Matters

A matter is the Legal unit of work. Contracts, clauses, mappings, and redlines belong to one matter. The matter carries residency, privilege, retention, and who may read the library.

Create

POST /v1/legal/matters
Authorization: Bearer eridian_sk_...
Content-Type: application/json
Idempotency-Key: matter-acme-msa-2026

{
  "project_id": "prj_legal_001",
  "name": "ACME MSA 2026",
  "client_code": "ACME",
  "region": "me-central-1",
  "privilege": true,
  "retention_days": 365,
  "desks": ["legal-ops", "banking-counsel"]
}

Required scope: legal:write. region must match the project pin or be omitted.

{
  "id": "mtr_4821",
  "object": "eridian.legal.matter",
  "status": "open",
  "region": "me-central-1",
  "privilege": true,
  "document_count": 0
}

Documents

POST /v1/legal/documents
Authorization: Bearer eridian_sk_...
Content-Type: multipart/form-data

Fields: matter_id, file, filename, classification (contract, policy, precedent, correspondence, exhibit).

{
  "id": "doc_msa_4821",
  "object": "eridian.legal.document",
  "status": "stored",
  "bytes": 482193,
  "sha256": "b7c1...",
  "region": "me-central-1"
}

Supported types: PDF, DOCX, DOC, RTF, TXT, HTML. Scanned PDF runs OCR in-region. Max size is on Legal Limits.

Membership

PUT /v1/legal/matters/mtr_4821/members
Authorization: Bearer eridian_sk_...

{
  "principals": [
    { "id": "usr_kadart", "role": "counsel" },
    { "id": "usr_nair", "role": "reviewer" }
  ]
}

API keys do not bypass membership. A key on prj_legal_001 still needs legal:read or legal:write and, for GET of privileged bodies, a principal mapping when SSO is enforced.

Close and hold

POST /v1/legal/matters/mtr_4821/close
POST /v1/legal/matters/mtr_4821/legal-hold

A legal hold stops the retention clock. Closing without a hold starts it. Dual control is required to lift a hold. See Dual Control.

List

GET /v1/legal/matters?status=open&starting_after=mtr_4800
Authorization: Bearer eridian_sk_...

Cursor pagination. See Pagination.

Cross-border

Do not attach a eu-west-1 document to a me-central-1 matter. The API returns 403 residency_violation. Use two matters and, if counsel needs a combined memo, run mapping in each region and join citations in your DMS. Eridian will not copy the library across pins.

See Contract Review and PDPL and GDPR.