ByTheLaw
GAMMA-Ray report · Spectrum 0.2 beta · Public tier · read 2026-11-10 · not reviewed by the company yet
ByTheLaw offers an AI chat for lawyers that answers legal questions from Portuguese and European official sources, analyses uploaded documents and drafts texts, plus separate transcription, anonymisation and reference-checking tools.
of 6 found
and hashed
in 8 of 8 instruments
at work, with sources
Built only from ByTheLaw's own public pages and, for company basics only, the news sources named beside each fact. ByTheLaw has not seen this report. Nothing was tested and no credentials were used. If you are ByTheLaw and something here is wrong or missing, the correction will be made and dated, and you can claim the card to add evidence.
The agentic solutions
One card per solution. Each level is computed from the evidence by a published rule; a dimension with nothing public reads "not yet evidenced", which is not a no. A card rates a product as documented, not anyone's deployment of it.
ByTheLaw (Legal Chat)
Chat assistant that answers legal questions with citations to official Portuguese and EU sources, analyses uploaded documents, drafts contracts, emails and translations, and organises work in projects. The site menu names it 'ByTheLaw: Legal research and knowledge'; the help centre calls it 'Legal Chat'.
Standout. Reach 2 (Integrated): "utilizar as Credenciais Citius para aceder ao Citius de forma automatizada"
Next unlock. Autonomy 2 (Suggests): public evidence that the agent suggests; the person reviews and approves each action would get there.
Trust. FACT-Ray: 16 facts: 16 π Moderate · found by an agent, captured and hashed, checked by 2 other agents (same model family, shared repository); no human has signed it.
Standards constellation. 40 provisions lit across 8 of 8 instruments.
Evidence: 11 sources, captured and hashed · the card's page has the vault's read key · Not reviewed by its vendor yet · correct or claim this card
The full card, every answer and its evidence · the governance layer
Citius integration
Reads the lawyer's court notifications, hearing schedule and case movements from the Citius courts system with the lawyer's credentials, read-only; files nothing. No card yet (experimental, limited access): this solution has not been assessed.
Court Transcriber
Transcribes court-hearing recordings for review and export. No card yet (available, prepaid): this solution has not been assessed.
Anonymizer
Suggests replacements for personal data in text and documents for the user to review. No card yet (available): this solution has not been assessed.
RefChecker
Checks legal references in AI-generated text against authoritative sources and classifies risk. No card yet (available): this solution has not been assessed.
NPL decision engine
Proposed triage, drafting and case scoring for debt-recovery servicers. No card yet (pilot in preparation): this solution has not been assessed.
Our reading
The shape. ByTheLaw reads A1 · R2 · C1 · O2 (Building). It is a chat assistant for lawyers: the lawyer writes each request, and it returns an answer grounded in official Portuguese and European sources with citations, analyses uploaded documents or drafts a text. A draft email goes to the lawyer's own mail client, where the person sends it; the assistant has no send path of its own.
Where the evidence is strongest. Openness. The help centre lists what the assistant is for, the legislative, case-law and regulatory databases its answers are drawn from, and limits of use, such as files attached inside an email not being opened. A report-error button and an llms.txt are public, and a stop button lets the user interrupt an answer on every plan. The card carries the balanced badge.
The Citius option. Reach 2 and Control 1 hold only with the Citius integration on, so both are marked available. It is experimental and granted by ByTheLaw to selected users, who enter their own Citius credentials. Its terms limit it to reading and consulting the courts system and state that it performs no procedural acts; an unread notification, which opening marks as read in Citius, is opened only after the user's express action, preceded by a warning. As shipped, the assistant works inside its own product on legal material, and Control is not yet evidenced.
What would move it. Autonomy 2: a documented action the assistant proposes and a person approves, beyond a draft the person then uses. Reach 3: a published agent interface with documented authorisation narrower than the whole account. Control 2: a public list of what the assistant can reach, beside the Citius approval step; a rule in prose on the assistant as shipped would make Control 1 hold without the option. Openness 3: published evaluation results with their method.
Seen, and not counted. The challenger lowered two credits. Drafting an email is assisting, not proposing an action, because the person does the step. The subprocessor page names Microsoft Azure as the provider of language models, with Perplexity and Jina AI, but names no model, so it is not a model list. Marketing calls the product fully autonomous and claims up to 20 hours a week saved; neither is counted. ECO/Advocatus reported 1,100 active users in November 2025; the figure is the press report's, not measured here.
