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OBSCURA for law firms and legal teams

A law firm’s files are other people’s confidences, and most free tools that redact, compare or merge a PDF want it uploaded first. These do the same jobs inside the browser tab, on the machine the file is already on. Here is which tool fits which job, what it costs a firm, and what it does not do.

The applications a firm works in

The single tools further down each do one job on one file. These four are applications, for work that runs for the life of a matter. Each is paid for, on its own or with the rest of Pro, and each keeps its work in the browser on the computer it runs on: there is no firm server and no shared database behind any of them.

OBSCURA Case

Review and production for a matter’s email and documents. Outlook PST and OST, MSG, EML and MBOX, PDFs and Office files are loaded for each custodian, deduplicated and threaded, searched with Boolean and proximity terms, and coded Responsive, Privileged or Hot. A privilege screen flags documents to or from your lawyers’ domains for a person to check. Redactions are kept apart from the original until production, which is Bates numbered, with natives, a Concordance DAT and Opticon OPT, a production log and a privilege log, and every step goes into an audit trail chained by SHA-256.

One browser holds a case: a second reviewer works in a copy and their coding is merged back, with every conflict shown. Production runs at four to eight pages a second, so ten thousand pages take twenty to forty minutes.

OBSCURA Practice

Clients, matters and the conflict check made before a matter opens, which catches short forms, spelling variants and names written in Cyrillic or Greek, and records what was decided and why. Time in six-minute units, pre-bills, invoices with VAT, a client ledger for each matter that cannot go below zero, and a three-way reconciliation of the client account against the bank statement. Key dates, and limitation periods for England and Wales with the section shown.

One person to a copy: fee earners send their time as a file to be merged. It keeps the records; it does not make a firm compliant with the SRA Accounts Rules or any other regulator’s.

OBSCURA PDF Studio

The PDF work a bundle needs beyond the free PDF editor: Bates numbers, headers and footers on a batch of files at once, scans made searchable, two versions compared word by word, and redaction by pattern (National Insurance and card numbers, IBANs, email addresses, or your own list of names) that takes the words out of the file rather than covering them. Signatures made with your own certificate, and every signature already in a file checked.

A pattern misses a number written in an unusual way or split across two lines; read the list of matches before you redact.

OBSCURA Keep

Each fee earner’s own logins and two-step codes for the court and registry portals and the bank, and the identity documents and practising certificates they are asked to produce, encrypted on their own device with Argon2id and AES-256-GCM. Renewal dates sit on one timeline.

Keep belongs to one person and syncs only through a folder of their own. There is no shared firm vault, and no browser extension that fills passwords in.

Where legal work goes wrong with files

Names in capitals are single tools: free to open and to check a file with, and Pro to save the result. A name marked Pro is a service inside the Sovereign Suite, which is Pro as a whole.

A redaction that only covers the words

A black rectangle drawn over a PDF is a shape on top of the page. The text underneath is still in the file, and anybody who selects it can copy it out. Nothing on the screen shows the difference.

  • SEAL: rebuilds each page from its painted pixels, so the exported PDF has no text layer and nothing under the boxes
  • X-RAY: checks a PDF you received, or are about to send, for text still sitting under a black box
  • REDACTLOG: the schedule that goes with it: each passage withheld, the ground relied on, why it applies and who decided
  • FLATTEN: burns a filled-in form into the page, so the answers cannot be edited or read back out as fields

Read first: how a redaction fails and redacting for discovery.

Metadata and tracked changes that travel with the draft

A Word file keeps the author’s account name, who saved it last, the comments, and text deleted under tracked changes. A draft sent to the other side can carry the last negotiating position inside it.

  • X-RAY: who wrote it, what was deleted, and whether it contacts a server when opened
  • DOCSCRUB: takes the author, comments and tracked changes out of a Word .docx
  • SCRUB: the same for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and the author and producer out of a PDF
  • LINEAGE: the editing sessions Word records against each passage, and passages pasted from elsewhere
  • STRATA: every earlier version kept inside a PDF that was saved by appending, and what changed between them

Read first: what a Word document keeps.

