Theo ESQ

What Theo ESQ is

Theo ESQ is built on the same Theo AI orchestration that powers the rest of OpenCharts, but it runs as a separate, hyper-focused legal assistant. Every reply is treated as a legal-work product. Theo ESQ will not draft marketing copy, social posts, code, or anything else outside the lane — that is what the main OpenCharts workspace is for.

• Matter-aware

  Pin a thread to any case and Theo ESQ stays anchored to that matter’s name, court, jurisdiction, parties, and practice area on every turn.

• Citation discipline

  Always cites authorities. Calls out when it isn’t confident a citation is current and never invents case names, holdings, or statutory text.

• Drafting-ready output

  Memos, briefs, motions, contracts, letters, discovery requests, and declarations in clean, attorney-reviewable format with explicit placeholders.

• Disjoint from the main chat

  Stored in its own collections. Your Theo ESQ threads never appear in /chat, never share MCIR memory, and never trigger the autonomy / skill stack.

Where to find it

• From the Law sidebar — open the Law workspace and click Theo ESQ. The landing page at/law/esq shows your past threads (grouped into Pinned-to-a-case and General) and lets you start a new thread with one click.
• From any case — open a case at/law/cases, switch to the Research tab, and click New research thread. The thread is automatically pinned to that matter and Theo ESQ will get the matter context on every turn.

Pinning a thread to a matter

Threads can be case-pinned (anchored to a specific matter) or general (a free-form legal question). A case-pinned thread:

• Pre-loads a Legal Matter Context block on every turn so Theo ESQ knows the case name, case number, court, jurisdiction, parties, practice area, and status without you re-typing it.
• Auto-intro on first open. When you start a brand new case-pinned thread (e.g. from the Research tab on a matter), Theo ESQ greets you with the matter context already loaded and asks 2–3 scoping questions — the exact question of law, drafting vs. analysis, jurisdiction if not pinned, filing deadlines — before doing any actual research. The intro only fires once per thread and never replays on revisit.
• Appears under Pinned to a case in the Theo ESQ sidebar and shows the matter name as a chip in the thread header.
• Counts toward the matter’s audit trail. The thread row is stored in a dedicated collection, separate from the regular Theo chat.

General threads are useful when you want to brainstorm on a question of law without binding it to a specific client matter yet. Start one from /law/esq.

Anchor a thread to a jurisdiction

Every Theo ESQ thread carries a jurisdiction that controls how aggressively Theo ESQ anchors its citations, authorities, and procedure to a specific forum. Open the smallJurisdictionbutton in the composer toolbar (next to the case-pin) to choose one of three modes:

• Inherit (default). When the thread is pinned to a matter that has a jurisdiction set, Theo ESQ silently uses the matter’s jurisdiction. If the matter has no jurisdiction (or the thread is general) the persona keeps asking which forum applies whenever the answer would change.
• Open. Tells Theo ESQ no jurisdiction is pinned on this thread. Use this when you want to compare jurisdictions or brainstorm without an anchor. Theo ESQ will continue to ask which forum applies whenever the answer changes by jurisdiction.
• Specific. Locks the thread to a concrete forum (e.g. S.D.N.Y. or Supreme Court of California) with optional state, city, and free-text scope notes. Every turn on the thread is anchored there: controlling authorities, local rules, judge-specific practice notes when relevant. Mentioning another jurisdiction inline scopes only that turn — the thread’s anchor stays put unless you change it.

The modal includes a Save as my default for new threads toggle. Saved defaults apply to every new thread you start (the case’s own jurisdiction still wins on case-pinned threads under Inherit mode). When a saved default exists, the modal surfaces a small Use button at the top so you can load it with one click. While typing, if Theo ESQ notices the question reads like a particular jurisdiction (e.g. you mention “S.D.N.Y.” or “the Ninth Circuit”) it surfaces a one-click banner above the composer suggesting you anchor the thread there. Choose Just this question to keep the anchor where it is — the persona’s normal cross-jurisdiction rule still applies.

