M
Matey
Matey is an AI discovery analysis platform from MateyAI, Inc. of Austin, Texas, built for criminal defense. Its flagship product, CrimD, takes in case discovery of any kind, including scanned documents, email archives, text messages, jail call recordings, surveillance footage, and body camera video and audio. It transcribes media automatically and sorts documents into the user's folders as they arrive. Defense teams can ask questions in plain language, build timelines and draft outlines for motions and trial, with answers linked back to the underlying evidence.
The company sells to public defender offices, private criminal defense firms and government agencies, and in 2026 began marketing the platform to civil litigators for deposition preparation, motion drafting and mediation. Its FAQ says the platform can be tailored to civil litigation, corporate and forensic investigation work. Its site shows an affinity partnership with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and in October 2025 it was named SCACDL's exclusive AI partner for eDiscovery. Matey raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Timespan Ventures in August 2025. Pricing is not published.
Matey, head to head
Side by side on the same 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals: where the two part company, and what neither one publishes.
Alternatives to Matey
Other products that do the same kind of work as Matey, and what each one does.
- JJusticeTextJusticeText is an evidence review platform for criminal defense attorneys, built mainly for public defender offices by JusticeText Inc.
- WWexler AIWexler is a fact intelligence platform for disputes and investigations teams. It reads a document set and turns it into structured facts, each tied to its source, that can be searched and tagged.
- TTrialKitTrialKit is an AI discovery platform from TrialKit Inc. of Clifton, New Jersey, built by attorneys for criminal defense and litigation teams.
- CCloud CourtCloud Court makes Gibson, testimony intelligence software that turns deposition and trial transcripts into searchable, analyzable data for litigation teams.
- OOpus 2Opus 2 is a platform for running commercial disputes from client instruction to the hearing room, built around case preparation, collaboration and live proceedings rather than document review.
- RRevRev, from Rev.com, Inc. of Austin, Texas, is an investigative intelligence and legal transcription platform for criminal prosecution and defense teams, civil law firms, law enforcement and…
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.
CrimD's ingestion, automatic transcription of audio and video, classification of documents into folders on arrival, questions in plain language across the whole case, timeline building and document summaries are all model work. The company describes the platform as a knowledge graph explored by AI. Beside the models, the product includes a file viewer with video annotation.
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.
Matey's home page says answers to questions are traceable to case evidence, and the product page says users can view and navigate directly to all supporting documents and citations. A post of 31 October 2025 says every answer includes clickable citations that link to the exact page or timestamp in the materials, and that a Citations tab shows every piece of material the AI relied on. The August 2025 funding announcement adds that the platform reads and reasons through actual case materials rather than producing case law, with audit trails.
A July 2025 post says Matey answers only from the materials uploaded and claims "No Hallucinations". No accuracy figures, test set or error rate are published, and the product page's claim that its summaries are superior to general language models carries no evidence.
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.
The product page describes deploying large numbers of AI agents across millions of documents. The check it offers the lawyer is that answers and timelines link back to the supporting evidence, which a Citations tab lists. The funding announcement and a post of 16 October 2025 mention audit trails that record every step. Matey's blog says the answer should not replace the lawyer's review but point the lawyer to the material that needs review (May 2026), that lawyers still lead strategy (August 2025), and that whoever uses AI in legal work is responsible for verifying what it produces (October 2025).
No override, no threshold at which the system defers to a person, and no limit on what its output may be relied on for is described.
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.
A release of 23 September 2025 names the Michigan criminal defense firm Manley & Manley, PLLC as a user. It quotes one of its trial attorneys on condensing 34,000 pages of discovery to 10 relevant pages and finding a body camera statement during cross examination. The True North pro bono program, announced on 18 November 2025, quotes Joe Trigilio of Loyola's Project for the Innocent and investigator Ryan Fleming of Variant Investigations and Consulting, without figures.
The headline figures, 90 percent faster discovery review, more than $40,000 saved per case, 30 hours of discovery in 30 minutes and three times faster trial preparation, are attributed only to an unnamed public defender office or carry no customer, and no method is given. The site's other quotes are from an unnamed public defender and deputy director.
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.
The security page promises the highest security standards, encryption in transit and at rest, role based access, multifactor authentication and data anonymization and masking. Matey's FAQ says the company has special agreements with Microsoft and other entities to ensure confidentiality, without saying what they provide. Blog posts from July 2025 to April 2026 say Matey does not train its models on customer data and that role based access keeps sensitive cases compartmentalized.
The website terms say the platform is governed by separate service agreements or customer contracts, and the website privacy policy points to a separate platform privacy policy and End User License Agreement. The agreement and platform privacy policy that govern the product are not published. Nothing public addresses which outside providers handle case material, or how privileged material and work product are treated.
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.
No published page states what the product is and is not, or that its answers and analysis are not legal advice. A Matey blog post of 3 November 2025 says the system is designed around the core ethical duties of competence, confidentiality, supervision and candor to the court, without saying how the product supports a defense lawyer's supervision and competence duties. The website terms limit use of the site to people at least 18 years old. The agreement that governs the product is not published.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
No AI governance framework, owner, testing before release or bias disclosure is published. Matey's trust center lists security and operational controls, the funding announcement claims full explainability, and a post of 25 November 2025 says everything Matey does is auditable and explainable, not a black box. A post of 6 November 2025 says objectivity is built into every layer of the system. None of these describes how the models are governed. The product analyzes witness statements and body camera footage.
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.
Matey's trust center shows that the company maintains a data retention and disposal policy and removes customer data on request in line with agreed customer requirements. It keeps production data out of development and testing unless debugging a customer issue requires it, has an incident response plan and vendor risk management, and has bought cybersecurity insurance. The security page adds encryption, role based access and data masking.
