How we use AI.
HDAi automates the interview and the first draft. A licensed attorney holds the judgment. This page says exactly where that line sits, what the tools never do, and how your information is handled along the way.
Where AI does the work
We use AI in three places: the HDAi Document Studio, our own research and drafting, and this website.
In the Document Studio, the interview and the assembly of a first draft are automated. Each of the 124 generators is built from templates drafted for the firm and maintained under attorney review; your answers populate the document in your browser as you go, and they stay on your device until you ask an attorney to finish it. The draft you print is a draft. If you want an attorney to finish it, you book a planning call. After a conflicts check, a licensed Illinois attorney reads it against your facts and your state, or, for a document governed by foreign law, from a US-law perspective alongside locally admitted counsel. The firm's flat-fee packages, the Illinois Family Plan and Company Launch, run on the same interviews, with the attorney's work included in the fee.
Inside the firm, attorneys use AI tools the way they use research databases and document-comparison software, to find, summarize, and draft faster. Every output is checked by the attorney responsible for the matter before it is relied on or sent. The tools do not decide anything. We do.
On this website, copy was drafted with AI assistance and is reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr. before publication; each practice and jurisdiction page carries his name for that reason. Factual claims are kept against a substantiation record, and the firm's responsible attorney for advertising is named in the footer of every page.
What the tools never do here
Give legal advice
A generated draft is a starting point and is not advice. Advice comes from a licensed attorney who knows your facts and has cleared conflicts. A template, however well built, cannot give it.
Replace attorney judgment
Nothing leaves the firm on the strength of a model's output. An attorney reads it and stands behind it, or it does not go.
Decide whom we represent
Partners, and never software, decide conflicts, engagement, and scope. Review of a Studio draft begins only after a conflicts check and a confirmed scope.
Train on your confidences
Client confidential information is handled under the same professional duties as any other client file. We do not place it in tools whose terms permit training on it.
The standards we work to
The Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct already answer most questions about AI in a law practice: competence (Rule 1.1), confidentiality (Rule 1.6), communication with the client (Rule 1.4), and supervision of nonlawyer assistance (Rule 5.3). We apply them to AI tools as we would to any assistant or vendor.
Two public frameworks guide how we do that: the American Bar Association's Formal Opinion 512 on generative AI tools (July 29, 2024), and the Illinois Supreme Court's Policy on Artificial Intelligence, effective January 1, 2025, which holds lawyers to the existing rules when AI is used in work before Illinois courts.
If you want to know how a particular document was produced, who reviewed it and what was checked, ask. You will get a direct answer from a partner.
The interview and the first draft are automated. The judgment belongs to an attorney.
The standard every HDAi module carries
Frequently asked
Does HDAi give legal advice? +
Is my information used to train AI models? +
Who checks AI-assisted work at the firm? +
Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Firm policy statement · Not legal advice
Ask the people behind the machine.
If you want to know how a document was produced or who reviewed it, ask. A partner answers.