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Client Advice Letter From Your Notes
Paste your notes or memo and River writes the letter your client will read: your answer first, the options in plain words, then next steps.
River turns your analysis into the letter your client will actually read. Paste your notes, a research memo or the email thread, say who the client is and what they have to decide, and River writes the advice in plain language. Your answer comes first. Then the question in the client's own terms, the facts and assumptions you relied on, each option with its cost and risk, your recommendation, and the next steps with owners and dates.
The legal thinking stays yours. River does not add analysis, authority or conclusions you did not give it. Where your notes leave a gap, such as a missing deadline, an unstated assumption or a citation it could not check, the letter marks it for you to confirm. What River adds is structure and translation: the shift from how a lawyer reasons to how a busy executive decides, without losing the qualifications that carry real meaning. The letter reads as yours, in your voice and over your signature.
This is for solo practitioners, small firms and in-house lawyers who write advice for business clients and want to spend their time on the analysis rather than the prose. It is not for formal legal opinions given to third parties in a transaction, which follow their own conventions. For a client alert about a new rule or regulation that affects many clients at once, use the regulatory change impact assessment. Rough costs for each option can come from the matter budget and fee estimate.
What clients need from an advice letter
Clients read advice letters to make a decision, not to follow the reasoning. The ABA's Model Rule 1.4(b) frames the duty the same way: a lawyer must explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to let the client make informed decisions. That favors a letter whose first paragraph answers the question, whose middle sets out the realistic options, and whose end says who does what next. Analysis the client does not need can sit in an attached memo.
Qualifications deserve care rather than removal. A sentence such as "this depends on whether the notice was received before March 1" is advice, because it tells the client which fact decides the outcome. Twenty generic caveats bury that sentence. Good advice letters state each assumption once, say what would change the answer, and keep the scope narrow: which question was asked, which facts were provided, and which jurisdiction's law was considered. A clear scope, matching the one in your engagement letter, also protects you when a client later remembers the advice differently.
Here is an illustrative example. A distributor ends a contract on thirty days' notice when the agreement requires ninety. A strong letter opens with "You likely have a claim for about two months of lost profit, and I recommend a demand letter followed by mediation". It then sets out three options with rough costs and timelines, notes that the contract waives consequential damages, and ends with a decision date. A weak letter opens with the history of the relationship.
How it works
Paste your analysis
Add your notes, memo or email thread, and say who the client is and what they must decide.
River finds the decision
It pulls out your answer, the options and the facts that drive them, without adding new law.
Get the letter
A client-ready advice letter in plain language, with gaps marked for you to confirm before sending.
Refine in chat
Ask for a shorter email version, a board summary, or a firmer recommendation in your own voice.
What you get
- A finished advice letter with your answer in the first paragraph, written for a non-lawyer reader
- The question restated in the client's terms, with the facts and assumptions you relied on
- Each option with its likely cost, timing and risk, followed by your recommendation and reasons
- Next steps with owners and dates, so the client knows what to do and by when
- Gaps in your notes marked for you to confirm, never filled with invented law or facts
- A privilege header and a scope paragraph that say what the advice does and does not cover
Common questions
Does River add its own legal analysis?
No. The letter uses only the analysis, authority and conclusions in what you paste. If your notes cite a case or statute, River keeps the citation as you wrote it and flags any it could not confirm. If a conclusion seems to need support your notes do not give, the letter marks it for you rather than filling the gap.
Is this a legal opinion letter?
No. A formal opinion letter, such as a closing opinion given to the other side of a financing or acquisition, follows established conventions about assumptions, qualifications and diligence, and firms usually require committee review. This tool writes advice letters to your own client explaining their position and options, which is a different document with a different reader.
How much legal detail should the letter include?
Enough for the client to understand your recommendation, and no more. A comment to D.C.'s Rule 2.1 warns that advice in narrowly legal terms may be of little value when cost or other practical concerns predominate. Most business clients need the conclusion, the facts it depends on and the realistic options. River keeps citations out of the body unless you ask for them.
What about privilege?
The letter carries a privileged and confidential header and is addressed only to the client, but a label does not create privilege, and sharing it beyond the people who need the advice to act on it can waive it. If the client is likely to share the advice with others, ask River for a version written for that wider audience instead.
How does it handle uncertainty?
By saying where it lies. Instead of hedging every sentence, the letter states your view, names the facts or legal questions that could change it, and says what would resolve them. A client can act on "likely, unless the notice arrived late", but not on a page of generic caveats.
Can it match my firm's style?
Yes. Paste a previous letter or tell River how you sign off, whether you use headings, and how formal you are, and it will follow that. Choose email if the client prefers short messages they can forward, or the board summary if the advice is going to a leadership team.
Sources
Built by
Chandler Supple
Co-founder & CEO, River
Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.
Client Advice Letter From Your Notes
Describe what you need, add any files you have, and your workspace opens with the work already underway.