Frequently Asked Questions

It's wiped from our servers once your reports are delivered to your browser. If you choose to save to the cloud, it's encrypted on your device first — we can't access it.

No. Cloud-stored data is encrypted on your device before it reaches our servers. The passphrase never leaves your computer. There is no admin backdoor or override. Even under subpoena, CruxChat cannot produce data it cannot decrypt.

We can confirm an account exists. We cannot produce conversation content because we cannot decrypt it. That's the architectural guarantee of zero-knowledge design.

CruxChat handles attorney-client conversations. We believe access to a tool like this should be vetted, not automatic. Manual approval lets us verify that new users understand the platform's purpose and responsibilities.

Your cloud-stored data becomes permanently inaccessible. We cannot recover it, reset it, or bypass it. There is no backdoor and no override.

This is by design. It's the same architecture that protects your data from everyone else, including us. The tradeoff for zero-knowledge security is that the responsibility for the passphrase is entirely yours.

We recommend treating your CruxChat passphrase the same way you'd treat any critical credential at your firm: store it securely, and make sure the right people at your firm know where to find it.

Start with the reality it replaces. Without CruxChat, you're either working from no notes at all, or reconstructing a conversation from notes hours later, after three more client meetings and a dozen emails. Details blur. Key points get lost. Things get remembered differently.

CruxChat delivers a structured draft in under two minutes, while the conversation is still fresh. You and your team can review it immediately, when you're most likely to spot anything that needs attention.

Even at the end of a long day, verification is effortless. Every summary item links to the specific transcript lines where it was discussed. Each transcript line links to the associated audio in the recording. Two clicks and you're listening to the exact moment in the conversation, making it easy to confirm every detail before sharing. Summaries can also be edited directly to make corrections.

You should always review before sharing, just as you would with work from any associate or paralegal. CruxChat is a drafting tool, not a replacement for attorney judgment. That's why it was designed around a philosophy of trust but verify: the results are solid, and when something needs a second look, the tools to check it are always one click away.

Your notes reflect what you thought was important in the moment, filtered through the pressure of keeping the conversation moving. CruxChat captures the full conversation objectively, including details you may not realize are significant until weeks or months later when the case takes an unexpected turn.

Notes also pull you out of the conversation at the worst moments. When a client is describing a custody concern or disclosing financial details, that's when you need to be fully present, reading body language and building trust, not writing. CruxChat lets you stay in the conversation while still capturing everything.

There's also the team dimension. Your notes are written for you. They rarely contain enough context for your paralegal to act independently, which leads to follow-up questions and rework. CruxChat generates reports tailored to each audience, so your team can move forward without chasing you for clarification.

You may still take notes to guide your questions or flag things you want to revisit. That's fine. But for a complete, objective, and verifiable record of what was discussed, CruxChat will capture more than any notepad can.

Generic summary tools like Fireflies, Otter, Zoom AI Companion, and Teams Copilot were built for business meetings. They produce one summary for everyone in the room — action items, key takeaways, follow-ups. That works when everyone at the meeting has the same role and the same need.

Legal conversations are fundamentally different. Your attorney needs strategic analysis and emotional dynamics. Your paralegal needs a task list with deadlines and context. Your client needs a plain-English recap they can actually understand. Those are three different documents with three different purposes, levels of detail, and confidentiality boundaries. A single generic summary can't serve all three without either exposing strategy to the client or burying the paralegal in irrelevant detail.

Beyond audience, the differences run deeper:

What the AI knows matters. Generic tools summarize blindly — they process a conversation with no understanding of what's important to you, your practice, or your client. CruxChat is configured with your preferences, your terminology, and your priorities. It knows what to look for because you've told it what matters.

Traceability, not trust-me summaries. Generic tools give you a summary and ask you to trust it. CruxChat links every extracted fact, deadline, and action item to the specific transcript lines and audio where it was discussed. One click to verify. That's not a convenience feature — it's a professional responsibility requirement under ABA Opinion 512.

Emotional intelligence. Generic tools don't analyze whether your client was anxious, hesitant, or frustrated. CruxInsights does — and turns those signals into specific, actionable recommendations. Internal-facing only.

