Maine Family Law LLM is an open-source, local-first Windows workbench for Maine legal research, record review, source verification, privacy-aware document processing, and review-required drafting.
It is not a lawyer, does not provide legal advice, and does not turn model confidence into legal authority. Official Maine sources, exact source spans, citation and quote checks, factual support, privacy review, and human review remain separate gates.
Project site · Download v7 from Microsoft Store · v8 release notes · Safety · Privacy
| Surface | Current status |
|---|---|
| Source branch | main, product version 8.0.0 |
| Windows package target | 8.0.0.0, x64, en-us |
| Current Microsoft Store listing | v7 is published and available as a free Windows download |
| Current source release | v8.0.0 on main |
| v7 package | Distributed through the official Microsoft Store listing |
| Enterprise GA | Blocked pending real attorney-reviewed evaluation, controlled pilot evidence, and organizational sign-offs |
See the public v7 release status for Store availability, source evidence, and the separate Enterprise-GA boundary.
The release scope is deliberately smaller than the codebase. These core surfaces remain public after source and frozen-runtime verification:
- application launch, health, and production workbench;
- matter/corpus creation, selection, and reopening;
- mixed-record import and deterministic inventory;
- deterministic PDF, DOCX, and text parsing;
- OCR searchable derivatives that preserve originals;
- document intelligence, privacy review, and redacted derivatives;
- exact-duplicate and changed-copy review;
- Ask Maine Family Law with admitted official-source cards;
- exact source preview and source metadata;
- citation, pinpoint, quote, and claim-support verification;
- review-required drafting and immutable revision history;
- revision comparison;
- review-required evidence/filing packets and receipts;
- the canonical fail-closed filing gate;
- Local-only and privacy controls;
- synthetic backup and restore.
All generated legal work remains review_required by default.
Slices 21–44 now complete the production service → canonical local API → matter-scoped encrypted store → shipped desktop UI → exact-source inspection → review-required result path. Their focused synthetic suite, production-browser journey, and full-tier frozen-runtime reachability checks pass:
- slices 21–31 cover intake/posture trees, operative-order resolution, service/deadline calendars, docket reconciliation, discovery, exhibits, witness comparison, hearing preparation, appellate preservation, UCCJEA, and ICWA review;
- slices 32–44 cover family pathways, safety records, parenting schedules, negotiation, property, modification, FOAA, filing readiness, image/email integrity, reviewer handoff, language access, and resource navigation;
- all 24 are local-only, matter-scoped, source-bound, auditable, and review-required.
The current source also includes ten user-operable local productivity capabilities, each reachable from the shipped command palette and protected by the active-matter, reviewer-role, encryption, audit, and review-required boundaries:
- Smart Matter Inbox reviews an explicit candidate manifest, identifies exact duplicates, and never silently watches or imports a folder;
- saved workflow recipes run only allow-listed steps after confirmation;
- audio/video evidence transcription preserves the media hash and exact transcript spans without silently downloading an engine;
- calendar interoperability creates a local review-required ICS artifact without changing a calendar account;
- the hardware optimizer chooses safe local context and concurrency limits without downloading a model;
- the research pinboard preserves exact source spans, hashes, locators, and freshness;
- Redaction Studio binds pending privacy candidates to an immutable original and does not mislabel a draft derivative as complete;
- matter health and next actions turns explicit blockers into a corrective review queue without deciding legal priority;
- courtroom presentation mode creates keyboard-navigable, source-bound cards while hiding private notes; and
- automatic backup runs while the app is active, encrypts and verifies each container, applies retention, and restores only into a separate recovery directory.
These capabilities do not send records, file documents, modify external calendars, install a background service, or treat generated work as final.
The v8 source freeze adds 20 matter-scoped, local-only add-ons. Every add-on now completes a meaningful action through the service, canonical protected API, production desktop UI, and frozen executable. Each result remains review-required and supports exact-result inspection, guarded artifact access where applicable, immutable review decisions, and audit-chain verification:
- native Whisper transcription with a pinned, hash-verified bundled engine and model;
- OCR correction, communications import, evidence relationship graphs, and local model management;
- court-form autofill, advanced table extraction, financial-document intelligence, and semantic order comparison;
- authority-update review, guided research, evidence annotation, and confirmed local automation;
- secure reviewer bundles, matter templates, conflict/entity review, and desktop notifications;
- courtroom bundles, voice drafting commands, and signed extension-permission review.
Additional core capabilities still under qualification include:
- timeline event correction;
- claim-disposition workbench;
- current guided forms;
- installed tracked-DOCX workflow;
- whole-matter command center and snapshots;
- missing-attachment coverage claims.
The feature catalog keeps readiness evidence visible; code presence alone is never represented as end-to-end acceptance.
The workbench separates three lanes:
- Official Maine authority — admitted external sources with hashes, retrieval dates, freshness, lineage, citations, and exact spans.
- Private matter records — evidence candidates scoped to the active matter; never legal authority.
- Model analysis — review-required work product that cannot silently outrank either source lane.
