Legal Department

Contracts, IP protection, terms of service, GDPR compliance, licensing, privacy policies.

Overview

The Legal department manages the full contract lifecycle, compliance audits, and intellectual property tracking. It wraps legal-engine via the ADR-014 DepartmentApp pattern and is registered in the composition root alongside the other skeleton departments.

System Prompt

You are the Legal department of RUSVEL.

Focus: contracts, IP protection, terms of service, GDPR compliance, licensing, privacy policies.

Capabilities

Quick Actions

Architecture

Engine: legal-engine

Three manager structs compose the engine, each backed by ObjectStore via StoragePort:

Domain Types

Contract – ContractId (UUIDv7), ContractStatus enum (Draft, Sent, Signed, Expired, Cancelled), fields: title, counterparty, template, signed_at, expires_at, created_at, metadata.

ComplianceCheck – ComplianceCheckId (UUIDv7), ComplianceArea enum (GDPR, Privacy, Licensing, Tax), fields: description, passed, checked_at, notes, metadata.

IpAsset – IpAssetId (UUIDv7), IpKind enum (Patent, Trademark, Copyright, TradeSecret), fields: name, description, filed_at, status, metadata.

Wrapper: dept-legal

• LegalDepartment struct with OnceLock<Arc<LegalEngine>> for lazy initialization
• register() creates the engine, stores it, and registers agent tools
• shutdown() delegates to engine
• 2 unit tests (department creation, manifest purity)

Registered Tools

Events

Note: event constants are defined in legal_engine::events but emission is not yet wired into manager methods (skeleton status).

Required Ports

UI Contribution

Tabs: actions, agents, rules, events

No dashboard cards, settings panel, or custom components.

Chat Flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Frontend
    participant API as /api/dept/legal/chat
    participant Agent as AgentPort
    participant Engine as LegalEngine
    participant Store as ObjectStore

    User->>Frontend: "Draft an NDA for Acme Corp"
    Frontend->>API: POST (SSE)
    API->>Agent: run(system_prompt + user message)
    Agent->>Engine: legal.contracts.create(title, counterparty, template)
    Engine->>Store: objects().put("legal_contract", ...)
    Store-->>Engine: Ok
    Engine-->>Agent: { contract_id }
    Agent-->>API: SSE token stream
    API-->>Frontend: SSE events
    Frontend-->>User: "Created contract draft [id]"

CLI Usage

rusvel legal status          # Show department status
rusvel legal list             # List all legal items
rusvel legal list --kind contract  # List contracts only
rusvel legal events           # Show recent legal events

Testing

cargo test -p legal-engine    # Engine tests (contract CRUD, health check)
cargo test -p dept-legal      # Wrapper tests (manifest, department creation)

Current Status: Skeleton

The Legal department is fully registered and bootable within the RUSVEL department registry, but its business logic is minimal. Here is what exists and what remains to be built:

What exists:

• Manager structures with basic CRUD operations (create + list for each domain)
• Domain types with full serialization (Contract, ComplianceCheck, IpAsset)
• 4 agent tools registered in the scoped tool registry
• Event kind constants defined (but not yet emitted from manager methods)
• Engine implements the Engine trait with health check
• Unit tests for engine and wrapper

What needs to be built for production readiness:

• Wire emit_event() calls into manager methods so domain events actually fire
• Add review_contract, sign_contract operations to ContractManager
• Add mark_passed operation to ComplianceManager
• Add file_ip (full filing workflow with status transitions) to IpManager
• Implement AI-assisted contract drafting via AgentPort (template expansion)
• Add job kinds for async legal review workflows (e.g., JobKind::Custom("legal.review"))
• Build compliance report generation (aggregate check results into a report)
• Add engine-specific API routes (e.g., /api/dept/legal/contracts, /api/dept/legal/compliance)
• Add engine-specific CLI commands (e.g., rusvel legal draft, rusvel legal audit)
• Add personas for legal agent specialization
• Add skills and rules for legal workflows

Source Files