Zero-knowledge security. Generic tools store your recordings and transcripts on their servers, often with broad data access and retention policies. Some use your data for AI training. CruxChat wipes server data after delivery, encrypts cloud-stored data on your device with a passphrase that never leaves your computer, and operates under BAAs with all processors. Even CruxChat can't read your data.

Cross-conversation intelligence. Generic tools treat each meeting as isolated. CruxIntel lets you query across all saved conversations with a client — trace how a story evolved, prep for mediation, hand off a case — with every point referencing the specific conversation it came from.

Think of it this way: generic summary tools are like a professor lecturing for two weeks and then asking for a one-page paper with no further guidance. The AI has to guess what matters, what to include, and what to leave out. CruxChat takes a different approach — it's like that professor handing out the assignment: the topic, the specific questions to address, the expected format, and the rubric. The result isn't a guess. It's a targeted, verifiable work product built for how legal professionals actually use it.

Opinion 512 raises the standard of care for attorneys using AI tools. CruxChat was designed to help you meet those duties, not just avoid violating them.

Traceability supports competence: every extracted fact, deadline, and action item links to the transcript, so you can verify the basis of any output with a single click. Zero-knowledge encryption with BAA-covered processors supports confidentiality: your data is encrypted on your device, and CruxChat cannot access it. Attorney-controlled sharing supports supervision: nothing is distributed without your explicit decision. Plain-English client summaries support the communication duty. And because CruxChat increases throughput rather than inflating hours, it aligns with the fee reasonableness principles the opinion emphasizes.

See our Trust & Security page for the detailed mapping of CruxChat features to each duty under Opinion 512.

In February 2026, Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a landmark ruling in United States v. Heppner holding that documents generated through consumer AI platforms are not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.

The defendant had used the consumer version of Claude to research legal questions and generate defense strategy documents, later sharing them with counsel. The court ruled these materials were discoverable because:

No attorney-client relationship. An AI tool is not a lawyer and cannot form a privileged relationship.

No confidentiality. Consumer AI platforms' terms of service permit data collection and third-party disclosure, defeating any reasonable expectation of privacy.

No attorney direction. The defendant used the AI independently, not at counsel's behest.

Perhaps most concerning: the court indicated that inputting privileged information into a consumer AI platform may waive privilege over the original attorney-client communications themselves.

How does CruxChat address this risk?

CruxChat is designed as a professional legal tool, not a consumer AI service:

Business Associate Agreements with our AI and transcription providers establish contractual confidentiality obligations.

Zero Data Retention ensures your conversations are never used to train AI models.

Purpose-built for legal workflows, with audit trails and access controls appropriate for practice management.

For detailed legal analysis of the Heppner decision, see Gibson Dunn's coverage or McDermott Will & Emery's analysis.

Recording consent requirements vary by jurisdiction, and you should follow your jurisdiction's rules and your firm's policies. CruxChat does not provide legal advice on consent laws.

That said, attorneys often overestimate how uncomfortable this conversation will be. Doctor's offices routinely record patient visits using ambient AI tools, and patients don't think twice about it because the value is explained upfront: better documentation, fewer errors, more time focused on you.

The same framing works with clients. You're not telling them "I'm recording this." You're telling them why: "I use a tool that captures our conversation so I can focus entirely on you instead of taking notes. That means I'm fully present for what you're telling me, and nothing gets lost. Afterward, you'll receive a clear written summary so you're never left wondering what we discussed or what happens next."

When clients hear that, they don't feel surveilled. They feel taken care of. Most attorneys find that this conversation actually builds trust rather than creating friction.

Discovery risk comes down to what records exist and who can access them. CruxChat puts both of those decisions entirely in your hands.

By default, nothing is retained. When your reports are delivered to your browser, all audio, transcripts, and summaries are wiped from CruxChat's servers. If you don't save, there's nothing to discover.

If you save, you choose exactly what to keep. Audio, transcripts, and summaries can each be retained or deleted independently. Keep the summary but delete the recording. Keep everything. Keep nothing. Your call, per conversation.

What you save, only you can access. Everything saved to the cloud is encrypted on your device with a passphrase that never leaves your computer. CruxChat cannot decrypt your data. There is no backdoor, no admin access, no override.

A subpoena to CruxChat produces nothing usable. We can confirm an account exists. We cannot produce your content because we cannot read it.

The retention decision, and any discovery obligation, stays with your firm, where you can manage it through your existing archival and litigation hold processes.

