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Candle AI
Candle AI is an AI email assistant for law firms from Candle AI, Inc. of Austin, Texas, running inside Gmail and Outlook through a Chrome extension and an Outlook add-in. It sorts and prioritises incoming email, attaches the client, matter, deadlines and prior correspondence from the firm's case management system, drafts replies in the lawyer's voice grounded in the matter file, and logs email work as time and activity.
Its Candle Work agents go further, proposing record updates, filing documents to the matter and logging activity, which a user at the firm must approve before anything is sent, saved or filed. It connects to Clio, Filevine, MyCase, Docketwise, Mitratech INSZoom, Visalaw, Litify and Salesforce. The company says it is used by more than 60 law firms across practice areas, including immigration and personal injury firms.
The Clio App Directory lists pricing starting at $49 a month; the company's own site routes pricing questions to a demo.
Capability grades
All 15 axes, graded from public sources on the date shown. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
The AI does the headline work on top of an integration layer that would still run without it. Triage, drafting in the lawyer's voice and the Candle Work agents that propose record updates and filings are model work. Surfacing the client, matter and deadlines from the case management system, email templates and logging time are integration features that function without the models. Verified 22 September 2026.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Accuracy is asserted rather than shown. Drafts are described as grounded in the matter file and based on the matter information attached to the email, but no citation back to the source record appears in a draft, nothing describes how the draft is assembled, and no accuracy figures are published. The Terms of Service warn that output might not be accurate, comprehensive or current and should not be relied on as a source of truth. Verified 22 September 2026.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
A categorical approval gate on the actions that matter. The Security page states that a user at the firm must explicitly approve anything sent or filed, and that nothing is sent or filed without that approval; drafts are prepared for review and never sent automatically; and Candle Work shows exactly what it would change, such as record fields, a document filed to a matter or an activity logged, and holds the result with nothing saved until a user approves.
What runs without approval is also stated: triage, context retrieval and the capture of time and activity. Verified 22 September 2026.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Named customers and figures, kept apart. The home page says more than 60 law firms use the product and shows firms including Saiontz & Kirk, Minami Tamaki, Siskind Susser and Garfinkel Immigration Law Firm, and quotes C. Jason Baab of Graham-Hurd & Associates on discovering lost billable time. The figures, an hour saved per person per day, 70 per cent faster drafting, 75 per cent faster client responses and 80 per cent faster retrieval of matter data, carry no customer, date or method. Verified 22 September 2026.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Privilege is named in the agreement, and training is addressed on the security page. The Terms of Service, effective 5 June 2026, commit that Candle will not use attorney-client privileged information in user data as input to any non-Candle AI tool or to train any non-Candle model; the Security page adds that a firm's emails, matter details and client information are never used to train Candle's own models or models for another customer, and describes encryption, access controls and audit logging.
Short of the full picture: the terms also give Candle an irrevocable right to compile anonymous aggregated statistics from user data and to make them public, and nothing addresses separation between matters or users within a firm. Verified 22 September 2026.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
The advice question is addressed; the billing question the product raises is not. The Terms of Service state that material on the platform is not a substitute for professional legal advice and that output should not be relied on as a source of truth or used for decisions with legal consequences, and every draft needs a lawyer's approval before it is sent. The product also records email work as billable time automatically, and markets that time previously lost is now billed, but nothing published addresses the lawyer's duty to bill only for time actually spent when entries are machine-logged. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behaviour: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
Checked the home, Product and Security pages, the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy, the Content Policy and the trust centre on 22 September 2026. No AI governance framework, accountable owner, testing before release or bias disclosure was located; the Content Policy governs what users may post, not how the models are governed. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
Much of the ground is published. The Security page describes encryption in transit and at rest, access controls and audit logging around systems that process firm data, and hosting in the United States; the trust centre publishes control status, a subprocessor list with the service each provides and its hosting region, and a managed process for requesting security documents. No retention period for email or matter data and no incident notification commitment are published. Verified 22 September 2026.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
Only standard clauses. The Terms of Service cap Candle's liability at the amounts paid in the preceding 12 months, disclaim the accuracy of AI-generated output, and include no indemnity from Candle; disputes go to the courts of Delaware. Verified 22 September 2026.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Named integrations with the direction described. Candle runs inside Gmail and Outlook and connects to Clio, Filevine, MyCase, Docketwise, Mitratech INSZoom, Visalaw, Litify and Salesforce, reading client, matter, deadline and correspondence data into the inbox and, through Candle Work, writing record updates, filing documents to the matter and logging activity once a user approves. Smokeball, Neostella, iManage and NetDocuments are listed as coming soon.
No integration documentation describes what each connector syncs or what a firm must configure. Verified 22 September 2026.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Cloud, with the region stated. The Security page says customer data is hosted in the United States and that the subprocessor list identifies each provider's hosting region; the product runs as a Chrome extension and an Outlook add-in on top of the firm's existing email. No residency option, private deployment or tenancy choice is offered, and the terms say the service is intended only for users in the United States. Verified 22 September 2026.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
A named attestation with a request route. The Security page states that Candle has completed a SOC 2 Type II examination and maintains HIPAA compliance, and the trust centre shows both as complete, publishes control status and offers supporting documents through a managed request process. No auditor, report period or scope is stated. Verified 22 September 2026.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
The models are referred to, not identified. The Security page speaks of Candle's models, and no model, model provider or processing location is named; the subprocessor entries shown in the trust centre, AWS, Google Workspace and Google Cloud Identity, include no AI model provider. No commitment to notify customers of model changes is published. Verified 22 September 2026.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
An entry price is published on a marketplace, not on the company's own site. Candle's listing in the Clio App Directory, where Candle is the seller, states pricing starting at $49 per month in US dollars. The listing's link to view all plans now leads to a demo request, the company's own site publishes no pricing, and the unit of charge and higher tiers are not stated. Verified 22 September 2026.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
The buyer is law firms, across practice areas, with the customer list and integrations showing a particular base in immigration and personal injury work. The terms say the service is intended only for users in the United States. Firm size limits and practice areas the product does not suit are not stated. Verified 22 September 2026.
