Firm controls: how it works

Availability

Before you start

• Matter access and action authority apply throughout research, factual review, discovery and trial preparation. A source-linked connection is not permission to open a screened matter.
• Sharing a firm document with a client requires both cleared classification and separate client visibility. A shared-matter link alone does not clear a restricted document for a non-staff collaborator; protective-order and sealed-material rules also apply.
• Choose a meeting time without an account. A new public account can confirm email and explore the sample while firm access is reviewed. Your firm's own work begins after approval and provisioning; signing up does not create a firm or grant an owner role. Existing firm members keep their established access.
• An account the firm has recorded as a client cannot create a firm. Firm creation requires independently verified attorney authority, and an account that owns a firm cannot create a second.
• Bar number and admitting state, recorded and verified for each attorney at Settings, then Members. A member cannot take the attorney role before that.
• Settings, then Readiness, before you go live. It runs the firm's setup checks, each answered configured, not configured or unknown.
• Two-factor sign-in and passkeys, enrolled per person at Settings, then Security.
• For AI vendors, the firm's own declaration of which vendors it holds a zero-retention agreement with. Nothing in the product observes what a vendor retains.
• For two-person approval of trust releases, a dollar threshold set by an owner or admin.
• Vendor choice is checked before each model request tied to a firm. Embeddings, re-ranking, web search, reading scanned pages and requests not tied to a firm do not consult it, and the settings screen names them.

How it works

Let the right people and scoped AI tools prepare the work, then bring consequential acts back to a person with authority. Name the matter, inspect the proposed action and its reason, and keep reading, drafting and release behind their separate checks.

Who may read this matter, prepare this work and approve this exact act?

What it reads from

• The firm's people, their roles and their verified bar admissions
• Matters, and the walls around them
• Each attorney's approvals and declines
• The reviewed list of AI vendors and models

Who can do what

• The firm assigns responsibility and grants outside tools named matters and abilities. Counsel reviews consequential acts under the same gates used in the web app.
• An outside AI proposal brings its exact action details and any stated reason to the key owner’s approvals inbox. The reason is advisory, not a verified fact. The proposal’s outside-agent source is recorded; approval reruns the action’s access, role, conflict and confirmation checks.
• Add people, set what each can open, and assign work. BRON checks bar license before it assigns work that needs one.
• The roles are owner, admin, attorney and paralegal. Licensed-only work checks attorney authority within the matter’s firm separately from role. An owner seat with no verified or recorded bar admission is held back; the owner label alone does not authorize the act.
• Inviting or adding a member, changing a role and removing a member take an owner or admin who is also a licensed attorney.
• A member invited as an attorney joins as a paralegal until their bar license is verified. An owner or admin verifies it, and nobody can verify their own.
• Owner and admin only: AI vendors, the per-task model choice, firm switches, the trust threshold, the house drafting voice, an attorney-class key and an outside agent's grant. Any member can read them.
• The owner's role cannot be changed or removed in the product. The control room is owner-only, and the owner console is for the owner or an admin.
• Every attorney starts at the lowest autonomy level. A firm-wide raise toward more confirmation is always honored, and lowering your own autonomy is never blocked.
• Releasing a held disbursement takes a licensed attorney who is not the requester. An administrator screened off a matter cannot hand it to anyone.

What it produces

• The approval step on every action
• Drafting and the assistant
• Trust postings
• What a key or an outside tool may read
• The activity log

Limits

• Owners and admins change AI vendors, the model for each task, firm switches, the trust threshold, the house drafting style, attorney keys and grants to outside tools. Every member can read them.
• A zero-retention declaration is the firm's own statement, with a date and a reference. Nothing in BRON observes what a vendor keeps.
• The firm's vendor choice is checked each time BRON sends a request to an AI model for the firm, including a retry with another provider. Indexing for search, ranking search results, web search, reading scanned pages and requests not tied to a firm do not check it, and the settings screen lists them.
• Approval of a colleague's time by a second attorney is enforced, but it has no settings screen.
• The register of each member's court admissions shows as unavailable.
• Two of the five autonomy levels have no effect, and their descriptions say so.
• An outside-agent grant narrows one bound key and the issuer’s current matter access; it cannot extend either. Its read lane returns named-document metadata, not file bytes or a download link. Upload exercise requires an armed scanner.

What BRON will not do

• Let a setting switch off a required approval or an ethical wall.

  Firm switches can only remove capabilities. Wall screening, client-cleared classification and separate client visibility, trust safeguards and litigation holds are not switches.

• Silence a deadline, privilege or conflict alert.

  A notification setting cannot silence them. A reminder can be hidden, but hiding it does not resolve its task.

• Let an outside tool carry out the act itself.

  Sending, signing, filing, serving, settling, paying, deleting and sharing with a client are refused to outside tools by name. A tool may read, upload and propose.

• Add an AI vendor from a settings screen.

  Adding a vendor that receives client material is a reviewed change to the code, dated and attributed. The screen can only narrow the list.

• Read an unreadable setting as a choice the firm made.

  A setting BRON cannot read shows as unknown or not set up, never as a decision. A vendor selection it cannot read leaves the reviewed default in place.

• Hide a rule from the person it governs.

  A member without edit rights sees the same settings read-only, so an associate can see the trust threshold and the drafting style that apply to them.

When something goes wrong

• Permission to prepare a source-supported analysis does not grant permission to share it, serve its request, waive a wall or move funds.
• An unreadable access, ethical-wall or required document-clearance check supplies no permission to read. The failure must be resolved; it is not a finding that a wall or restriction does not exist.
• An outside-agent grant cannot exceed its bound key or issuer’s current matter access. Its read lane returns named-document metadata, not file bytes or download links. Upload exercise is refused without an armed scanner, and a proposal never executes itself.
• If an invitation email cannot be sent, the invitation is still created and the link is shown to you to pass on by hand. The response says which happened.
• Invitation links expire after 14 days. Two administrators saving the firm profile at once get “Reload the firm profile before saving” on the second save.
• A readiness check BRON cannot read shows unknown and names what to run. It is not shown as a failure.
• A firm switch whose backing table is not set up shows as not provisioned, not as off.
• If removing a member fails, BRON reports it as a failure.
• Arming the trust threshold at a one-attorney firm is refused, with the reason and the fix. Clearing it always works.
• A vendor selection BRON cannot read leaves the reviewed default in place. A declaration it cannot read is refused.
• Two of the five autonomy levels change nothing, and their rows say so.
• The per-forum admissions register shows as unavailable for every member.

See it in action

• Firm controls on the product page