Straight answers to the questions we hear most from managing partners and firm leadership.
We provide three things no competitor bundles together:
We are not a CLE provider and not a software vendor. We are your firm's AI compliance infrastructure.
No. Fractal Legal is a training and policy service, not a law firm. We draft AI use policies as operational documents — similar to an HR consultant drafting an employee handbook. We don't handle litigation, provide legal opinions, or represent clients in any proceedings.
No. We are completely vendor-neutral. We don't sell software and we don't take commissions from AI tool makers. Our training covers whichever tools your firm uses — or is considering. We independently evaluate tools and help you adopt them responsibly. When you switch tools, your Fractal training and policies still apply.
For now, yes. Our policies and training are built specifically against NY ethics rules, SDNY/EDNY court requirements, and NYSBA guidance. A national template adapted for New York leaves gaps. We go deep on one jurisdiction instead of shallow on fifty. We plan to expand to other states in the future.
Three tiers based on your firm's needs:
Annual commitments receive a 15% discount. Founding clients get 25% off Year 1 pricing.
CLE teaches individual lawyers. It doesn't give your firm a policy, doesn't cover your specific tools, and doesn't update when courts change requirements. We complement CLE — we don't replace it. Think of CLE as the driver's ed class. We're the traffic rules, insurance policy, and ongoing vehicle inspection all in one.
You can. But will you update it quarterly when SDNY issues a new standing order? Will you track every NY ethics opinion on AI? Will you train each practice group on their specific workflows? The subscription covers all of that. Writing the initial policy is the easy part — keeping it current is where firms fall behind.
Consultants charge $15,000-$50,000 for a one-time engagement. You get a policy document and maybe a workshop. Six months later, the regulatory landscape has changed and the policy is outdated. For less than the cost of one consulting project, you get a full year of policy, training, and ongoing updates from us.
Small firms are actually at higher risk. Large firms have compliance departments and dedicated legal ops teams. You don't. A single AI hallucination in a filing — see Mata v. Avianca — can cost six figures in sanctions. Our Foundation tier is $750/month, less than one associate's daily billing rate. It's insurance that pays for itself.
It's accelerating, not settling. Three new NY court orders in Q1 2026 alone. The NY legislature has active AI bills. The ABA just updated its guidance. Firms that wait will spend more catching up than firms that start now. Our founding-client pricing (25% off Year 1) won't last — the time to lock it in is now.
Sessions are 2 hours each and available virtually or in-person in the NYC metro area. They're structured, hands-on workshops — not webinars. Your attorneys work with real AI tools against actual legal scenarios relevant to your practice areas. Each session comes with a recording and slide deck for attorneys who can't attend live.
Your custom AI Use Policy is a comprehensive document covering:
Delivered as Word and PDF, firm-branded, and updated quarterly as regulations evolve.
We are actively pursuing CLE accreditation with the NY CLE Board. Our training sessions are designed to meet the criteria for Ethics and Professional Practice CLE credit (2 credits per session). Enterprise tier clients receive support with CLE credit applications and documentation.
Our policies and training are built against the full landscape of NY AI requirements:
Clio's AI certification teaches you how to use Clio's AI features. It doesn't draft a firm-wide policy, doesn't address NY-specific ethics rules, and doesn't cover the other AI tools your firm uses. If you use Clio, great — our services are complementary. We handle the compliance layer that sits above any individual tool.
Most competitors fall into one of two camps: large-firm enterprise services ($10K-$50K+) or generic CLE courses ($100-$800/yr per attorney). Neither serves the 5-75 attorney NY firm well.
Fractal Legal is the only subscription service that combines NY-specific training, custom policy drafting, and ongoing compliance monitoring at a price point built for small and mid-size firms.
Start with a policy, not a tool. Month 1: assess current AI use across your firm, draft an AI use policy aligned with NY ethics rules, and identify 2-3 low-risk use cases. Month 2: run hands-on training for all staff, pilot AI on selected use cases with supervision protocols. Month 3: roll out firm-wide, establish quarterly review cadence. Most small firms can be fully operational in 90 days with the right structure.
Only enterprise-tier AI tools with data processing agreements should be used with client information. ChatGPT Team/Enterprise, Claude for Business, and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 all offer contractual commitments not to train on your data. Free-tier ChatGPT and consumer Claude should never receive client-identifiable information — this is a confidentiality violation under NY Rule 1.6. Your firm's AI use policy should clearly classify which tools are approved for client work vs. internal-only tasks.
A trained attorney using AI typically saves 5-10 hours per week on routine tasks like research, drafting, and document review. At $300/hour billing rates, that is $78,000-$156,000 in recovered capacity per attorney per year. For a 10-attorney firm on our Foundation plan ($750/month), the annual cost is $9,000 — a 10-17x return on investment. Use our ROI Calculator to see the numbers for your firm.
Multiple SDNY and EDNY judges now require AI disclosure certifications in filings. The specific requirements vary by judge — some require affirmative certification that AI was or was not used, while others require detailed descriptions of how AI tools were used in preparing the filing. Your firm needs to track each judge's individual standing orders and include the appropriate certification language. Our court order tracker monitors these requirements across all SDNY, EDNY, and NY State courts and alerts you to changes.
The consequences are real and growing. In Mata v. Avianca, attorneys were sanctioned $5,000 for citing non-existent cases generated by ChatGPT. In Park v. Kim, a lawyer faced sanctions for AI-generated fabricated citations. Courts have made clear that AI hallucinations in filings are treated the same as any other failure to verify authorities — the attorney bears full responsibility. A proper AI use policy with mandatory verification workflows prevents this.
Paralegals and staff need different training than attorneys. They should learn approved use cases for their role (document organization, research assistance, client intake support), clear boundaries on what AI can and cannot be used for, and the firm's data handling requirements. Under NY Rules 5.1 and 5.3, supervising lawyers are responsible for ensuring non-lawyer staff comply with ethical obligations when using AI. Our training sessions include role-specific tracks for attorneys, paralegals, and administrative staff.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We'll answer your questions, walk through a sample AI Readiness Assessment, and help you figure out the right fit — no pressure.
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