4 public documents
The public pages on file for Candle AI, with the recorded signals each one supports and the date it was last read. Open any of them and check the reading against the record.
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trycandle.ai/security2 signals
Client Data in Training, Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Read Sep 22, 2026
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Fabricated Citation Record
Read Sep 22, 2026
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trycandle.ai/privacy1 signal
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
Read Sep 22, 2026
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trycandle.ai/terms-of-service1 signal
Bar Guidance Alignment
Read Sep 22, 2026
From $49 per monthUSD, as published, never converted
- Candle's listing in the Clio app store says plans start at $49 a month.
- It does not say whether that price is per person or for the whole firm.
- Candle's own website does not show any prices and asks you to book a demo.
- The link to see all the plans now just goes to the demo page.
Clio App Directory listing, where Candle is the seller: "Starting at $49 per month USD". The unit of charge (per user or per firm) and higher tiers are not stated. The listing's "View all plans" link resolves to Candle's demo request page, and trycandle.ai publishes no pricing.
Implementation: None published.
Confidentiality and data terms: The Security page states HIPAA compliance and the trust centre marks HIPAA complete; no Business Associate Agreement or plan tier for it is published.
Note: The only published price is on Candle's Clio App Directory listing. The listing's link to view all plans leads to a demo request on Candle's site, which publishes no pricing, so the figure may not reflect current plans.
Legal Signals
What each signal meansA signal records what public sources say on the date shown. It is not a grade and it is not a recommendation. Where a signal reads Not addressed, it means the index did not locate the material in public sources on that date, which is a statement about disclosure rather than about the product.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
A public policy or trust page states no training on customer content, with no matching term located in the published agreement.
The Security page states that a firm's emails, matter details and client information are never used to train Candle's models or models for another customer. The Terms of Service, effective 5 June 2026, contain a narrower covenant, that privileged information in user data will not be used as input to or to train any non-Candle AI model, and reserve Candle an irrevocable right to compile anonymous aggregated statistics from user data, which it may make public.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
No located public material states how long prompts and outputs are retained.
Checked the Security page, the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and the trust centre on 22 September 2026. No retention period, deletion commitment or customer control over how long email content, drafts or matter data are kept is published.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
No located public material addresses walls or matter level segregation.
Checked the Security page, the Product page and the terms on 22 September 2026. Access controls are mentioned generally, but nothing addresses whether Candle respects ethical walls or matter permissions set in the connected case management systems when it surfaces context or drafts.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
Published terms or policy address disclosure to authorities or in response to legal process, and no commitment or reservation regarding customer notice is located anywhere. The vendor has told the customer that data can leave and has said nothing about whether the customer hears of it.
The Privacy Policy, effective 4 June 2026, reserves disclosure to comply with legal obligations, including to respond to a subpoena, warrant, court order or other legal process, or a formal or informal request from law enforcement or a government authority. No commitment or reservation regarding notice to the customer is located.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
No located public material identifies the corpus behind the product’s answers.
Checked the home and Product pages on 22 September 2026. The product works on the firm's own email and case management data, and no body of primary law behind its output is identified.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
No located public material addresses whether authority is checked for subsequent history.
Checked the home and Product pages on 22 September 2026. The product drafts correspondence from matter data rather than citing legal authority, and nothing addresses checking authority for subsequent history.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behaviour
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
No located public material addresses what the product does when it cannot ground an answer.
Checked the home, Product and Security pages on 22 September 2026. Every draft and proposed action waits for approval, but no confidence indicator or path in which the system declines to draft when the matter data is insufficient is described.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
No court order, opinion or disciplinary record addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations produced by this product has been located as of the date shown. This is a statement about the public record on that one subject, not a finding about the product, and this signal is not a litigation history.
Searched the AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin on 22 September 2026 for Candle, and no recorded case was returned. No court order, opinion or disciplinary record naming the product was located. This is a statement about the public record rather than a finding about the product.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Public materials refer to professional responsibility in general terms without naming guidance.
The Terms of Service state that material on the platform is not intended to substitute for professional legal advice and that output should not be relied on as a source of truth or as a substitute for professional or legal advice. No bar or ethics opinion is named.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
Public materials claim time savings without addressing billing or disclosure, and the product sits inside a fee relationship between a lawyer and a client where those savings would change the bill.
The product logs every email read, drafted and sent as billable time and activity automatically, and the company markets it as turning time that used to be lost into time that is billed, with an hour saved per person per day. Nothing addresses how machine-logged time should be reviewed before it reaches a client's invoice, or what the client is told; the time log is a record of work, not a record of which output the AI produced.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
A current subprocessor or model provider list is published.
The Security page says a current public subprocessor list, with each provider's service and hosting region, is kept in the trust centre, and the trust centre shows entries for AWS, Google Workspace and Google Cloud Identity. No AI model provider appears among the entries shown, and no client-facing disclosure pack on AI use is published.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
No located public material addresses court disclosure or verification certification.
Checked the home, Product and Security pages on 22 September 2026. No record of AI involvement in a filed document, export of that record or disclosure guidance is described.