Sub-function
Litigation & Disputes
Owns matter work end to end inside Legal. Runs 3 lines across 20 stations, drains the repeatable share into no shared tower, and holds 6 human gates.
Estate rating
BBB
69 / 100
Deliberately the lowest ceiling in Legal. Agents review documents and build chronologies at scale, but privilege calls and settlement authority are personal to a qualified lawyer.
Agents
8
Lines
3
Units / wk
10,475
Timetable vs actual
8.2h → 7.7h
Cost / unit
$16
was $43
Run-rate saving
$14.5M
annualized at this volume
The 8 agents running this sub-function
Grouped by what they are for, not by where they sit. The agent org is process-shaped.
Litigation Orchestrator
Owns the litigation & disputes lane end to end. Sequences the other agents, holds the timetable, and decides what surfaces to a human.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates to VP Litigation when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Matter Intake Agent
Executes the litigation & disputes step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates to VP Litigation when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Document Review Agent
Executes the litigation & disputes step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates to VP Litigation when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Chronology Builder Agent
Executes the litigation & disputes step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates to VP Litigation when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Exposure Modeling Agent
Executes the litigation & disputes step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates to VP Litigation when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Legal Hold Agent
Holds the rules that bind every other agent in litigation & disputes. Versions them, tests them against live decisions, and blocks work that breaches them.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.
Settlement Doctrine Agent
Authors positions on litigation & disputes. Frames the question, models the options, and writes a recommendation a human can ratify or reject.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates when two options sit inside the confidence band and the evidence cannot separate them.
Litigation & Disputes Challenger Agent
Adversarial reviewer for litigation & disputes. Argues the opposite case on every position and flags where the evidence does not carry the claim.
ceiling A2 · escalates to Escalates when a ratified position is still running against a break condition it flagged.
Estate rating breakdown
Seven control dimensions. Judgment readiness runs against autonomy on purpose.
People
What the humans stopped doing, and what they do now.
Redeployed into exception judgment and supplier relationship work.
Lines running in this sub-function
Each line is a workflow. Click a line to walk it station by station.
Strategy positions this sub-function holds
An agent that only executes is a robot. These are the calls it made, the argument against each one, and what would prove it wrong.
Settlement Position
Ratifiedv1What operating shape carries twice the current matter volume without adding headcount, and what breaks first if we are wrong?
Hold the ceiling at A2 for litigation & disputes. Deliberately the lowest ceiling in Legal. Agents review documents and build chronologies at scale, but privilege calls and settlement authority are personal to a qualified lawyer. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.
confidence
81%
The challenge — Litigation & Disputes Challenger Agent
Litigation & Disputes Challenger Agent argues the recommendation leans on 3 quarters of data from a period with no volume shock. The confidence band overlaps the alternative, and the position does not say what it would take to be wrong. Recorded as a dissent, not a block.
Break conditions
- ·Override rate rises above 9 percent for two consecutive months
- ·Cost per matter stops falling while volume keeps rising
- ·A control failure in this lane reaches a customer or a regulator
Evidence gaps
- ·No external comparator on a like-for-like unit definition
- ·Exception cases under $24k are sampled, not fully measured
| Alternative considered | Cost | Risk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold the current position | $604k run rate | Known and priced. Cedes ground if comparators move faster. | not selected |
| Raise the ceiling one level now | $1279k to build controls | Override rate is 14 percent; raising the ceiling before that settles imports the error into production. | rejected on evidence |
| Move the exception tail to the spine | $312k transition | Loses local context. Rework risk on the cases that are hardest to recover. | selected |
Ratified 2 months ago. Measured since: cost per matter rose 6 percent against a forecast that it would fall 36 percent.
Litigation & Disputes Operating Position
Ratifiedv3Is the current cost per matter defensible against external comparators once inference spend is counted in full?
Keep the repeatable matter volume in the spine and pull the exception tail back into the function. The spine is cheaper per unit; the tail is where the context that prevents rework actually sits.
confidence
59%
The challenge — Litigation & Disputes Challenger Agent
Litigation & Disputes Challenger Agent argues the recommendation leans on 2 quarters of data from a period with no volume shock. The confidence band overlaps the alternative, and the position does not say what it would take to be wrong. Recorded as a dissent, not a block.
Break conditions
- ·Override rate rises above 15 percent for two consecutive months
- ·Cost per matter stops falling while volume keeps rising
- ·A comparator publishes a materially lower unit cost on a like-for-like basis
Evidence gaps
- ·No external comparator on a like-for-like unit definition
- ·Exception cases under $10k are sampled, not fully measured
| Alternative considered | Cost | Risk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold the current position | $407k run rate | Known and priced. Cedes ground if comparators move faster. | not selected |
| Raise the ceiling one level now | $1051k to build controls | Override rate is 11 percent; raising the ceiling before that settles imports the error into production. | rejected on evidence |
| Move the exception tail to the spine | $630k transition | Loses local context. Rework risk on the cases that are hardest to recover. | selected |
Ratified 7 months ago. Measured since: cost per matter rose 7 percent against a forecast that it would fall 11 percent.
Policy register
The rules the agents above are bound by. Version, owner, approver, and the agents each rule constrains.
| Ref | Rule | Scope | Owner agent | Approved by | Version | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LG7-POL-200 | Litigation & Disputes Decision Envelope Agents in this lane may act without a human when the matter sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. Outside it, the unit holds at a gate with a named approver and a running clock. binds 4 agents · US · Canada | envelope | Legal Hold Agent | VP Litigation | v2.0 | Active |
| LG7-POL-201 | Litigation & Disputes Evidence Standard Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. An action with no evidence record is treated as a control failure, not a fast decision. binds 4 agents · EU · UK · US | evidence | Legal Hold Agent | VP Litigation | v5.2 | Active |
| LG7-POL-202 | Litigation & Disputes Escalation Rule Escalation is mandatory when confidence falls below the floor, when two options sit inside the confidence band, or when a break condition on a ratified position fires. VP Litigation owns the response clock. binds 4 agents · Global | escalation | Legal Hold Agent | VP Litigation | v4.6 | Active |