Precedent Search

Precedent search retrieves prior matters and playbook positions. It is not the open web. It only sees documents in the project library you have rights to.

Search

POST /v1/legal/precedents/search
Authorization: Bearer eridian_sk_...

{
  "project_id": "prj_legal_001",
  "matter_id": "mtr_4821",
  "query": "last deals where we agreed to a 24-month lock-up",
  "model": "auto",
  "filters": {
    "clause_types": ["lock_up", "non_compete"],
    "closed_after": "2023-01-01",
    "desks": ["banking-counsel"]
  },
  "limit": 10
}

Required scope: legal:read for search, legal:write if the call also drafts a comparison memo (draft_memo: true).

{
  "id": "pre_55aa",
  "object": "eridian.legal.precedent.search",
  "hits": [
    {
      "matter_id": "mtr_3102",
      "contract_id": "ctr_3102",
      "clause_id": "cls_lock_12",
      "score": 0.86,
      "summary": "24-month lock-up, mutual, UAE law.",
      "citation": { "document_id": "doc_3102", "page": 9 }
    }
  ]
}

Positions

Playbook positions are precedent documents with classification: precedent and a structured position:

{
  "id": "pos_lockup_24m",
  "object": "eridian.legal.position",
  "fallback_days": 24,
  "walk_away": "lock-up over 36 months"
}

Redlines consume positions by id. Search can return them mixed with historical clauses when include_playbook: true.

Privilege

Hits never include matters the caller is not a member of. Privilege flags are enforced before retrieval, not as a prompt instruction. A 200 with fewer hits than you expected is usually membership, not a model failure.

Quality

Pin gpt when the output is a memo to partners. "auto" plus Gemini is acceptable for recall over a large library after eval shows citation precision. Require citations.length >= 1 in your client. Discard hits below score 0.7 unless counsel asks for a wider net.

Negative constraint

Precedent search will not query another tenant. It will not query Eridian's other customers. There is no "market standard" corpus beyond what you uploaded.

See Clause Extraction and Redlines.