Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about Barrow, how it works, and what to expect.
What Barrow Does
What is Barrow?
Barrow is a legal document analysis platform that helps attorneys and legal professionals quickly review, summarize, and understand legal documents. It uses AI to extract key information, identify risks, and answer questions about your documents.
What types of documents can I analyze?
Barrow is optimized for legal documents including contracts, agreements, court filings, discovery materials, leases, NDAs, and other legal instruments. We support PDF uploads up to 25MB.
What analysis outputs do I receive?
For each document, you receive: an executive summary, plain-language explanation, key clause identification with excerpts, risk flags with severity ratings, entity extraction (parties, dates, amounts, jurisdictions), and suggested next steps. You can also ask follow-up questions via our document chat feature.
How accurate is the AI analysis?
Our AI provides helpful analysis to accelerate document review, but it is not perfect. AI-generated outputs may contain errors, omissions, or misinterpretations. All analysis should be reviewed and verified by a licensed attorney before reliance. We provide citations to help you verify findings against the source text.
Can I ask questions about my documents?
Yes. Our document chat feature lets you ask natural language questions about uploaded documents. Responses are grounded in the document content and include citations so you can verify the answers.
What Barrow Does NOT Do
Does Barrow provide legal advice?
No. Barrow is an informational tool only and does not provide legal advice. All outputs are for research and review purposes and must be verified by a licensed attorney. The platform does not replace professional legal judgment.
Does Barrow draft or modify documents?
No. Barrow analyzes existing documents but does not draft new documents, suggest edits, or modify your files. It is a review and analysis tool, not a document creation tool.
Does Barrow guarantee completeness or accuracy?
No. While we strive for high-quality analysis, we do not guarantee that the AI will identify every issue, clause, or risk in a document. AI can miss nuances, misinterpret context, or make errors. Always perform your own thorough review.
Does Barrow use my documents to train AI models?
No. We do not use your uploaded documents, extracted text, or any derived data to train, fine-tune, or improve our AI models. Your documents are processed solely to deliver your analysis results and are never used for machine learning purposes.
Does Barrow store my documents permanently?
No. Documents are automatically deleted after your configured retention window (24 hours by default, or 7 days if enabled). You can also delete documents immediately at any time. We practice ephemeral processing—your data is not stored long-term.
Data & Privacy
How is my data processed?
All document analysis is performed using our managed AI platform with secure, vendor-hosted AI services for OCR and document analysis. Your documents are processed within the retention window you configure and then automatically deleted.
What happens after my document is deleted?
Once deleted (automatically or via 'Delete Now'), the source file, extracted text, embeddings, and all derived data are permanently removed. If you have memo outputs enabled, summaries and highlights may remain. The chat function cannot provide document-grounded answers for deleted documents.
Can I retrieve a document after deletion?
No. Once a document is deleted, it cannot be recovered. You would need to re-upload the document to perform new analysis or ask document-grounded questions.
Who can access my organization's data?
Only authenticated members of your organization can access your matters, documents, and analyses. We enforce strict tenant isolation at the API level. Our staff does not access customer documents except as required for technical support with explicit permission.
Is my data encrypted?
Yes. All data is encrypted in transit using TLS and encrypted at rest. We use time-limited signed URLs for file access, and no document content is stored in logs or analytics.
Features & Usage
How do I organize my documents?
Documents are organized into 'Matters' which represent cases, deals, or projects. Each matter can contain multiple documents. You can add tags and notes to matters for easy organization.
What is the document chat feature?
Document chat allows you to have a conversation about your uploaded documents. You can ask questions like 'What are the termination conditions?' or 'Summarize the payment terms' and receive answers grounded in the document content with citations.
Can I save the analysis outputs?
Yes. By default, memo-style outputs (summaries, risk flags, key clauses) are saved to your matter even after the source document is deleted. This gives you a work product reference. You can disable this in Settings if you prefer strict deletion.
Is chat history saved?
By default, yes. Chat conversations are saved so you can reference them later. You can disable chat history saving in Settings for enhanced privacy ('Private Mode').
What file formats are supported?
Currently, we support PDF documents up to 25MB. We use OCR technology to extract text from scanned documents as well as native PDF text.
Account & Billing
How does the document limit work?
Each subscription tier includes a monthly document processing limit. Each document you upload and analyze counts toward this limit. The limit resets at the beginning of each billing cycle.
Can I add team members?
Yes, depending on your subscription tier. Team and Growth plans support multiple users. All team members share the same matters and documents within your organization.
What happens if I reach my document limit?
If you reach your monthly document limit, you will not be able to upload new documents until your next billing cycle or until you upgrade your plan.
Can I upgrade or downgrade my plan?
Yes. You can change your subscription tier at any time from the Billing page. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle.
Legal & Compliance
Do I need client consent to use Barrow?
Your firm is responsible for determining whether client notice and/or informed consent is required for the use of third-party technology. We recommend consulting your bar association's ethics guidance regarding the use of AI tools in legal practice.
Is Barrow compliant with legal ethics rules?
Barrow is designed with legal professionals in mind, including features like ephemeral processing, tenant isolation, and clear disclaimers. However, compliance with professional responsibility rules is the responsibility of each user and their firm.
Can I use Barrow for privileged documents?
You should consult with your firm's ethics counsel regarding the use of any third-party technology with privileged materials. Our ephemeral processing and data handling practices are designed to minimize retention, but the decision to upload privileged documents is yours.
Still have questions?
We are here to help. Reach out to our support team.
hello@barrow.legal