Legal practice
Matters and deadlines
The Legal skill turns Nexma into a practice-management platform for law firms. It models matters, documents, attorneys, and time, and gives Jax the tools to plan case work and bill against it. This domain has almost no geometry — it shows how far the ontology model stretches beyond the map, into deadlines, conflicts, and billable hours.
What this skill models
The ontology captures a legal practice with the entity types, link types, and constraints a managing partner expects.
- Entity types.
Case,LegalDocument,Attorney,Client,Matter,TimeEntry,Invoice, andDeadline. Each carries typed properties — matter type, billing rate, deadline class, document version. - Link types.
CaseRepresentation,DocumentAssociation,AttorneyAssignment, andBillingLink. - Key constraints. Billable-hour quota tracking; document-retention policies; conflict-of-interest checks across the client and matter graph; and deadline rules that vary by jurisdiction.
The ontology ships the reference data a firm relies on: standard matter taxonomies, jurisdictional deadline calendars, and privilege classifications.
What Jax can do
Jax reasons about cases, calendars, and conflicts because the Skill binds its capabilities to this ontology.
- Calculate deadlines from court-rule triggers. "Calculate every deadline triggered by today's filing in the Northern District. Add it to the case calendar." Covers federal and most US state rules.
- Screen conflicts across the full client and matter graph before a matter is opened or staffed.
- Draft time entries from calendar events and document edits, for attorney review.
- Staff matters under utilization, experience, and conflict constraints.
- Validate conflicts and audit deadlines against the jurisdictional calendar.
Deadline computation and conflict screening run as deterministic checks over the world model; staffing optimization runs through the Nexma MathEngine. Results write back so the case calendar and utilization rings update the moment Jax finishes.
Tip: Run the conflict check before staffing, not after. A conflict surfaced post-assignment can force a matter to be reassigned or declined entirely, so screening first saves rework on the whole staffing plan.
Constraints and standards
The skill enforces the rules a practice must satisfy to stay compliant and billable.
| Concern | Rule enforced | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Deadlines | Computed from court triggers | US federal and state rules |
| Conflicts | Screened across client graph | ABA Model Rule 1.7 |
| Matter typing | Standard taxonomy | ABA matter taxonomies |
| Retention | Document-retention policy | Firm policy |
| Billing | Quota and pre-bill review | Firm billing practice |
Invoices generate from time entries with a pre-billing review step.
Out of scope today: e-discovery document review (review tags consumed, not produced), native court-filing integrations beyond CM/ECF read-only, and trust accounting (consumed, not authored).
Where to go next
- CRM and sales — the other professional-services ontology.
- Construction — scheduling and resource constraints in another field.
- Skills overview — the full catalog.
- The ontology — how non-spatial entity types are modeled.