A production set can carry author names, tracked changes and privilege labels you never meant to send.
Free · Runs on your computer · No account
PrivSweep scans a file or folder for privileged content, client PII and confidential metadata. Nothing you scan leaves your machine.
One email with links for Windows, macOS and Linux.
PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL
Client Jane Q. Example, born 01/02/1960, SSN 123-45-6789, wants the draft sent to jane@example.com.
Practical Legal Tech
How it works
Three moments to scan first
A production set can carry author names, tracked changes and privilege labels you never meant to send.
Names and numbers go into the prompt with the text. Find them first, then decide what to strip.
A public repository is indexed and copied. A private one still gets shared. Scan, then commit.
Before and after
MEMORANDUM PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL
Client Jane Q. Example asked us to confirm that account 9876543210 can be released once her brother Tom signs.
Born 01/02/1960. SSN 123-45-6789. Reach her at jane@example.com.
BEFORESynthetic memo. Every item highlighted on the left was flagged in a real PrivSweep 1.0.0 scan. The blacked-out version shows the result once you remove them.
Where your file goes during the check
The difference
| Paste it blind | Scan first with PrivSweep | |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security and account numbers | Nothing checks | Pattern layer flags them |
| Dates of birth (when labeled), phones, emails | Nothing checks | Pattern layer flags them |
| Client names inside the prose | Easy to miss | Local AI model reads for names |
| Privilege labels | Easy to miss | Flagged when the file carries one |
| Hidden metadata in the file | Invisible | Authors, comments, tracked changes, photo GPS |
| Where your file goes during the check | n/a | Nowhere. It stays on your computer. |
Why lawyers should care
ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) asks lawyers to make reasonable efforts to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of client information. ABA Formal Opinion 512, issued in 2024, applies that duty to generative AI tools.
A scan before you paste or send is a reasonable effort you can describe to a client, a partner or a disciplinary counsel. Read how we handle it in our AI Use Policy.
Try the pattern layer
This box runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. Use sample text, not real client data.
0
patterns found
This box runs five of the pattern checks. The real tool also checks cards, routing and EIN numbers, addresses, case numbers and privilege labels, reads file metadata, and uses a local AI model to find names in prose.
60-second exposure check
Tick what applies
Your answers stay in this browser tab.
We build tools to run our practice. Some of them are useful to other lawyers, and to anyone working with AI regularly. This page is where we share them.
Everything here is free. We’re not selling anything. We built these for ourselves, they work, and there’s no reason to keep them in a drawer.
These resources reflect how we practice. For more on our approach to technology, see our AI Use Policy.
Difficulty levels: BEG beginner · INT intermediate · EXP expert. Click any title to jump to its full description below.
Tool · Free by email
PrivSweep scans a file or folder for privileged content, client PII, and confidential metadata before you send it to a public AI chatbot, a public code repository, or an outbound email. A pattern layer finds Social Security and account numbers, dates of birth, phones, emails, and privilege labels; a local AI model reads the prose for names. Everything runs on your computer; nothing you scan is uploaded. It ships as readable Python so you can check what it does.
Enter your email and the download links for Windows, macOS (Apple silicon), and Linux arrive in a welcome message from hello@practicallegaltech.com.
Guide · AI Workflow
A shared AI client memory system that tracks and logs your client AI work so nothing is forgotten and billing is easy. As you add information to the memory, Claude gets smarter about the case: learning facts, caselaw, and prior work. Run every filing through it and Claude starts catching factual errors, citation errors, and inconsistencies you might have missed. Includes a single copy-paste prompt that builds the whole system, plus sample client files, archive structure, and practice management notes.
Requires an MCP server connection and a running session memory system.
Guide · AI Workflow
Claude doesn't remember anything between conversations. This guide explains how to fix that with a simple file-based session memory system: read at the start, update at the end. Includes a starter template, archive protocol, confidentiality considerations for lawyers, text expander setup, and multi-user scaling.
Works for any Claude user. Written for lawyers, but the system applies to anyone doing ongoing project work with AI.
Guide · Infrastructure
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is how you give Claude direct access to your servers, databases, and APIs. This guide shows you how to get a working MCP server running, starting with a prompt you hand to Claude that builds the whole thing for you. Covers security, reverse proxies, systemd services, and common tool patterns for files, databases, WordPress, and practice management systems.
No coding experience required. Claude builds the server. You deploy it once. After that, Claude maintains it through the tools it just built.
Guide · Document Assembly
Your old Word macro templates still work. The language is proven, the logic is sound. This guide shows you how to use Claude to extract that logic and convert it into two clean components: an HTML intake form and a Jinja2 template that assembles your documents. Includes step-by-step Claude prompts, testing strategies, and instructions for setting up a local web app to run the whole thing on your own machine.
