UPL Policy

Every state restricts who may practice law. Drafting legal documents for another person, advising them on their rights, or acting on their behalf before a government body can constitute the unauthorized practice of law when done by a non-lawyer. In Florida the rule is enforced by the Supreme Court of Florida and the Florida Bar.

FOIA FAST is software, not a lawyer. That is not a disclaimer we bolted on at the end — it is the constraint the entire product is built around. This page explains the specific design decisions that follow from it.

FOIA FAST never submits a public records request on your behalf, in its own name, or as your agent. The request goes out under your name, from your position as a requester exercising your own right of access.

• We draft. You send. The platform prepares text; the submission is your act.
• No auto-submit, ever. There is no setting, no plan, and no support request that will cause a letter to leave the platform without you affirmatively approving that specific letter.
• No agency correspondence in our name. Responses come back to you.

Before you can use the platform, you confirm three things. They are never pre-checked, they must be clicked manually, and the continue button stays disabled until all three are checked. We log the moment you consent.

• “I am representing myself.” You are filing your own requests, not practicing law for others.
• “I will review every AI draft.” Nothing sends until you read it and approve it under your name.
• “FOIA FAST is not a law firm.” It does not provide legal advice, and you understand the difference.

If you are a licensed attorney using FOIA FAST for a client matter, the platform is your tool and you remain the responsible practitioner. Nothing here alters your professional obligations.

Letters, follow-ups, exemption scores, and response summaries are generated by AI models running on our servers. Wherever such output appears in the product, it is wrapped in controls that make its status unmistakable:

• A draft badge marks the content as machine-generated and unreviewed.
• A confidence indicator shows how much the model trusts its own output. When a model call fails, the score is simply absent — we never invent one, and we never block you.
• A non-dismissible disclaimer states that the text is informational, not legal advice.
• An approval gate stands between the draft and any action. You read it, you edit it, you adopt it.

An AI draft presented without those controls would be a defect. If you ever see one, report it — see reporting a concern below.

These are hard limits, not current gaps we intend to close later:

• We will not tell you whether you have a valid claim, whether to litigate, or whether an agency’s denial is lawful.
• We will not represent you before any agency, court, or tribunal.
• We will not negotiate with an agency for you, or accept service on your behalf.
• We will not select a legal strategy for you, or tell you which of two courses of action is the better one for your situation.
• We will not review your matter and give you an opinion on it. No member of our staff, licensed or not, is acting as your counsel.

Deadline tracking, statutory citations, and exemption scoring are informational. Verify them. They are a starting point for your own judgment, not a substitute for it.

Records law is state law, and the words matter. Florida does not have a “FOIA” — it has Chapter 119, the Public Records Act. A letter to a Florida agency demanding records under “FOIA” is citing the wrong statute, and marks the requester as someone who has not read the law.

So FOIA FAST adapts its language to your jurisdiction. Letters to Florida agencies say public records request, never “FOIA request.” Follow-ups to Florida agencies cite elapsed days against the statute’s promptness standard rather than asserting a fixed deadline was missed, because Chapter 119 does not set one. Each matter carries a visible jurisdiction indicator so you always know which body of law the draft was written against.

Get licensed counsel in your jurisdiction when an agency denies your request and you are considering suit, when you are seeking attorney fees, when a records dispute intersects with litigation you are already in, or when the records concern you personally as a party.

FOIA FAST does not refer you to attorneys, does not take referral fees, and does not have a preferred-counsel arrangement with anyone.

If any part of the product reads like legal advice, presents an AI draft without its labeling, or appears to take an action you did not approve, we treat that as a serious defect. Email [email protected] with a link to the matter and we will respond. Bar regulators and other officials may reach us at the same address.