Disclosure
Know what's missing, from both sides, with the date each item was asked for.
Code tracks what is due. You send the follow-up.
AI for family law files that shows its work.
Your client sends everything. AI reads and sorts it. Tested code does the math. You get one brief you can defend.
A working prototype today. The pilot finishes it around three practices, and starts with no client data.
One working prototype, tested on every build.
4
documents kept in step from a single change.
~300
automated checks on every build. One failure stops the build.
0
figures written by AI. Every number is calculated.
The prototype has been used in one real matter. Nothing it produced has been filed with a court.
Support files turn on the income.
44%
of family lawyers say first income disclosure is usually or almost always a problem.
Justice Canada, 2022 surveys68%
of judges usually or almost always impute income when disclosure isn't made.
Justice Canada, 2022 surveysThe linchpin of a just and effective family law system.The Supreme Court of Canada on financial disclosure Colucci v. Colucci, 2021 SCC 24, para. 4
Send it in any form. It arrives sorted.
Clients don't send tidy files. They send phone photos of pay stubs, tax slips, investment statements, a spreadsheet of their own, and a forwarded email with twelve attachments. Familybrief turns that into one record.
Recognised.
Each file is identified for what it is: a pay stub, a T4, a T5, an investment statement, a notice of assessment. It is dated and tied to the right person and year.
Read.
The figures are pulled out along with the page they sit on, from scans and phone photos as well as clean PDFs.
Reconciled.
Pay stubs are checked against the T4, slips against the return, and the return against the notice of assessment. Duplicates are set aside.
Flagged.
What is missing, what does not agree, and what is only an estimate are listed for you, each with its source.
- AI
- Recognises each document and reads the figures.
- Code
- Cross-checks them and keeps the tally.
- You
- Confirm a figure before it is used anywhere.
The brief, section by section.
Six parts of one record. Each says who does the work: AI, code, or you.
Income
Proven three ways: slips, pay stubs and the notice of assessment, checked against each other.
AI reads. Code reconciles. You confirm.
Expenses
Each special expense with the evidence courts ask for: cost, consultation and reasons.
AI reads. Code totals and shares. You decide what to claim.
Support report
Table amount, shares and the monthly total from the same record. No second tool.
No AI here. Code calculates. You sign off.
The draft
On your own template. Changed figures show in green, figures still to confirm in yellow.
Code fills the figures. You hold the pen.
Ask the file
Every answer shows its page. If the file doesn't say, the answer says so.
AI finds the passage. Code supplies any figure. You judge.
Every screen shows a fictional matter with invented figures. Table amounts come straight from the federal tables, so they match any calculator that uses them. The first version covers child support and special expenses; spousal support follows. 2025 federal table, Nova Scotia
Working prototype
The order, current from the first offer.
Offers go back and forth for weeks before anyone sits down. Change one number, and the order, its schedules, the offer letter and the calculation redraft together, in pre-written wording. The latest version is ready before the conference, in the room, and on the way to a hearing if it comes to that.
Every offer, side by side. Theirs, yours and the current draft, with the key figures pinned.
See what moved. A redline against any earlier version, and a timestamped log of each change.
Tracked changes in Word. Export a clean file, or one with tracked changes against the version you choose.
Works in the room. One file, opened on any laptop, with no internet.
No AI in the order. Every clause is written in advance, and every figure is calculated.
Agreed is not the same as calculated. Where the two differ, the page says so.
Today it is built around a single file's wording and schedules. Turning it into something any practice can load its own wording into is the first job of the pilot.
AI where it helps. Code where it counts.
AI reads.
It sorts what clients send and finds the passage that answers your question, with the page it came from. It never supplies a figure. If the file doesn't say, it says so.
Code calculates.
Table amounts, shares and totals come from tested code using the official tables. No language model produces a number.
You decide.
A person confirms every figure before it can be sworn. Drafts use your own templates, and show what AI wrote and who checked it.