The version that came back with a few small changes

The other side’s return is rarely marked up in full. The changes worth finding are the ones nobody mentioned.

  • REDLINE: compares two versions (.docx, PDF, text or Markdown) and shows every changed amount, shifted deadline and inserted clause
  • ABSTRACT: pulls renewal and termination deadlines, notice windows and expiry out of a contract as calendar reminders
  • PDFSIG: hashes the bytes a PDF signature covers and says whether the document was changed after it was signed
  • CLAUSE: a clause library, with numbering and cross-references that look after themselves

Exhibits, bundles and productions

Numbering, indexing and paginating is where an afternoon goes, and the online tools that do it keep a copy of the bundle.

  • EXHIBIT: PDFs, photographs and screenshots bound into one PDF with a Bates number on every page, exhibit stickers and a linked index
  • BUNDLE: a sectioned bundle, paginated straight through, with dividers, a linked index, bookmarks and a CSV of the index
  • STAPLE: merge, split, reorder and rotate PDFs, and number the pages
  • DOCKET: a disclosure schedule from a folder: every file with its type, size, dates and SHA-256
  • PRIVLOG: a privilege log, checked for duplicate numbers, missing bases and descriptions that say too much

Read first: Bates numbering a bundle without uploading it.

Handing files to a client or to counsel

Email is the route most files take, and an attachment is readable by every system it passes through.

  • Send a file securelyPro: seals files into one page that opens in any browser with a passphrase you send another way, or encrypts them to a public key
  • CAPSULE: the single tool behind it: an encrypted HTML file the recipient opens with nothing installed
  • PADLOCK: puts an AES-256 password on a PDF, or takes one off that you hold the password for
  • WATERMARK: the recipient’s name across every page, so a copy that turns up says which one it was
  • LOCKBOX: watermarked previews and a list of contents now, and the originals when you send the key: built for work released against payment

Around the file

The registers and counts that sit beside the documents.

  • DIARY: counts calendar, business or clear days to a deadline, skipping the public holidays of the place you pick, and shows its working
  • HOLD: writes a litigation hold notice, keeps the register of who acknowledged it, and writes the release
  • CONFLICT: a register of interests, and which decisions somebody should have stepped out of
  • COSTS: time and disbursements, with totals by fee earner, phase and task, and VAT at your rate
  • UNITS: pasted time entries turned into six-minute units at each fee earner’s rate, with rounding by entry set beside rounding by total
  • TIMELINE: a chronology with the source and basis of every entry, each tied to its file by SHA-256
  • WITNESS: a witness statement in numbered paragraphs, each marked with whether the witness saw it or was told it

Why it matters that the file stays on the machine

Privileged material and a client’s confidential information are the files a firm is most expected to keep under its control. When a web tool works on a file, the file is sent to that tool’s server and kept there under its terms: for how long, by whom, and where, are answers somebody at the firm then has to find.

Privilege and confidentiality both turn on who has had the document. An online redaction, comparison or review service is a party the client never instructed: it receives the file, its host stores it, and its staff and its own suppliers can reach it on terms the firm did not negotiate. If that service is breached or served with an order, the client’s papers are among what it holds.

Here the file is opened from the disk, worked on in the tab’s memory and saved back to the disk. That is as true of Case and Practice as of the single tools: a matter’s mailboxes, its bills and its client ledger stay in the browser on the firm’s computer. There is no upload step and no copy held by us, so for the documents there is no third party in the chain to assess. You can check that rather than take it on trust: open the browser’s network tab, run a document through SEAL and watch that nothing leaves. The verification page sets out that test and the offline one.

What does reach a server is set out on the sub-processor page: the requests for the pages themselves, as for any website, and Cloudflare Web Analytics’ record that a page was viewed. A paid application also sends its Pro key when it fetches its code, so the server can see it is paid for. None of it is a client’s file.

What this does not settle is whether a particular use meets your professional rules, your client’s instructions or a court’s order. Those remain the firm’s to judge. It takes one question off the list: where the file went.

