Create the matter
Client, case type, forum — one of nine SA case types, from unlawful dismissal to eviction.
ClientN. Dlamini
Case typeUnlawful dismissal
ForumCCMA
MAT-2026-0042For South African law firms
Consultations transcribed, evidence understood, strategy argued, case law verified, bundles assembled — and an attorney approving every step.
AI never finalizes anything.
The problem
The truth of a matter arrives scattered — affidavits in email threads, admissions in voice notes, dates buried in WhatsApp exports. Paralegals drown in it; attorneys bill hours just finding it.
Ratio takes the mess as it comes, and hands your firm an ordered, cited, arguable record.
The pipeline
The consultation
Record or upload. Privileged by default: internal-only, excluded from bundles, unusable by AI until an attorney says otherwise.
transcribing · speaker-labelled · privileged
Evidence in
Documents, audio, images, exports — each item coded, hashed and privilege-marked on arrival.
EV-001founding_affidavit.pdf
EV-002voicenote_admission.m4a
EV-003whatsapp_export.zip
AI analysis
Facts, dates, entities, admissions, contradictions, risk — structured output, never a finding of record.
14facts extracted
6dated events
2admissions flagged
1contradiction found
Attorney review
Every AI output lands as a proposal. The attorney confirms, edits or rejects — the AI layer stays immutable underneath.
✓Fact 3 confirmed
✓Date of dismissal — edited
✕Fact 11 rejected
audit_log ← analysis.edit
The timeline
Confirmed events assemble into the matter's chronology. Attorneys lock it; later runs propose, never overwrite.
Strategy
Argument routes with risk and legislation cited — the Decision Engine cites acts, never invents case law.
AProcedural unfairness
BSubstantive unfairnessselected · attorney
CSettlement posture
Verified case law
SAFLII-sourced authorities only. Every citation and excerpt is checked against the fetched judgment before you ever see it.
Sidumo v Rustenburg Platinum [2007] ZACC 22
✓ verified · saflii.org
NEHAWU v UCT [2003] ZACC 2
✓ verified · saflii.org
Drafting
SA-style documents — numbered paragraphs, annexure references — assembled from confirmed facts and pinned authority.
1.
2.
3.
Annexure “A” — payslip, EV-004Bundle & sign-off
Paginated, indexed, privileged material excluded by construction — confirmed by an attorney, recorded in the audit log.
Confirmed · Attorney
The engines
Evidence & Context
Everything the matter knows.
- Speaker-labelled transcription
- Facts, dates & entity extraction
- Contradiction detection
- Privilege-aware by construction
- Attorney-locked timelines
Decision
From record to argument.
- Risk assessment per route
- Strategy options, legislation-cited
- SAFLII case-law research
- Citation verification gate
- Attorney selects — always
Output
Court-ready, attorney-signed.
- SA-style numbered drafting
- Annexure references built in
- Paginated, indexed bundles
- Privileged material excluded
- Sign-off writes the audit record
Evidence & context
Consultation_14_Feb.m4a — transcriptPrivileged
Attorney
When did they tell you not to come back?
Client
The supervisor phoned me on the 14th of February and said don't bother coming in Monday.
Attorney
Was there a disciplinary hearing before that call?
Client
No, nothing. There was never any hearing, they just said the decision was made.
Extracted
- FACTDismissal communicated by phone
- DATEDate of dismissal: 14 Feb 2026
- ADMISSIONNo disciplinary hearing held
Admission
Timeline candidates
14 Feb — dismissal call
No hearing held
Referral window opens
Proposed by AI · confirmed by the attorney before anything is locked
Lawyer in the loop
Every consequential step in Ratio is a gate that only an attorney can open. Not a policy. Not a setting. The API itself refuses.
Privilege flagsAttorney only
Timeline locksAttorney only
Strategy selectionAttorney only
Draft approvalAttorney only
Bundle confirmationAttorney only
Privileged by default
Consultations arrive internal-only, excluded from bundles, invisible to AI — until an attorney decides otherwise.
Append-only audit
Every consequential action writes an audit record. There is no update or delete path. Anywhere.
POPIA-aligned
Tenant-isolated storage, scoped queries at the database layer, and data handling built for South African law.
Verified citations
Case law comes from SAFLII and is checked against the fetched judgment before it is ever shown or drafted.
- SA case types
- 9
- pipeline stages
- 10
- of mutations audited
- 100%
Verified case law
Language models can invent convincing authority. Ours isn't allowed to: every citation is fetched from the source and verified — excerpt against judgment — before a lawyer ever sees it.
Sidumo v Rustenburg Platinum Mines
[2007] ZACC 22 · Constitutional Court
“…the commissioner is not given the power to consider afresh what he or she would do, but to decide whether what the employer did was fair.”
Excerpt matched against saflii.org — verified
Smith v Jones Holdings (Pty) Ltd
2019 (3) SA 123 (CC) · cited by a confident model
“…an employer may dispense with a hearing where operational urgency demands it.”
No such judgment — rejected
IN THE LABOUR COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
Case no JS 342/26 · MAT-2026-0042
Indexed bundle
- A — Pleadings ………………………………… 1
- B — Founding affidavit ………………… 14
- C — Annexures “A”–“F” ………………… 32
- D — Correspondence …………………… 78
- E — Authorities (verified) …………… 96
ConfirmedAttorney sign-off
The output
Paginated. Indexed. Signed by a human.
The bundle assembler refuses — loudly, in code — to include privileged or excluded material. What leaves this system is court-ready and attorney-confirmed, with the audit trail to prove it.
We're onboarding a limited number of South African firms. Tell us about your practice and we'll take it from there — no self-serve, no credit card, no AI deciding anything on its own.