Step 2 — Draft the Document
Drafting is the second working stage of a matter, after the outline. You launch it from the matter — not from a standalone studio you open cold. One Draft action sends the matter to the right flow and assembles a first draft you then review, edit, and own.
This is one node in the matter workflow: client → matter → outline → draft → review → export.
Where drafting fits
Open the matter and look at the Matter Progress strip across the top: Outline → Draft → Review → Drafts ready. Draft is the node you act on here.
You start a draft from the matter's Produce a document cluster — the quick actions for the things you assemble from a matter:
- Petition / brief — the default draft for most matters
- Motion — available for court / EOIR matters
- Expert letter
- Affidavit / declaration
- Exhibit list
- RFE response
There is also a Transform a document cluster — Improve a document and Translate — for reworking files you already have rather than assembling a new draft from the matter.
You do not pick a "tool" from a menu. You pick the output you want, and the matter routes you to the flow that produces it.
One Draft action, automatic routing
Behind a single Draft action, DraftyAI decides where the work belongs. It reads the output you asked for plus the matter's case type, then sends the matter to the right flow:
- Generic matters go to the Drafting Studio guided interview.
- Specialized case types go to their dedicated flow (for example, an I-601A matter to the waiver flow, an asylum matter to the Asylum / Withholding / CAT flow).
To you, this is still one Draft action — not a separate tool you had to find and select. The routing is invisible, and it never dead-ends: anything the system doesn't recognize falls through to the Drafting Studio interview, so you always land somewhere you can keep working.
For what changes once a specialized case type takes over — RFE/NOID/NOIR, Asylum/Withholding/CAT, I-601A, Naturalization, translations, expert letters, and affidavits — see Specialized Matter Types.
The guided interview, at a high level
When a generic matter routes to the Drafting Studio, you draft through a short guided interview. The draft a generic matter produces is this interview — it is the generic path, not a separate product.
Here is what the interview does:
- Locks in client and matter. Because you launched from the matter, the client and the case are already set. You confirm, you don't re-pick.
- Seeds the matter's primary outline. The outline you designated as the matter's primary is pulled in as context for the draft.
- Asks only about gaps. The interview reads what the matter already holds — client identity, case type, jurisdiction, status, linked files, and facts you've entered — and asks only about material information that genuinely isn't there. It confirms rather than re-types.
A finalized outline shortens this further. When the matter's primary outline is already finalized, the matter hands off straight to generation and skips the Q&A — the strategy work is done, so there's nothing left to interview you about.
For the full picture of how the matter and a finalized outline carry context forward so you re-enter less, see Answering Fewer Questions.
What generation does — and what it doesn't
Generation produces a first draft. That is the start of your review, not the end of it.
The draft returns to the matter as an artifact and is grouped there with your other work. A draft that needs your attention shows a Review badge; once you finalize it, it carries a Doc badge and becomes a downloadable Word file. Everything saves back to the matter — drafts, letters, translations, improved documents — so the matter stays the single place your work lives.
The honest framing holds throughout: DraftyAI assembles the first draft; you review it, edit it, and own it. The AI accelerates the assembly. It does not replace your judgment, and it does not file anything for you.
From here you move to the next node on the progress strip — Review — where you read the draft section by section and confirm every authority it cites.
DraftyAI accelerates drafting; it is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. You review, edit, and are solely responsible for every document you file.