A legal claim fails closed when its source is missing, stale, wrong-jurisdiction, contradicted, unsupported, or unverifiable. A verifier exception is a blocker, not a pass.
Private matter data does not belong in this repository. Runtime matter stores, authority snapshots, parsed authority products, retrieval indexes, OCR caches, logs, credentials, model caches, evaluation stores, and generated work product remain outside the source tree and MSIX.
The standard runtime binds its local API to loopback. Local-only mode forbids silent provider discovery, telemetry, model downloads, background updates, arbitrary URL requests, and remote fallback.
Read Privacy, Safety and data boundaries, and MSIX privacy boundaries before using private records.
Legal-authority data is built and activated outside the repository:
python scripts/ingest-maine-authority.py --data-root <external-data-root>
python scripts/audit-authority-build.py --data-root <external-data-root>An accepted generation includes an immutable build fingerprint, official URLs, source and parsed hashes, retrieval timestamps, freshness, citation aliases, exact spans, and atomic activation/rollback pointers. If no accepted build is active, the application must say so and must not substitute model memory as current law.
Requirements:
- Windows 10 or 11 x64;
- Python 3.11 or newer;
- a dedicated virtual environment;
- user-controlled storage for matter and authority data.
git clone https://github.com/JTAHAI/maine-family-law-llm.git
cd maine-family-law-llm
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install -e ".[api,dev]"
.\START_MAINE_FAMILY_LAW_LLM.cmdStart with fictional demonstration data. Do not post private records, identifying screenshots, logs, tokens, or local paths in GitHub issues.
For non-technical local testing, double-click START_LOCAL_CHAT.cmd or run
.\START_LOCAL_CHAT.ps1 in PowerShell. Both start the same local-only
workbench at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ and keep matter records on the current PC.
python -m compileall -q legal app src maine_family_law_llm scripts tests
node --check src\maine_family_law_llm\ui\workbench.js
python -m pytest --collect-only -q
python -m pytestThe v7 closure run collected 1,234 tests: 1,220 passed, 14 documented Windows skips, and no failures or errors. The v8 Add-on Studio acceptance run added 31 passing focused tests with one unrelated conditional skip, plus production-browser and frozen-runtime journeys across all 20 add-ons. Those results describe the tested source and frozen runtime; Store availability and enterprise validation remain distinct evidence layers.
The canonical build produces:
MaineFamilyLawLLM_8.0.0.0_x64.msix
The full-tier v8.0.0.0 MSIX candidate passed its canonical frozen-runtime smoke, bundled-engine inventory, private-data audit, sealed-payload audit, and archive audit. Its SHA-256 is a4afe2372d737c6cbcc598b99be8dea6c1f0a7e0baaf497145201b8468abfa86; it is an unsigned candidate for the Microsoft Store signing and distribution process. WACK and installed-package qualification remain separate evidence steps, and the published v7 package remains the current Store download until Microsoft distributes v8.
The package includes Fast Interchange runtime support but no legal model weights or adapters. Any future model pack must be user-initiated, versioned, rights-cleared, hash-verified, admitted, and explicitly activated; development-only adapters never establish current law or bypass review.
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
src/maine_family_law_llm/ |
Canonical application package and production UI |
maine_family_law_llm/ |
Shipped compatibility mirror |
legal/ |
Authority, retrieval, evidence, drafting, verification, and privacy services |
app/ |
Desktop/local API integration and supporting UI contracts |
store/msix/ |
Store identity, manifest template, and package assets |
scripts/ |
Build, authority, audit, migration, and release tooling |
tests/ |
Unit, contract, security, UI, frozen-runtime, and release tests |
docs/ |
Public guides, safety policy, architecture, and release truth |
The frozen executable loads the production assets from src/maine_family_law_llm/ui; mirrored or development-only frontends are not accepted as production proof.
Release-critical controls include:
- matter-scoped record capabilities and stale-token rejection;
- path traversal, symlink, archive bomb, executable-content, size, and format validation;
- untrusted document/prompt/OCR/tool instructions treated as data;
- loopback origin/session protections;
- encrypted private sidecars and hash-chained audit events;
- fail-closed filing/export gates;
- no private data, authority stores, credentials, logs, caches, or test residue in the MSIX.
Please report security issues through the process in SECURITY.md, not through a public issue containing sensitive details.
Forking the code is only the beginning. A safe state edition must replace and validate its official statutes, rules, forms, appellate opinions, citation patterns, freshness controls, evaluation data, privacy policy, unauthorized-practice boundaries, and human-review rules.
See Fork for your state.
Contributions are welcome for reproducible bugs, accessibility, privacy, retrieval correctness, source parsing, testing, documentation, and safe state-specific adaptations.
- Read CONTRIBUTING.md.
- Use fictional or fully synthetic fixtures.
- Preserve original records and fail-closed review behavior.
- Do not weaken matter isolation, source verification, privacy review, or filing gates to make a test pass.
- Not legal advice.
- No attorney-client relationship.
- Not affiliated with the Maine Judicial Branch, any court, Microsoft, or a government agency.
- Official sources and qualified human review control over generated text.
- See LICENSE.md, NOTICE.md, and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.