What would move it
The one piece of public evidence that would lift each card next:
- ByTheLaw (Legal Chat): Autonomy 2 (Suggests). Public evidence that the agent suggests; the person reviews and approves each action.
The agent at work
Examples from public pages that name a customer or give figures. Each source was captured and hashed on the date shown.
(usage figure)
ECO/Advocatus reported 1,100 active users in November 2025. "O projeto conta já com 1.100 utilizadores ativos"
Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256 54709d1dfd41c8b8)
Sérvulo & Associados; P&A Legal
Named as clients in the same ECO/Advocatus report, with a pilot at CMS. "tendo como clientes a Sérvulo & Associados, a P&A Legal"
Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256 54709d1dfd41c8b8)
Câmara Municipal de Coimbra
Reported in use by the Coimbra municipality, and under evaluation by the Regional Government of Madeira. "está já em utilização pela Câmara Municipal de Coimbra"
Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256 54709d1dfd41c8b8)
The company
- Operated by Draft of Life, Lda., with its seat in Coimbra. "Draft of Life, Lda." Source (captured 2026-11-10T18:45Z, sha256
8cdb661d2a779f7d) - Described as a spin-off from the University of Coimbra. "evolved into a Spin-Off from the University of Coimbra" Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256
13d88e688fa40d84) - The system was built from eight months of work at Sérvulo & Associados (ECO/Advocatus, 6 November 2025). "O sistema nasceu de oito meses de trabalho imersivo na Sérvulo" Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256
54709d1dfd41c8b8) - ByTheLaw acquired advIA, another Portuguese legal AI platform, in 2026. "A ByTheLaw adquiriu o advIA" Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256
7275fe2ab6f12be9) - Two paid plans: Pro at 29 euros plus VAT a month, and Pro Teams on request. "ByTheLaw offers two paid plans." Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256
ac0e222931977da0) - Model and infrastructure providers are listed as subprocessors, with Microsoft Azure for language models. "Last updated: October 20, 2026" Source (captured 2026-11-10T10:44Z, sha256
068a734b2130c56a)
The people
Public and professional only, from the company's own pages or a public professional source.
- André Dionísio, CEO and co-founder. Source
- Totas Rodrigues, COO/CFO and co-founder. Source
- João Cabral, CTO and co-founder. Source
- Ana do Mar, CXO. Source
- Gonçalo Almeida, CPO. Source
- Dennis Monschauer, Fractional CMO. Source
The graph
The company, its people and the stories on the left; each solution, the captured sources behind its card, the indicators those sources evidence and the provisions of the instruments those indicators touch, to the right. "Touched" never means "complies".
The evidence
How this report was made
A researcher-assessor gathered and captured the sources and mapped the evidence to indicators, without assigning a level. A challenger argued against every level three and four and every doubtful credit. The deterministic scorer computed the levels and the gate checked the rules. A card appears here only after two rounds of review and a sign-off by agents that did not write it (the team's workflow); ByTheLaw (Legal Chat): reviewed in 4 rounds, signed off by gamma.approve@web-summit.dinis on 2026-11-10. A person's sign-off of the series is still to come.
| Role | Who |
|---|---|
| researcher-assessor | a sub-agent of gamma.studio@web-summit.dinis |
| challenger | a sub-agent |
| scorer | build/spectrum.mjs |
| analyst, designer, writer | gamma.studio@web-summit.dinis |
| review | gamma.review@web-summit.dinis, 4 rounds |
| sign-off | gamma.approve@web-summit.dinis, 2026-11-10 |
The vault
Every capture, the dossier, both assessors' mappings, the challenger's notes and this report's data are in a public sgit vault (dllzmbc3). Read key:
sgit_public_read_7f528ecd6fbd9c2d0f293f8361fd3ad93d4ea63fd8b1f1a70ec77feb04110bb6:dllzmbc3
With sgit: sgit clone followed by the key. The key reads; it cannot write.
Corrections
None yet. A correction is made in place, dated here, and carried to the card, the vault and the article.
The article
ByTheLaw on the GAMMA-Ray Spectrum: A1 · R2 · C1 · O2, written from this report for PrompTugal.news.