No coding experience required. No subscriptions. No AI generating your document language. The template stays yours.
Guide · Intermediate
Rewritten for GPT Image 2.5 (Sunburst and Flare): model selection, every parameter, and per-image costs measured against the live API.
Claude Skill · Practice Management
A router-style Claude skill for the MyCase practice management API. Covers OAuth and token management, creating leads, clients, and cases, document upload and download, notes/tasks/events, time entries and billing, webhooks, and the full intake-portal → MyCase handoff workflow. Each task loads only the one reference file it needs, so the skill stays light in context.
Includes the hard-won gotchas: silent practice-area blanking when a value doesn’t match exactly, deprecated fields to avoid, required timezone offsets on timestamps, download URLs that expire in 60 seconds, and the firm permission that controls 403s.
Ships with no credentials. You add your own MyCase OAuth client_id and client_secret (obtained from MyCase support) via environment variables; setup steps are in the skill’s SKILL.md.
Tool · Intermediate
A single-file browser tool that transcribes audio locally with Whisper. Nothing uploads, so client audio is never disclosed. Includes the working HTML and the walkthrough.
Tool · Intermediate
My Grok Bot team was running $259 a week in overages. Cop is a bot whose one job is watching the others; since it went to work, the fleet hasn’t gone over its limits.
Every weekday morning Cop reads each bot’s scheduled routines, counts the runs, and flags anything firing more than twice a day or hitting usage limits. Its first audit found 155 scheduled runs a weekday. The cuts it proposed brought that to about 25.
Cop doesn’t edit other bots. It sends you the cut, the schedule and the runs saved, then waits for your approval. When the fleet is clean, it says nothing.
This is the Grok Bot export with my details stripped. Load it and point it at your own fleet.
Real-world guides from our own setup, including the mistakes we made so you don't have to. Beginner through expert. Every guide includes prompts you can hand directly to AI to get help with the task, even if you don't fully understand it yet.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Windows has two completely separate remote-access systems that live near each other in the documentation. Most guides on the internet mix them up. This guide documents exactly what went wrong (WinRM, CIM errors, wrong Optional Features, firewall) so you don't have to learn it the same way.
Tech Tip · Beginner/Intermediate
The step-by-step version. Covers installing OpenSSH Server the right way, starting the service, opening the firewall (the step everyone misses), testing locally, and connecting from another machine. Includes a quick-reference table for every command.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Linux does this right. Four commands, three minutes, done. Covers install, verifying the service is running, opening the firewall, finding your IP, and connecting from another machine. Includes key-based auth so you never type a password again.
Tech Tip · Beginner
If you can use SSH, you already have SCP; it copies files over the same encrypted connection, with no cloud and no third-party upload site. Covers the command shape, sending a file up, pulling one down, whole folders with -r, the colon mistake that catches most beginners, and the capital -P port flag. Includes a quick-reference table and a prompt you can hand to AI.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
The simplest automation tool that already exists on every Linux server. Covers what cron is, how to read the five-field syntax, common schedule examples, how to edit your crontab, how to capture output to a log, and three gotchas that trip everyone up (full paths, server time zones, test before you cron).
Tech Tip · Beginner/Intermediate
Most software asks. A webhook is the other system telling you when something happens. Covers the plain-English explanation, how the five-step flow works, how to receive one in n8n (no code) and Python, how to test without a live server, and the security note everyone skips.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
The open-source DocuSign replacement you run in Docker. Signed fee agreements and client PII stay on your own server; no per-signature fees.
Tech Tip · Beginner
A long job dies the moment your laptop sleeps or your wifi drops. tmux runs it on the server instead; four commands, and a dropped connection stops costing you the whole run.
Tech Tip · Beginner
SSH in plain English: a private, encrypted line that lets you control a server by typing. The client/server idea, your first connection, and why the command line is about power and access. SSH series, part 1 of 3.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Replace the password with a key: more secure and less typing. Make a key pair, put the public half on the server, and stop typing passwords for good. SSH series, part 2 of 3.
Tech Tip · Beginner
One config file turns a long SSH command into a two-word alias that also works for scp, rsync, and git. SSH series, part 3 of 3.
Tech Tip · Beginner
GitHub is where the world’s software lives, and it’s more useful to non-developers than most people realize. Covers the difference between Git and GitHub, what GitHub does (with the features most people skip), how to use it as a search and research tool, stars and watching for staying current on projects, and how GitHub compares to the alternatives.
