The five-step engagement
FidesBeacon is built to feel like working with a small, fast, disciplined boutique firm. Every step is designed to keep the lawyer—not the software—in control of the strategic decisions. The steps below are the same whether you are running a Foundation-tier intake or a multi-month Bespoke engagement.
- You describe the matter (Day 0). Send a short note: claim type, party count, document volume, deadline if any, sensitive material flags, target deliverables. A single paragraph is enough for a Foundation intake; a one-page memo is appropriate for Strategic or above. We do not require a formal RFP at this stage.
- We confirm fit and quote a price (Day 0–1). Within one business day, we confirm we can take the matter, recommend the right tier, and quote a price range. If the matter is outside our sweet spot (we do not handle, for example, regulatory administrative matters or pure transactional review), we will tell you directly. Foundation-tier matters typically begin the same business day documents arrive.
- You send documents securely (Day 1–2). We accept Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, Sync.com, Tresorit, secure-mail upload, or encrypted physical media. We do not use any Google product to receive, store, or process client materials. We will sign a confidentiality agreement before documents move. Production formats we ingest: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, TXT, RTF, EML, MSG, and most image formats with OCR.
- We process on dedicated single-tenant hardware (Day 2 onward). Documents are processed in an air-gapped environment. The model calls run through a private API path that does not retain training rights over client documents. Citation verification runs on every fact statement in every deliverable. Trial-tier and Bespoke-tier work additionally runs through the two-AI adversarial review pass. Every report row is recorded in the matter's QC log.
- Founder review and delivery (Day 2–10 depending on tier). The founder personally reviews the executive summary of every deliverable. The founder is M. David Hoyle, a named inventor on more than 11 U.S. patents with approximately 30 years of federal patent enforcement litigation experience. Trial-tier and Bespoke-tier deliverables additionally pass through Two-AI Adversarial Review, where a second AI model audits the first model's output and disagreements are surfaced in the deliverable rather than hidden. Deliverables ship as Microsoft Word documents (the formatting standard your firm and the court actually use), with a machine-readable, RFC 3161 timestamped QC log row per deliverable. You receive the work product plus the audit trail of how the work was produced.
Inside Claude Cowork — MCP integration
FidesBeacon is also available as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector. Firms using Anthropic's Claude Cowork can call FidesBeacon deliverables directly from inside their Claude interface, without leaving the application they already work in.
A few clarifications about what MCP integration does and does not mean:
- FidesBeacon runs on our hardware, not on Anthropic's. Your documents are never seen, stored, or processed by Anthropic. The MCP connector is the doorway through which a Claude Cowork user sends a request to FidesBeacon; the analytical pass runs entirely on dedicated Webnet Media infrastructure operated under the same confidentiality controls as a direct engagement.
- Firm-level authentication is required. A firm signs up at fidesbeacon.com, receives an API key tied to a billing account, and configures Claude Cowork with that key. Conflict-clearance applies to MCP-initiated matters the same way it applies to direct engagements.
- Pricing is identical to direct-engagement pricing. The MCP connector is a distribution channel, not a discount channel. Per-matter, per-category quotes follow the rate sheet regardless of whether the matter arrives through Claude Cowork or through direct email.
- Every deliverable still ships through the same methodology stack. Citation verification, Two-AI Adversarial Review at Trial and above, founder review of the executive summary, and an RFC 3161 timestamped QC log are applied to every MCP-initiated deliverable.
The connector is available now via direct setup (we send firms the connection details on engagement) and is in submission review for Anthropic's MCP Directory and the community mcp.so directory. Once a directory listing is live, any Claude Cowork user can install the connector in a few clicks. The connector is callable from any MCP-aware client, not only Claude Cowork — firms running other MCP-compliant tooling can integrate the same way.
