Alma: why an AI with legal criteria must know Spanish first
There are dozens of "AI lawyers" on the market. Almost all are trained on Anglo common law. If your case happens in Spain, that's like calling a New York attorney for your divorce in Murcia: friendly, but useless.
The problem with generic AI lawyers
When we started designing Alma's legal area, the first instinct was the obvious one: take a large model, feed it some legal texts, and call it "Memchats legal advisor". That's what almost every product in the space does. And it's why almost every one of them is useless for real cases.
The problem is structural: large LLMs are trained mostly on English text, and when they talk about "law" they're thinking Anglo-American common law. They'll tell you that you have "discovery rights", quote "case law" at you, and recommend things that in Spanish law don't apply or apply very differently.
How Alma's legal criteria are built
Spain runs on codified continental law. The Civil Code has numbered articles. Supreme Court rulings create doctrine, but the primary source is written law. A separated mother in Madrid doesn't need to know what happens with custody in California: she needs to know what art. 92 of the Civil Code says about joint custody and how the Audiencia Provincial of Madrid is interpreting it in 2025.
That's why Alma is built differently. When the exchange is about a divorce, custody or child support, she answers with Spanish law in mind rather than an international average, and above all she comes in with your whole history with that person already loaded: who said what, when, and what was promised. Alma points you at what deserves attention and how to raise it. She does not replace a lawyer and she does not verify the law for you.
The difference in practice
When you tell Alma "my ex wants to change the visitation schedule unilaterally", she does not answer with general "fairness" principles. She comes in with your history loaded: she finds where you agreed the schedule, on what date and in whose words, points out that a unilateral change contradicts what is already written down, and drafts your reply. What the law says is for your lawyer to confirm; what the two of you said is what Alma shows you.
That's the difference between "this is informational" and "this can serve as a basis for a negotiation or a brief to the court". It doesn't replace your human licensed lawyer (clear disclaimers) but it takes you 80% of the way and saves your lawyer hours of prep work.
The strategy is deliberate: Alma's legal criteria are built for Spain first, and only then will we look at Italy, Portugal, LATAM. Real verticals, not fake horizontals. Generalist legal criteria good for every country are really good for none.
Related articles
Memory is not context: why ChatGPT forgets (and we don't)
The difference between ChatGPT's "memory" and Memchats' structured memory isn't marketing: it's architecture. Here I explain exactly what each one does and why it matters when you're talking about specific people.
One counsellor with four areas, living inside your chats
Legal, couples and family, meeting people and business. Alma picks the area from who the contact is and what the exchange is about, with that person's memory in front of her and quoting what was said. Not a generalist chatbot.
How to import your WhatsApp chats in 60 seconds
Practical import tutorial. How to export the chat from your phone, what format Memchats needs, what happens with attachments and how memory is processed.