The short version: the tools are free (one thing, the Atlas Pass, is paid, and section 6 says how), the documents you generate are yours, nothing here is legal advice, and the site itself is not yours to copy. The rest of this page says that carefully.
Everything on this site — the applications, the playbooks, the specifications, the exported documents, and the AI-assisted GC Review — is a drafting aid and an organizational template, published for informational purposes.
Nothing here is legal, tax, or regulatory advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by visiting this site, using a tool, running a review, or receiving an output. Stephen Brownell is not your lawyer by virtue of anything on this site.
The tools encode general process discipline, not the facts of your matter. They do not know your jurisdiction, your contracts, your counterparties, or your governing documents. Have qualified counsel review and adapt anything generated here before you rely on it.
Custom builds are separate. The site says that a version of a tool built around your company can be commissioned. If you engage Stephen Brownell for that work, it is done under its own written agreement, and these Terms do not govern it. Until that agreement is signed, this section applies in full: neither the offer nor any conversation about it creates an attorney-client relationship.
A document you produce with any tool on this site is yours to keep. Use it, edit it, put your own name and your firm's name on it, adopt it internally, and give it to your clients. No attribution is required and no rights are reserved in your output.
Because it is yours, it is also your responsibility. You are the one who has to make it correct for your situation.
The site itself is not open source. The code, page markup, styles, playbook and requirement datasets, review prompts and personas, scoring rubrics, and written specifications remain the property of Stephen Brownell. Without written permission, please do not:
Short quotations with attribution, for commentary, teaching, criticism, or reporting, are welcome. The full terms are in the LICENSE file.
Most tools offer an optional GC Review, which sends your configuration to a service operated for this site and returns commentary generated by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. Three things are worth knowing:
Do not enter privileged facts, client names, or confidential information into any field whose output is sent for review. Use a codename, as each tool instructs. Verdict, The Register, The Binder, Standards, Who Can Sign This and The Calendar are deliberately different: they make no network call at all, so what you type there never leaves your browser. The Register, The Binder, Standards, Who Can Sign This and The Calendar keep what you enter in your browser’s storage if you leave that on, and in the files you save; both are yours to clear.
If you give us your email address, it is used for one thing: telling you when a new tool or playbook goes live. It is not sold, rented, or used for anything else, and every message carries a one-click unsubscribe.
The site counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookie-free: it records the page, the referrer, the country, and the browser class, and it does not identify you or follow you across sites. No other tracking runs here.
One thing on this site is paid: the Atlas Pass, which opens the Viva — the graded examination on each Deal Atlas plate — beyond the first question of each sitting. The plates, their reference companions, and every other tool remain free.
"Settingstone Legal" and "Settingstone" are used as marks of Stephen Brownell, and nothing on this site licenses their use.
Other names and marks that appear here — including ISDA, NAESB, EEI, and the companies named in the author's career history — belong to their respective owners. They are used descriptively, to identify real agreements, standards, statutes, and prior employers. Their use is not a claim of ownership and does not imply any endorsement, sponsorship, affiliation, or approval by those owners.
The site and everything it produces are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement.
Law changes, guidance is superseded, and market practice moves. Content is maintained on a best-effort basis and may be out of date at the moment you read it. Dates and citations are given so you can check them, and you should.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Stephen Brownell and Settingstone Legal are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any lost profits, lost data, or business interruption, arising out of your use of this site or anything generated by it — whether in contract, tort, or otherwise, and even if advised of the possibility.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
Please do not attempt to disrupt or overload the site or its services, probe or bypass their limits, or use them to generate unlawful, infringing, or deceptive material. Access may be limited or withdrawn where use threatens the availability of the tools for everyone else.
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the state and federal courts sitting in Texas are the venue for any dispute arising from them.
These terms may be updated as the tools change. The date at the top of this page is the version in force, and continued use after a change means the updated terms apply.
Questions, permission requests, or corrections: Stephen Brownell on LinkedIn.