The policies themselves, any retention period, any subprocessor list and any breach notification commitment are not published. The website privacy policy expressly excludes the platform and names only website tools such as Webflow, Google Analytics and HubSpot.
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.
The agreement that governs the product is not published, so nothing states who bears the loss when an answer or timeline is wrong. The website terms, effective 1 January 2025 and last updated 1 August 2025, cap liability at $100 and provide the site as is, but apply only to the website and say so.
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.
Matey's FAQ says the platform integrates seamlessly with existing legal software and supports various legal tools and databases, but no integration is named or described in the FAQ or in the 2026 blog posts. Evidence arrives by upload.
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.
No deployment option, hosting provider, region or residency is stated on the security page or in the FAQ. The FAQ's reference to special agreements with Microsoft does not say where case data is stored or processed.
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.
The trust center, run on Secureframe with continuous control monitoring, offers a 2025 ISO 27001 certificate, the 2025 initial certification audit report and a 2026 SOC 2 Type 2 audit report on request. It lists controls across change management, availability, confidentiality, incident response, network and access security. The security page and about page label their badge SOC 2 Non-CPA. The auditor and the scope of the certification and of the audit are not stated, and the reports are available only on request.
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 product page refers to the industry's most capable AI and a densely connected knowledge graph, and Matey's FAQ mentions special agreements with Microsoft and other entities. A July 2025 post says Matey did not put an interface on OpenAI's API and call it a legal assistant, and that it fine tunes its pipeline for legal nuance, evidence structure and discovery formats. No model, provider, hosting location or change notice is named.
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.
No price, tier or unit of charge is published. Matey's FAQ says CrimD was built to be affordable for individual criminal defense lawyers, and a post of 30 July 2025 says Matey charges no fees per gigabyte, offers unlimited hosting, and includes processing and AI features at no extra cost. Every route to a figure is a demo or sales request.
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 core buyer is criminal defense, from individual defense lawyers and firms to public defender offices, with government agencies also named as users. Matey's site shows an affinity partnership with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the True North program offers pro bono access to innocence organizations, advocacy teams and capital defenders. Posts from April and May 2026 market the platform to civil litigators for deposition preparation, motion drafting and mediation.
The FAQ widens it to civil litigation, corporate law and forensic investigations, and the about page adds corporate legal departments and litigation funders, without saying how the product differs for them. No limits on case size, evidence type or jurisdiction are stated.
4 public documents
The public pages on file for Matey, 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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trust.matey.ai1 signal
Prompt and Output Retention
Read Sep 22, 2026
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Fabricated Citation Record
Read Sep 22, 2026
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Bar Guidance Alignment
Read Oct 7, 2026
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Client Data in Training
Read Oct 7, 2026
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.
Matey's blog says Matey does not train models on customer data (23 April 2026), that customer data is not used to train Matey's models (25 November 2025), and that customer files are not used to train anything, ever (11 July 2025). The agreement and privacy policy that govern the platform are not published. The website terms and website privacy policy both say the platform is covered by separate customer agreements and an End User License Agreement, and neither appears on the site, so the statement is not matched by a contractual term.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
The customer controls the retention window, by product configuration or by contractual instruction, but zero retention is not stated as available.
Matey's trust center says that on customer request, data no longer needed is removed in line with requirements agreed with the customer, and that a data retention and disposal policy governs how customer data is kept and disposed of. The policy itself and any retention period are not published, and no option for zero retention is described.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Segregation is asserted in public materials with no published detail on how it is enforced.
The security page lists role based access control that restricts sensitive data to authorized personnel, and Matey's trust center lists access controls. A post of 25 November 2025 says role based access keeps sensitive cases compartmentalized, and an April 2026 post says customers control access and sharing. Nothing published describes how access is scoped between cases, matters or teams within a customer, or how it is enforced.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
No located term or policy addresses third party requests for customer data.
The website privacy policy reserves sharing personal information with legal or regulatory authorities when required by law, but it expressly excludes the platform. Nothing in the website terms, the website privacy policy, the security page or the trust center addresses legal requests for case data held in the product.
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.
The product works on the discovery each customer uploads, and no body of primary law behind its output is identified on the home page, the product page or the FAQ.
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.
The product analyzes case evidence rather than citing legal authority. Nothing on the home page, the product page or the FAQ addresses checking authority for subsequent history.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
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.
Answers link to supporting evidence, and a post of 31 October 2025 describes the system as closed loop, using only the data the customer provides. No confidence indicator, and no path in which the system declines to answer a question the evidence does not support, is described on the home page, the product page or the FAQ.
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.
The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin records no case involving Matey or CrimD. No court order, opinion or disciplinary record naming the product is on the public record.
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.
A Matey blog post of 3 November 2025 says the system is designed around the core ethical duties of competence, confidentiality, supervision and candor to the court, and a post of 16 October 2025 says whoever uses AI in legal work is responsible for verifying what it produces. No ethics opinion is named. The affinity partnership with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is a commercial relationship, not guidance.
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 company claims 90 percent time savings on discovery review and more than $40,000 saved per case, and the home page quotes a deputy director on $30,000 of case setup labor replaced. Nothing addresses how work done with AI is billed or disclosed by the private defense firms that use it. Public defender offices bill no client.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
No located public material supports a client side disclosure obligation.
No subprocessor or model provider list is published on the home page, the security page, the FAQ or the trust center. The FAQ refers only to special agreements with Microsoft and other entities.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Some elements of the record are available, short of a document level export.
Answers and timelines link back to the supporting evidence, and the company says the platform keeps audit trails, with structured logs, timestamps, user actions and document histories (25 November 2025). No export of a record showing the model used, the sources and the human check is described, and no disclosure guidance or template is published.