Where client files live, and who can see them.
In Canadian data centres
Upload from a phone
Hashed and encrypted on the way in.
Your firm's record
Encrypted with your firm's own key, walled off from every other firm and matter.
AI, in Canada
Our own deployment. No memory between requests; never trains on your files.
Your workspace
Multi-factor sign-in. You decide who sees what.
No access to client files
Other firmsThe model makerThe other partyFamilybrief staff, without a logged reason
Before any real client data: a privacy-law review, an outside penetration test, a data agreement with each firm, and the Barristers' Society cloud checklist. A SOC 2 audit follows launch.
These are design commitments, not certifications. The AI provider is a US company, so this is Canadian residency, not sovereignty.
We're looking for three Nova Scotia family law practices.
Practices that do child support work and want to put AI to use without handing it the pen.
What you get
- A pilot built around your practice.
- A say in what gets built first.
- The order builder, set up with your own wording.
What we ask
- A few conversations about how you work now.
- One closed file, rebuilt with invented names and figures.
- Your candid view of what's wrong with it.
What it costs
- $500 to join, covering setup with your own wording.
- That $500 counts toward your first files.
- After the pilot, about $200 per file. No subscription.
Stage 1
A fictional file
Every step, with nothing at risk.
Stage 2
A past file, rebuilt
Invented names and figures. Compare the hours with your own records.
Stage 3
One live file
Only after independent privacy and security review, and with your client's consent.
Lawyers at their best. The paperwork, handled.
People come to a family lawyer at one of the hardest points in their lives. What they need is judgment, advocacy and a steady hand.
Too much of a file's time still goes somewhere else: sorting receipts, re-keying figures, rebuilding the same numbers every time something changes. Familybrief exists to move that work off the lawyer's desk. We build AI tools that take on the tedious, checkable parts of a file and show their sources, so a lawyer's hours go to the parts only a lawyer can do.
AI is already changing how legal work gets done. The practices that learn to use it well will serve more people, more carefully, at a fairer cost. The ones that wait will find it harder to keep up. We want Nova Scotia's family law practices in the first group, and we want them to get there without giving up control of their work.
Familybrief is built in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It grew out of hands-on work alongside counsel on a family law file.
Straight answers.
Is it built?
A working prototype is. Change one decision on a file, and it keeps the order, its schedules, the offer letter and the calculation in step. It has been used in one real matter. The pilot is where it gets finished, around the needs of three practices: your wording, your documents, your way of working. The intake and disclosure screens shown on this page are designed, and are built during the pilot.
Will the numbers match my calculator?
Table amounts come straight from the federal child support tables, so they match any calculator that uses the same tables. For everything else, the pilot starts with a side-by-side check: the same test files through Familybrief and the calculator you use today, with every difference shown to you before you rely on a figure.
Does AI write my documents?
No. Drafts are assembled from your own templates and wording, with figures from tested code. Where AI suggests text it is marked, and nothing is filed without you.
Does it replace my support calculator?
That is the aim, in stages. First child support and special expenses, checked side by side against your current calculator before you rely on it. Until spousal support is added, keep your calculator for that.
Does this fit the Barristers' Society's guidance on AI?
The Society's guide tells lawyers to "use private or controlled systems when available" and to understand how a tool stores and uses data. Familybrief is designed for that: a controlled deployment, a source on every figure, and a person confirming before anything is sworn. You remain responsible for your work, as with any tool.
What does it cost?
Joining the pilot costs $500 per practice. That covers setting the tool up with your own wording, and it counts toward your first files. After the pilot, about $200 per file, with no subscription. A file is one matter, from the first documents to the order. The per-file figure is a working one, not a set price.
Apply for the early-adopter program.
Tell us a little about your practice. We'll reply to arrange a first conversation.
Your answers are used only to contact you about the pilot.
Prefer email? Write to hello@familybrief.ca.