US legal corpus
Amara's US legal corpus
We are building a verifiable corpus from official US sources: federal law first (U.S. Code, eCFR, Federal Register and federal case law), then state law starting with California, Texas and Florida, with the version in force on the date of the facts and the status of each precedent. Coming soon.
- Today: legal copilot, document review, drafting in English, matters, CRM, Amara Work, teams and permissions.
- Coming soon: a US legal corpus built from official sources, starting with federal law and then California, Texas and Florida.
- Coming soon: Amara's result on US bar exam questions, with the full methodology.
- Available in the US today
- Data stored in the EU
- Never used for training
- The attorney always decides
What is Amara’s US legal corpus? It is a body of US federal and state law built from official and public sources, split into sections that can be cited one by one, each with its citation, its jurisdiction, the version in force on a given date and, for court opinions, the court and the status of the precedent. The goal is not to hold the most documents but to give attorneys sources they can check. It starts with federal law, then California, Texas and Florida. It is under construction and coming soon.
Why US law needs a different corpus
There is no single body of US law. A question can depend on federal law, on the law of one of 50 states, on local ordinances and, above all, on the case law that binds the court hearing the matter. An opinion of the California Supreme Court does not bind a Texas court, and the precedents of each federal circuit apply within that circuit.
That is why Amara identifies the jurisdiction, the court and the date before it searches, and why each opinion in the corpus carries its court, its jurisdiction and whether it is binding or persuasive authority.
The official and public sources
| Source | What we use |
|---|---|
| U.S. Code (Office of the Law Revision Counsel) | Codified general and permanent federal statutes, in 54 titles |
| GovInfo (U.S. Government Publishing Office) | Public laws, codes and regulations in machine-readable formats |
| eCFR and Federal Register | Federal regulations in 50 titles, and new and proposed rules as they are published |
| Congress.gov | Bills, enacted laws and their legislative history |
| Supreme Court of the United States | Opinions of the Court |
| CourtListener (Free Law Project) | Federal and state court opinions and federal docket data |
| Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School) | Historical US case law, more than 6.7 million cases |
| State legislatures and courts | State statutes, administrative codes, court rules and opinions, starting with California, Texas and Florida |
Works of the US federal government are generally not protected by copyright (17 U.S.C. §105), which allows federal texts to be reused. State materials, editorial annotations and some data services have their own terms, which we review source by source.
First phase: federal law and three states
| Area | Main federal sources |
|---|---|
| Constitutional | U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court case law |
| Civil procedure | Title 28 U.S.C. and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure |
| Criminal | Title 18 U.S.C. and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure |
| Immigration | Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8) |
| Employment | FLSA, FMLA, NLRA, Title VII, ADA and ADEA |
| Bankruptcy | Bankruptcy Code (Title 11) |
| Consumer protection | FTC Act, FCRA, FDCPA and TILA |
| Intellectual property | Title 17, Title 35 and the Lanham Act |
| Arbitration | Federal Arbitration Act (Title 9) |
| Administrative | Administrative Procedure Act |
Contracts, torts, family, probate, landlord-tenant, real estate, traffic and much of employment law are mainly state law. We will add them for California, Texas and Florida first, then New York. Each statute enters in its version in force and with its history; we never assume that the original text includes later amendments.
Precedent: binding, persuasive or no longer good law
| Question | Rule in Amara |
|---|---|
| Does it bind the court hearing the matter? | Classify it as binding or persuasive authority by court, jurisdiction and circuit |
| Has it been reversed, overruled or limited? | Link it to later opinions and flag the attorney to check its subsequent history |
| Does it interpret federal or state law? | Keep the two apart and show which one applies |
| Has the statute changed since? | Link the opinion to the version of the statute it interpreted |
Commercial citators have spent decades on this. Amara will not present its own precedent check as equivalent until it has been built and validated with US attorneys; until then, every citation is flagged for the attorney to verify.
How we build and check the corpus
- Official and public sources only: U.S. Code, GovInfo, eCFR, Federal Register, Congress.gov, the Supreme Court, CourtListener, the Caselaw Access Project and state legislatures and courts.
- Normalization: citations, jurisdiction, court, circuit, effective dates and the relationships between statutes, regulations and opinions.
- Citation checks: exact citation matching, text and semantic search filtered by jurisdiction, and an automatic check that every section cited exists and was in force on the relevant date. When there is no reliable source, Amara says so.
- Review with US attorneys before we present any part of it as available.
Questions about the US corpus
When will it be available?
Coming soon. Founding firms get early access to the first parts and will hear the date before anyone else.
Which states are covered?
We start with federal law and then California, Texas and Florida, followed by New York. Other states will be added one by one.
Does Amara replace a citator?
No. Amara links each opinion to its source and to later opinions when it can, but the attorney must check that every authority is still good law before relying on it.
Can I use Amara in the US before the corpus is ready?
Yes. The copilot, document review, drafting in English, matters, the CRM and Amara Work already work today.
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