and public citation metadata, not privileged content. Certificates record cryptographic fingerprints, the citations checked and their verdicts, and coverage — never the substance of your filing or client material. The design goal is proof without exposure: a third party can verify the checks ran without learning what the filing says.

What happens when a citation fails?

The filing is held and the failing citation is identified with its failure mode — fabricated (does not exist), misquoted (quotation does not match the opinion), or bad law (overruled or superseded). You correct it and re-certify. The point is that the failure surfaces before your signature, not in a show-cause order after.