The Declaration Engine

In a wage-and-hour class action, the plaintiff's firm needs sworn declarations from class members: workers describing missed breaks, unpaid overtime, off-the-clock work. Getting them is manual. Someone dials down a list of hundreds of former employees, most calls go unanswered, each interview runs 15 to 20 minutes, and every one has to be written up as a declaration and checked against what the witness actually said.

On a 600-person list we estimate that at about 160 staff hours and four weeks of one person's time. Firms either burn paralegal capacity on it, outsource it to offshore callers who don't write declarations, or collect fewer declarations than the case could support.

1. Calls the list through an AI voice agent, inside legal calling hours, only to people with consent on file.
2. Runs the interview in English or Spanish from a script built on the case's own complaint, one claim at a time.
3. Writes the declaration on California pleading paper, plus an internal call memo for the attorney.
4. Audits every sentence against the transcript. Anything that isn't the witness's own words gets flagged, and witnesses whose story doesn't hold together are marked not ready to sign.
5. Shows the whole case in one dashboard: every interview, claim strength per witness, which claims the evidence supports, and other workers named on calls.

On October 13 the system called a test witness on a live California wage-and-hour case, using that case's public complaint. The witness knew the call was coming and played a maintenance worker.

The last result is the important one. The test witness gave an impossible start date and an "eight days a week" schedule. The system drafted the declaration, then held it back and told the attorney why. A tool that writes sworn statements has to know when not to.

The measured cost came to $0.198 per minute. Our model predicted $0.178 to $0.208 per minute for a call that length, so the model holds, landing near its cautious end.

Almost all of the cost is the phone conversation itself. Writing the declaration with Claude costs about $0.34.

• BaseOne fee per case: $250 for every 250 people on the list.$250+
• Signed declarationCharged only when the witness signs.$10 each
• QuestionsAdded to each signed declaration, per question in the script.$0.75 each

The firm pays mostly for results, which is what makes the sale easy: no signatures, almost no bill. The base exists so that a bad day doesn't cost us money. It is sized so we roughly break even, at our cautious cost, if only 10% of the list signs.

A 600-person class list with a 20-question script. Assumptions: 2.5 call attempts per person, 35% of dials answered, 65% of answered calls finish the interview.

What the firm saves is mostly time and capacity, not just cash. The same campaign by hand is about four weeks of one person's full attention. Here it runs in an afternoon, and the firm's team only touches finished declarations.

• The cost per interview falls over time. Voice and model prices have been dropping, and the long-call surcharge can be cut by restructuring the agent's prompt. Price per declaration does not have to fall with it.
• Repeat buyer. A plaintiff's firm runs case after case. Once the script library and dashboard are set up for a firm, the next case is a list upload.
• The audit is the moat. Calling people is easy to copy. A declaration a lawyer will sign their name under, with every sentence traceable to a recording and bad witnesses caught automatically, is not.
• Adjacent work uses the same engine: intake for mass torts, employment claims, and any practice that turns phone interviews into sworn statements.

1. First paid campaign with a California wage-and-hour firm, giving real answer, finish and signing rates.
2. Spanish interviews proven on live calls.
3. Automatic sending for e-signature, so declarations go out right after the call.
4. Secure hosting so outside firms log in to their own dashboard.
5. A second and third firm on the same pricing, to show the second case is just a list upload.