A worked example: a disclosure batch

A trainee has a folder of documents to produce by Friday, some of them to be redacted. On one laptop:

  1. DOCKET lists the folder: every file with its type, size and SHA-256, so the schedule records exactly which copies were reviewed.
  2. Each Word file goes through X-RAY. One carries a partner’s comment and three paragraphs deleted under tracked changes; DOCSCRUB takes them out, and the clean copy is saved beside the original.
  3. The documents to be redacted go through SEAL. Each exported page is rebuilt from pixels, so nothing survives under the boxes, and the text is no longer selectable, which is the price of the redaction being real. REDACTLOG records each redaction and its ground.
  4. X-RAY again, on the finished PDFs, as the last check before anything is served.
  5. EXHIBIT binds them into one PDF with Bates numbers and a linked index, and it goes to counsel through Send a file securely, with the passphrase sent by text message.

The only things that crossed the network were the pages of the tools, and the sealed file the trainee chose to email. A production too large to work through file by file, such as two custodians’ mailboxes, goes through Case instead, which searches, codes, redacts and produces it with load files in the same way: on the one laptop.

What it costs a firm

Every tool above is free to open and to check a document with, so a firm can see what they find before paying anything. Saving the redacted PDF, the clean copy or the bundle is Pro.

Free, for everyone
The Workspace: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Notes, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Plan, Drive and the PDF editor, at work as well as at home. And every single tool on this page, to open a file and see what it finds, with no account.
One application, for one person
US$4 a month or US$35 a year, with 7 days free: Case, Practice, PDF Studio or Keep on its own, whichever the firm works in.
Pro, for one person
US$9 a month or US$79 a year, with 7 days free. Every application, and saving the result in every tool outside the Workspace.
More than one person
For now each person needs a plan of their own: a key is for one person, on every browser they use. Plans for a team or a business are not offered at the moment. A firm that already has one keeps it, and whoever holds its key goes on adding people and taking them off at /seats.
Not included
No admin console, single sign-on, audit log or shared team storage: each person’s work stays on their own machine. The page for teams lists the rest, with the answers a security reviewer will ask for.

Checkout is Stripe’s: the card is asked for at the start and not charged until the seven days are over, and if you cancel before then nothing is paid.

See the plans, 7 days free Try SEAL free Ask a question

Questions

Is a SEAL redaction permanent?

In the file it exports, yes. Each page is rebuilt from its painted pixels, so there is no text layer and nothing beneath the boxes to recover. The original on your disk is not changed; keep it or delete it as your own process requires.

Can we use it on privileged documents?

The tools never send the file anywhere, and you can confirm that in the browser’s network tab. Whether a particular use fits the firm’s obligations is for the firm to decide. This page describes software; it is not legal advice.

Does it replace a document management or e-disclosure platform?

Not for a large review team. Case reviews and produces a matter on one machine, with its own audit trail, and reviewers pass the case between them as files; there is no hosted review space where dozens of reviewers code at once. Practice keeps a firm’s matters, time and client account one person to a copy. Neither is a document management system.

Will a bundle match our court’s format?

Not necessarily, and no tool can promise that. Numbering, sticker placement and the form of the index vary by jurisdiction and by court. The practice direction that applies to you is the authority; EXHIBIT and BUNDLE give you a consistently numbered, indexed PDF to check against it.

How does one key work for the whole team?

Each person adds the same key under Sign in on the Pro page. It is checked on their own machine, and the only time it leaves is when a Pro feature’s code is fetched, so the server can see it is paid for. Documents never do.

Does it work without a connection?

Each tool keeps working once its page has loaded. The heavier ones, such as the PDF engine behind SEAL, fetch a library from obscuraos.com the first time and keep it on the device afterwards. Installing it keeps a copy that opens offline.

Guides for this work

Questions this work runs into, each answered in full and ending at the tool that does the job.

The same tools, for other work

This page describes what the tools do. It is not legal advice, and nothing on it says that using them satisfies any professional, regulatory or court rule.