Tech Tip · Beginner/Intermediate
A repo is a project folder with a complete history of every change ever made to it. Covers what a repo is, how to create one and link it to a folder on your computer, the three-step commit cycle (stage, commit, push), how to search GitHub effectively, how to share public and private repos, cloning others’ work, and why your README matters.
Tech Tip · Beginner
The right way, including what to decide before you sign up (username is permanent, choose carefully), the eight-step setup sequence, why 2FA is non-negotiable, installing Git on your computer and telling it who you are, SSH vs. HTTPS authentication for pushing code, and a plain comparison of free vs. paid plans (the free plan is enough).
Tech Tip · Intermediate
Your bar rules apply to GitHub. Covers ABA Rules 1.1, 1.6, and 5.3, Formal Opinion 512 (2024), what GitHub does with your code, the complete list of what never goes on GitHub, a .gitignore template for law practice projects, GitHub’s ToS for lawyers, a public/private decision framework by project type, and exactly what to do if you accidentally push sensitive data.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
The undo button that works. Covers five real scenarios: discarding unsaved changes, undoing the last commit (keep or delete the work), reverting to a specific older commit, and viewing old versions without changing anything. Explains the difference between safe (revert) and dangerous (reset --hard). Includes a quick-reference table for every situation.
Tech Tip · Beginner
The atomic save. What a commit is, and how to write messages you can read six months later.
Tech Tip · Beginner
The everyday loop: get a repo onto your machine, sync changes down, send yours back up.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
Change anything without breaking what works. Try an idea on a copy and keep the working version safe.
Tech Tip · Beginner
The files that must never reach GitHub: secrets and client data. ABA Rule 1.6 included.
Tech Tip · Beginner
A tour of the repo page, so every tab, button, and badge makes plain sense.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
Free static hosting straight from a repo, custom domain and all.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
When Git says CONFLICT, it wants you to pick which change stays. The four moves that turn a panic into a two-minute fix.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Images vs. containers, containers vs. VMs, where your data lives, and the commands you'll use every day. Part 1 of 2.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Every self-hosted tool worth running ships as a Docker image. The install for all three platforms, the licensing threshold that matters to a firm, and the five errors that stop most people. Part 2 of 2.
Tech Tip · Beginner
When something breaks, the log is usually the first place to look. Covers where logs live, how to read the last 50 lines, how to watch a log update in real time, what words to scan for (ERROR, Traceback, Permission denied), and how to search inside a log. Includes AI prompts for pasting log output and getting a diagnosis.
Tech Tip · Beginner
An API key is a password for a service. Exposed keys have generated thousands of dollars in charges within hours. Covers what it is, the wrong ways to store it, the right way using environment variables, the .gitignore rule, and exactly what to do if you accidentally expose one.
Tech Tip · Beginner/Intermediate
Every app needs secrets. The .env file is the standard solution: secrets in one file, separate from your code, never committed. Covers what it looks like, how your code reads it in Python and Node, the .gitignore rule, the .env.example pattern, and what to do if you accidentally committed one.
Tech Tip · Beginner/Intermediate
The tool that ships with every browser that most people never open. Covers how to open it, the four tabs you need (Console, Network, Elements, Application), HTTP status codes, and live CSS editing. If something on a web page is broken, this is where you find out why.
Tech Tip · Beginner
The one Word feature everything else is built on. Name your formatting once, reformat the whole document in a click.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Save a clause once and insert it in two keystrokes. Build the boilerplate library you keep stealing from old files.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Build your letterhead and pleading paper once, then spawn every new document from it. Where styles and Quick Parts come together.
Tech Tip · Beginner
Outlook signatures done right, plus three ways to reuse the emails you send all week. Stop retyping the same message.
Tech Tip · Intermediate
The hidden data inside every file, and why it matters in discovery. Check it, scrub it, and control what your documents reveal.
More resources coming. We'll add tools and guides here as we develop them.
Last updated: October 2026
Questions
No. It runs on your computer and nothing you scan is uploaded.
A pattern layer finds Social Security and account numbers, dates of birth, phones, emails and privilege labels. A local AI model reads the prose for names. It also checks for confidential metadata.
Nothing. It is free, and you get it by email.
Windows, macOS on Apple silicon, and Linux.
Yes. It ships as readable Python.
Enter your email. The download links arrive in a welcome message from hello@practicallegaltech.com.
Who built this
Patrick Nolan is a practicing Missouri attorney. Nolan Law Firm built these tools to run its own practice, and they work, so we are sharing them. Practical Legal Tech is published by Chariton Media.
Nolan Law Firm · Kirksville, Missouri · AI Use Policy
Free tech tips and working tools from a practicing attorney.
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