Local-first RAG for privileged legal documents: why citations need verification

Short summary

DocuChat is an open-source, local-first RAG application designed for attorneys working with privileged legal documents. It runs entirely on local models via Ollama with a FastAPI backend and LanceDB vector store, requiring no cloud AI API keys. Its key differentiator is mechanical citation verification — the app checks whether proposed source quotes actually appear in the retrieved text before displaying answers, dropping unverified claims instead of presenting them.

• •Open-source local-first RAG stack for privileged legal documents using Ollama, LanceDB, and FastAPI
• •Citations are mechanically verified against source text; unverified claims are dropped rather than shown
• •Matter-scoped retrieval prevents cross-client data leakage; runs fully offline after model download

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