Clients beginning a legal matter are looking for someone they can trust to guide them through it. That trust isn't established by credentials alone. It starts with the first interaction, and every conversation afterward either builds it or erodes it. A client who leaves your office unsure of what was discussed, uncertain about next steps, or anxious about whether anything will fall through the cracks is a client whose trust is already slipping.

With CruxChat, your client receives a clear, plain-English summary of what was discussed, what was decided, what they need to do, and what happens next. No legal jargon, no ambiguity. They leave your office with a written record that says: your attorney listened, your attorney is organized, and your attorney has a plan. That's how trust is built, one interaction at a time.

When clients trust their attorney, stress goes down. They stop calling to confirm what was said. They engage more openly in conversations. They follow through on their action items. And that trust shows up in improved satisfaction, higher retention, and increased referrals.

Communication failures are consistently among the leading sources of malpractice claims and the number one client complaint against attorneys, according to ABA and bar association data. Most of these aren't about bad legal work. They're about clients feeling uninformed, confused, or forgotten.

CruxChat addresses this at multiple levels. Every client gets a clear summary with their action items, deadlines, and next steps documented. When a client knows exactly what was discussed and what to expect, the calls asking "what did we decide?" stop, and so do the complaints that follow from that confusion.

When an issue does come up, CruxIntel lets you quickly pull up what was actually discussed across any conversation, with references to the specific transcript and audio. If a client believes something was promised or missed, you can resolve it with a factual record rather than letting a misunderstanding escalate into a formal complaint.

Your team also plays a role. Paralegals working from a detailed, role-specific report can follow up with clients confidently and accurately, without needing to chase the attorney for context. Better-informed staff means more responsive service, and responsive service is one of the most effective ways to keep small frustrations from becoming big problems.

Family law sits at the intersection of high emotions, high information content, and high stakes, and each one drives anxiety in a different way.

The emotions are intense. Clients processing grief, anger, or fear can't absorb complex legal information in the moment. CruxChat captures everything so they don't have to. A clear summary and action items allows them to move forward when they're ready. Reviewing the documentation later, as emotions cool, reminds them why they chose to trust their attorney.

The information volume is overwhelming. A single consultation can cover custody factors, financial disclosures, filing deadlines, and court procedures. No client retains all of that. CruxChat captures it in plain English, so gaps in memory don't become gaps in trust.

The stakes feel existential. Clients aren't worried about losing a case. They're worried about losing time with their children. A client who can see the plan and what's expected of them feels more in control. That sense of control builds trust.

CruxInsights identifies emotional signals and translates them into specific recommendations. Not "client seemed anxious," but "client expressed concern about holiday scheduling; send the custody worksheet today." This is especially valuable for paralegals, who manage the day-to-day client relationship. With CruxInsights, they don't just have a task list. They have emotional context: which topics to approach carefully and what proactive outreach might prevent a worried phone call before it happens.

Documentation alone doesn't drive referrals. The experience does. Clients refer attorneys who made them feel heard, kept them informed, reduced their uncertainty, and delivered outcomes they understood every step of the way.

CruxChat enables that experience. When every conversation produces clear alignment on what was discussed, what's happening next, and who is responsible for what, ambiguity disappears. Clients aren't left guessing. They aren't surprised by bills. They aren't calling to clarify what was decided. The entire relationship runs on shared understanding, and that builds the kind of satisfaction that turns a client into an advocate for your practice.

CruxInsights is an optional analysis layer that identifies the emotional dynamics in your client conversations — anxiety, hesitation, concerns, excitement — and generates specific, actionable recommendations. It's internal-facing only and never appears in client summaries. It helps you respond to what your client is feeling, not just what they said.

CruxIntel lets you query across all saved conversations with a client using natural language. It's designed for the moments that slow firms down: case handoffs where the new attorney needs context fast, disputes where you need to verify what was actually discussed, cold case refreshes before a client meeting, mediation or trial prep where you need to trace how facts evolved, and strategy sessions where a colleague needs to be briefed quickly. Select a date range and summary types, ask your question, and CruxIntel returns a traceable summary with references to specific conversations. From any reference, drill into transcript lines and audio.

Yes, and customization goes well beyond choosing what to include or exclude. CruxChat gives you control over five dimensions of every report, all configured through plain language.

