CounselPro vs Claude
A Claude alternative that shows its work
Claude reads a statement well, and when you ask it for a total it tells you to check the figures against the originals. That advice is right. CounselPro is the checking: every sum computed with its inputs printed, every cycle balanced to the totals the bank printed, every row linked to the page it came off.
Family law · Bankruptcy · Fraud · Probate · Business litigation
Deposits other than payroll
$186,540.00
- How it was reached
- 34 deposits, added in a calculator, with every input printed beside the result.
- The account
- Personal checking ····4188, held by M. Alvarez.
- The cycles
- Six statement cycles, each balanced to its own printed opening and closing totals.
- The source
- Every deposit links to the statement page it was read off, and the page opens beside it.
Two of the deposits, $9,400 and $9,600, landed three days apart in June. Flagged for review.
Every cycle balances
Each statement cycle is measured against its own printed opening and closing totals, and the printed credit and debit counts are checked against what was read. A cycle that comes up short is read again against the page image until every figure matches what the bank printed.
A figure the records cannot support is left open and flagged for you, with the page beside it. Full reconciliation and self-healing run on the Premier plan and on every Single Project.
How reconciliation worksA conversation, or a method
Asking a model
- You paste in what fits, so the window decides how much of the production gets read at once.
- The steps are whatever you thought to put in the prompt that day.
- The total is reasoned inside the answer, alongside the writing.
- The figure is quoted back to you, and finding it again in the production is your job.
- Ask the same thing next week and the count can come back different.
Running a method
- Every statement in the production is split out and read on its own, so the ninetieth reads like the first.
- The same steps run on every statement, whoever on the team started the matter.
- Every sum runs in a calculator that prints its inputs beside the result.
- Every row keeps its statement page, and the page opens beside the figure.
- The bank’s own printed totals settle the numbers, so the record decides them.
What you hand over
A chat ends in a message. The figures are in the prose, the method was the prompt, and turning it into something you can file is an evening of retyping. CounselPro ends in the document: the schedule below, the long-form forensic report behind it, and the working files underneath both.
A schedule with its own caption
Each row carries the date, the source as the statement printed it, and the amount, under a caption that names the account and the period.
A forensic report written to the matter
A long-form report in twelve fixed sections, with the named analyses a support fight, a trustee’s lookback or a fraud claim turns on.
Files your team already opens
Every figure and every table exports as a spreadsheet, an image or a PDF, and every row keeps the page it came from.
Exhibit 12
Deposits other than payroll
| Date | Source, as printed | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03-14-25 | Cash deposit · branch | $4,200.00 |
| 05-02-25 | Zelle · Cordova Design Group | $12,500.00 |
| 06-09-25 | Cash deposit · branch | $9,400.00 |
| 06-12-25 | Cash deposit · branch | $9,600.00 |
| 08-21-25 | Check #1184 · Ridgeline Contracting | $18,750.00 |
| Total | 34 deposits, March to August 2025 | $186,540.00 |
Confidentiality
Bank records in a support fight, a trustee’s lookback or a fraud claim belong to the client, and the duty follows them into whatever window you paste them into. ABA Formal Opinion 512 asks you to weigh where a client’s information goes before it goes there, and to get informed consent when the risk calls for it.
Where the file sits
Documents are encrypted on the way in and while they sit with us, and the infrastructure underneath is checked by outside auditors.
What we do with it
The records are read to run your matter, and they stay yours. No client document, figure or export trains a model, ours or a vendor’s, and the agreements we sign say so.
What a consumer plan asks of you
On Claude’s consumer plans you choose whether your conversations are used to improve the model, and a conversation you allow is kept for up to five years. Claude for Work and the API are governed separately. A privileged file should not rest on which way a setting was left.
Feature by feature
Claude is a product of Anthropic PBC. Its plans, pricing and data settings here are from Anthropic's own published terms.
| Capability | CounselPro | Claude |
|---|---|---|
| Reading the records | ||
| Bank and credit card statements, scans included | Included | Included |
| A whole production, split into statement cycles | Every statement read on its own | What you paste into the conversation |
| Check images kept as their own record | Included | Read in the chat with everything else |
| Investment and retirement statements | Q4 2026 | Reads the PDF |
| Checking the numbers | ||
| Every cycle balanced to its printed totals | Included | Not included |
| How a sum is worked out | Computed in a calculator, inputs printed | Reasoned inside the answer |
| What sets the steps | The same method on every statement | The prompt you write |
| A figure the records cannot support | Left open and flagged for you | Answered with a caveat to check it |
| Standing behind a figure | ||
| Every row keeps its statement page | Included | Quoted in the reply |
| Open the source page beside the figure | Included | Not included |
| A schedule and a report you can file | Included | Prose you format yourself |
| What the case lives in | A workspace the whole team opens | A conversation |
| The analysis | ||
| Plain-English questions about the records | Included | Included |
| Flow of funds drawn, and exported as a file | Included | Described in the answer |
| Hidden assets, structuring, income diversion, lifestyle | Named sections of the report | Whatever you think to ask for |
| Drafting, research and general legal writing | Financial records only | Included |
| Confidentiality | ||
| What happens to the documents you send | Read to run your matter, never used to train a model | Consumer plans ask you to choose, and a conversation you allow is kept up to five years |
| Infrastructure checked by outside auditors | Included | Included |
CounselPro vs Claude questions, answered
- Can Claude analyze bank statements?
- It can read one. Give Claude a statement and it will pull the transactions out and reason about them, and on a single month it does that well. What it does not do is the work around the reading: measuring the cycle against the totals the bank printed, computing each sum in a calculator with the inputs shown, and keeping a link from every row back to the page it came off. That is the difference between an answer and a figure you can stand behind.
- Is it safe to put client bank records into a general AI chatbot?
- That is your call to make under ABA Formal Opinion 512, which asks you to weigh where a client’s information goes before it goes there, and to get informed consent when the risk calls for it. Two things are worth knowing first. On Claude’s consumer plans you choose whether your conversations are used to improve the model, and a conversation you allow is kept for up to five years; Claude for Work and the API are governed separately. With CounselPro the question does not arise: documents are encrypted, the infrastructure is independently audited, and no client record trains a model.
- Why do two AI runs of the same statements give different totals?
- A chat answer is generated fresh each time, so the same question can come back with a different count. CounselPro pins the numbers to the record instead. Every statement cycle is balanced to its own printed opening and closing totals, every sum is computed in a calculator that prints its inputs, and a figure the records cannot support is left open and flagged for you. The bank’s own totals decide the answer, so it is the same on Monday and on Thursday.
- How does CounselPro check its own numbers?
- Every statement cycle is balanced to its own printed beginning and ending totals, and the printed credit and debit counts are checked against what was read. A cycle that comes up short is read again against the page image until every figure matches what the bank printed. Anything the records cannot support is left open and flagged for you, with the page beside it. Full reconciliation and self-healing run on the Premier plan and on every Single Project.
- When is Claude the better choice?
- Whenever the work is writing and thinking rather than arithmetic. Drafting a motion, summarizing a deposition, working through an argument, reading one statement to get your bearings: Claude is very good at all of it, and CounselPro does none of it. Reach for CounselPro when a number has to survive the other side reading it.
Ask it what you already know
Take a matter you have closed, where you know what the money did, and put the same question to CounselPro. Every figure it hands back opens the page it was read off, so checking the answer takes minutes.
Your first matter, free