Smart autocomplete + cascade. The Specific-mode form is fully typeahead-driven. As you type a court (e.g. “S.D.N.Y.”, “Supreme Court of California”), the dropdown surfaces curated matches from a built-in catalog of every federal appellate / district court and every state Supreme Court; when the curated dataset is thin, additional results are pulled live from the CourtListener catalog (3,358+ jurisdictions) and grouped under a More from CourtListener subhead. Picking a court auto-fills the State andCity fields when they’re still empty. Conversely, typing the state or city first narrows the court list to that locality — pick “New York” in State, type “Brooklyn” in City, and the Court dropdown filters down to E.D.N.Y. and the local appellate divisions.

Judge anchor (optional). Once a court is selected, a Judge field appears below the locality row. The dropdown imports every active judge currently sitting on that court (via CourtListener) so the attorney can pick the one assigned to the matter — no judge is selected by default, since one court has many. If the imported list is stale or missing the assignee (e.g. a brand-new appointment), type the name in directly: the field accepts free-form overrides and surfaces a small “Custom” pill to flag that the value didn’t come from the imported roster. When a judge is anchored, the picker’s trigger button shows “S.D.N.Y. · Hon. Rakoff” at a glance, and the judge’s name flows into the Jurisdiction Scope block so Theo ESQ’s analysis honors judge-specific standing orders and local practice.

Research this judge

Once a judge is anchored to the thread, the Jurisdiction modal surfaces a Research this judge button under the Judge field. Clicking it opens a dedicated dialog that pulls a structured judicial brief in 8–15 seconds:

• CourtListener deep-fetch. The dialog calls CourtListener’s judge APIs to retrieve every position the judge has held, their education, political-affiliation history, and ABA ratings. The selection method (appointment by President / Governor / Legislature, partisan or non-partisan election, court restructuring) is mapped to a readable label so you can tell at a glance how the judge reached the bench.
• Public web summary. A second pass runs a curated search across public sources (judicial profiles, news, legal commentary) and AI-summarizes the most relevant pages into a background paragraph, a judicial-philosophy synthesis, practice tips, and notable rulings — each capped so the brief stays bounded.
• Always verify. The brief is research notes, not authority. Every dialog renders the confidence floor and a reminder to verify any specific ruling, docket, or procedural claim before relying on it. Treat the output the same way you would treat a junior associate’s memo — useful as a starting point, never as the final word.

When the brief is ready you can Attach to this thread (the brief lives only on the current Theo ESQ thread) or, when the thread is pinned to a matter, Attach to matter (the brief lives on the matter row and every future thread on the same case automatically inherits it). On every subsequent turn, Theo ESQ reads the brief as a ## Judge Insights system-prompt block and anchors its analysis to the cached context — appointment background, judicial philosophy, practice tips, notable rulings — without you re-pasting it. The trigger button flips to View judge brief once a brief is attached so you can review it later without re-running the research pipeline.

What Theo ESQ does well

• Legal research. Ask Theo ESQ a question and you get a one-paragraph bottom-line answer, the applicable law with citations, an analysis applied to your facts, and a list of open questions the supervising attorney should resolve.
• Drafting. “Draft a memo to the file on the following issue…”, “Draft a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)…”, “Draft a non-disclosure agreement with these terms…” — output is structured, attorney-reviewable, and uses placeholders for anything Theo ESQ doesn’t know.
• Case strategy & analysis. Summarize deposition excerpts, compare positions across jurisdictions, surface ambiguities, identify procedural traps, suggest discovery plans.
• Communications. Draft letters to opposing counsel, status updates for clients (work product only — never direct client advice), and internal team memos.