Writing style. Set the tone for each audience: formal and precise for attorney reports, conversational and reassuring for client summaries.

Content scope. Specify what belongs in each report and what stays out. Surface financial details in the attorney report, keep them out of the client summary. Emphasize deadlines for the paralegal, emphasize strategy for you.

Format. It's your report, so it should follow your structure, not a generic template. Define the sections, the ordering, and the level of detail that matches how your firm works.

Client context. Provide background so the summary reflects what's already known versus what's new. Include correct spellings for key stakeholders, relevant history, or details the AI should account for.

Firm context. Embed your firm's terminology, preferred resources, and practice-specific language so reports read like they came from your office, not from an AI tool.

No technical setup required. Describe what you want the way you'd brief a sharp associate, and CruxChat follows your instructions.

This is the right question, and the answer depends on where the saved time goes. CruxChat doesn't just save time. It changes how your firm creates value, generates revenue, manages costs, and controls risk.

It increases the value you deliver. Clients receive clear documentation after every meeting. Paralegals get reports they can act on without chasing you for context. CruxInsights drives proactive follow-up that builds trust. The quality of your client service goes up across the board, and clients notice.

It grows revenue. Faster turnaround from consultation to first work product means clients engage sooner. Better documentation and proactive service drive the satisfaction that produces retention and referrals. Less time spent on post-meeting administration means you can see more clients per week. For firms using flat-fee or hybrid models, the math is immediate: same fee, less internal cost per matter.

It reduces expenses. Your paralegal spends less time asking what happened in the meeting. You spend less time reconstructing notes at the end of the day. Your staff fields fewer "what did we decide?" callbacks. The rework that comes from miscommunication between attorney and paralegal drops. These aren't dramatic line items individually, but across a full caseload they compound.

It reduces risk. A verifiable record of every conversation reduces your exposure to the communication failures that drive malpractice claims. Traceability supports your supervision duties under ABA Opinion 512. Zero-knowledge architecture means your vendor relationship isn't a liability. And when a client or opposing counsel questions what was discussed, you have a defensible record instead of a memory.

The firms that struggle with AI tools are the ones that only measure "time saved." The firms that benefit are the ones that ask where that time goes and what it produces.

The initial consultation is where most clients decide whether to hire you. That decision isn't just about legal expertise. It's about whether the client feels heard, understood, and confident that you have a plan.

CruxChat strengthens every part of that first impression. You're fully present during the conversation because you're not distracted by note-taking. The client feels your attention, which builds rapport. Within minutes of the meeting ending, you can send them a clear, plain-English summary of what was discussed and what the path forward looks like. That summary arrives while the conversation is still fresh, while the client is still deciding, and often before any competing firm has followed up.

For clients who are meeting with multiple attorneys, that follow-up is a differentiator. The attorney who sends a professional, organized summary within an hour signals competence and responsiveness. The attorney who says "I'll be in touch" and follows up two days later with a generic email is already behind.

Your paralegal also has a complete report from the consultation immediately, so if the client calls back with questions, your team can respond with full context instead of "let me check with the attorney."

Every touchpoint between the initial consultation and a signed engagement is an opportunity to earn or lose trust. CruxChat ensures that each one reinforces the client's decision to choose you.

A device to record with (phone, tablet, or laptop), a browser, and an approved account. Setup takes minutes.

Under two minutes. Your reports are typically ready before your client leaves the office.

CruxChat offers tiered pricing based on usage. Different firms have different usage patterns, and we want to ensure your pricing matches how you actually use the product, not force you into a one-size-fits-all plan.

We're also intentional about not leading with a number. Our experience is that attorneys need to use CruxChat before they can fully appreciate what it does. That's why every account starts with a 30-day free trial with full functionality. No restrictions, no credit card required.

Here's what we've seen happen. CruxChat's founder spent a month recording complex medical conversations for a family member's care. Complete summaries after every appointment. Role-specific reports shared with different family members who each had different responsibilities and different information needs. Full traceability. Confidence that nothing was missed and everyone was aligned. Then one day, his phone died before an appointment. No CruxChat. It wasn't just the summary that was lost. It was the ability to keep the entire care team informed, coordinated, and confident. In just one month, that workflow had become essential, not optional.

Contact us to discuss pricing tiers that match your firm's usage.