Service-level commitments
Turnaround is committed at the matter-confirmation step. We do not take a matter we are not confident we can deliver on time.
| Tier | Typical turnaround | What "turnaround" means |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | 24–72 hours | From the moment documents arrive in usable form to the moment the Foundation-tier deliverables in the selected category are delivered. |
| Strategic | 3–7 business days | Foundation reports may be delivered first (within Foundation SLA); the additional six reports follow in the Strategic SLA window. |
| Trial | 5–10 business days | Includes the Two-AI Adversarial Review pass; the additional time covers model-disagreement resolution and founder review. |
| Bespoke | Per agreed SoW | Continuous Delta engagements operate on a weekly or bi-weekly cadence rather than a single deadline. |
Rush handling is available on Foundation and Strategic tiers at a surcharge. Documents arriving late in the engagement window may extend turnaround by an equal amount; we will flag this proactively.
Document intake — what we need from you
The minimum
- A short matter description (one paragraph for Foundation; one page for Strategic and above).
- The document set in any standard format: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, TXT, RTF, EML, MSG, image formats (with OCR).
- Any specific questions you want the report to answer (optional but recommended).
- Any specific deadlines or court dates that govern turnaround.
What helps the work be better
- A document index or production log if one exists.
- Identified hot documents or starting points (optional).
- The names of the experts and key witnesses in the matter (helps the contradiction report find their statements faster).
- Any prior analysis your team has already done that you would like us to build on (optional).
What we accept
- Office documents: Word (.docx, .doc), Excel (.xlsx, .xls), PowerPoint (.pptx, .ppt).
- PDFs: Text-layer PDFs and scanned PDFs (we OCR scanned material automatically).
- Emails: Individual messages (.eml, .msg) and full mailbox archives (.pst from Outlook, .mbox from Apple Mail and Thunderbird). The original mail provider does not matter — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, ProtonMail, or any other email service.
- Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, WebP. Text inside images is extracted with OCR.
- Plain text and tables: TXT, RTF, CSV.
- Web content: HTML files, saved webpages, screenshots of websites.
- Bates-numbered productions: We honor your Bates ranges and preserve them in citations.
- Transcripts: ASCII transcripts with line/page numbers; condensed transcripts; full transcripts in PDF.
- Audio and video: MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4, MOV — available on Bespoke engagements with transcription added to scope.
- Archives: ZIP, RAR, 7Z, TAR. We unpack and process the contents.
A note about Gmail and Google Drive
The no-Google policy applies to our workflow, not to where your content lives. We do not use any Google product to receive, store, or process your documents. But the documents themselves can come from anywhere — including Gmail mailboxes and Google Drive folders. The practical guidance:
- If your content is in Gmail, forward it to us as a regular email or export the mailbox and send the archive. The mail arrives at our Microsoft inbox normally; we never touch Gmail to receive it.
- If your content is in Google Drive, please download the files first (or export Google Docs / Sheets / Slides to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) and deliver them through Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, or email. We cannot click through a Google Drive share link because doing so would require us to sign in to a Google account.
What we cannot accept
- Documents bound by an outside-counsel-only protective order that does not permit vendor processing. We will work with you on a modification before intake.
- Anything that would require us to log in to a Google product to retrieve it (such as a Google Drive share link or a Google Docs view-only link). Export the file first and send it through another channel.
What you receive on delivery
The reports
Microsoft Word documents (.docx), one file per report. Word is the working format of every litigation team we have ever worked with; delivering in Word means you can edit, redline, and incorporate the content directly into your work product. PDFs are available on request for matters that require a fixed-format deliverable.
The QC log
A machine-readable QC log (XLSX) with one row per deliverable, recording which model produced the draft, whether adversarial review was applied, who signed off, the citation-verification pass/fail counts, and any model-disagreements flagged. The QC log is your audit trail. If opposing counsel ever asks how the work was produced, the QC log is the answer.
Citation indices
For matters above 500 documents, each report ships with a citation index that maps every pinpoint citation in the report to its source document and source page. The index makes verification and follow-up a copy-paste operation rather than a search operation.
Source-document originals
Your original documents are returned to you on the agreed schedule (default 90 days post-delivery, or sooner on request). We do not retain client documents beyond the agreed retention window; see the Confidentiality page for the full retention policy.
Ready to start?
If your firm has never used FidesBeacon before, you are eligible for the free first-matter offer: one Foundation-tier analysis at no cost. Send a short note describing the matter and we will be in touch within one business day.