Working the thread

• Fast / Think / Research. The dial beside the composer sets how hard Theo thinks on each thread. Fast answers quick questions, Think (the default) is the everyday analysis mode, and Research takes minutes and digs — reading matter documents, searching the live web, and assembling authorities before it answers. The pick is remembered per thread.
• Theo reads the matter file itself. On a matter-pinned thread Theo can search and read the matter’s own documents and drafts, check docketed deadlines, the timeline, the privilege-review queue, billed time, and the firm’s calendar and client roster — then propose writes (a draft, a deadline, a timeline entry, a designation, a time entry) that you accept or reject on a card. Nothing is written without your click.
• The Context panel shows its work. The Context button in the thread header opens a floating panel with three views: what reached Theo this turn, the sources it actually opened (clickable), and the steps it took to get the answer.
• Verified citations. Theo checks the case citations it is about to present against a public case-law database and says which ones verified — each verified authority appears in the Citations view with a public link you can open. A citation that doesn’t verify is flagged as unchecked, not silently dropped. Verification covers published US case law best; statutes and very recent opinions still need a manual check.
• Documents, not walls of prose. Ask for a demand letter, an NDA, or a motion and Theo drafts it as a real document: a card appears in the thread, and the editor opens it full screen. Highlight any passage, say what to change (or mark it for removal), and regenerate — every mark rides one rewrite so the changes compose. Versions are append-only, and every document downloads as Word or PDF.
• Dictate. The microphone in the composer takes dictation (on-device speech recognition — audio never leaves your machine). Words land in the draft as you speak; nothing sends until you do.
• Every answer carries actions. Under a finished reply: copy it, Save to matter (files it into the pinned matter’s drafts as a memo), Export it as Word or PDF, or Regenerate the latest answer for another pass at the same depth.
• Threads are manageable. Rename a thread from the header menu or by right-clicking it in the sidebar; search the sidebar by thread title or matter / client name; archive, move between matter folders, or bulk-select for cleanup.

How it feels while it’s working

Theo ESQ is a reasoning model under the hood, so the first token can take a few seconds on complex matters. To make the wait feel deliberate rather than slow, the surface ships a small editorial loading state — a hairline rule that shimmers above three breathing legal marks, with a rotating Newsreader-italic caption that shifts from setup language (“Pulling the binders…”, “Cracking the Bluebook…”) into deeper-analysis language (“Marshaling controlling authority…”, “Stress-testing the analysis…”) once the model has been thinking for more than a few seconds. The animation honoursprefers-reduced-motion and collapses to a gentle opacity pulse for users who have requested less motion.

Under the hood: matter inventory, attachment resolution, and the user-message persistence run in parallel before the model stream opens, the assistant’s done frame is flushed to the browser the instant the reply finishes (so the streaming state clears immediately), and the follow-up suggestion planner runs in the background with a tight 3-second budget so the controller doesn’t linger.

Citation discipline

Citation discipline is non-negotiable. Theo ESQ’s persona explicitly forbids inventing case names, docket numbers, holdings, page numbers, statutes, court rules, or quoted language. When Theo ESQ isn’t confident a citation is current, it says so out loud. Standard short-form conventions are used for the relevant jurisdiction (Bluebook in US matters). Case citations are also run through a public case-law database before they are presented, and Theo states which ones verified — a citation that doesn’t verify is flagged for a manual check rather than asserted.

Binding precedent, persuasive authority, and secondary sources are labeled. Procedural questions that turn on local rules or judge-specific practice are flagged with a note about where to verify.

Theo ESQ is an AI paralegal. The licensed attorney reviewing the work is the responsible decision-maker for every filing, communication, and strategic choice. Always verify citations before relying on the work.

Privacy & disjoint memory

Theo ESQ is intentionally disjoint from the main Theo chat at/chat:

• Separate storage. Theo ESQ threads live in dedicated law_esq_conversations andlaw_esq_messages collections, not the sharedchat_conversations /chat_messages tables.
• No shared memory. Theo ESQ does not use the MCIR memory protocol, does not load Theo Skills, does not invoke autonomy hooks or workflows, and does not surface chat tools (flowcharts, presentations, image / video generation). Replies are plain legal markdown.
• Workspace-scoped. Threads only appear inside the Law workspace. They are not searchable from the global command palette outside Law, and they do not leak into your personal or team Theo history.
• Audit trail. Per-matter audit logging treats Theo ESQ activity as legal work product. Retention follows the matter’s configured retention window.

Personal Theo ESQ needs only an OpenCharts account. Pinning a matter or a client, attaching matter documents and the finance and calendar scopes need the Theo Law plan or a seat in a firm that has one.