Fallen out over money?
Get it decided — with reasons.
The deposit that never came back. The invoice that never got paid. The job delivered half-done. Open a case, invite the other side by email, and each of you tells your story. A reasoned ruling lands in minutes — who's at fault, in what proportion, and exactly why — with one appeal each. No lawyers, no fees, no platform picking sides.
First instance is decided by Claude — Anthropic's frontier model — under our published doctrine. Appeals are re-heard by a panel of three frontier models (Claude, GPT, Grok), and a human bench sits above it all on escalation. We say so plainly, because a venue you can't inspect isn't a venue.
Logo package — rejected on taste after delivery to spec
- [MC-2] The deliverable met the written spec; taste is not breach.
- [MC-5] The buyer rejected without giving the offered cure a chance.
- [MC-3] One day's delay on a ten-day deadline — a modest deduction.
Live figures from the venue record — demo cases excluded.
The whole thing, in four steps
How it works
Open the case
Describe what was agreed and what went wrong. Name the people on the other side — co-defendants welcome — and add their email: we send them their own private link and invite them in.
Each side tells its story
You and they each submit a statement and paste your evidence — messages, receipts, the agreement — through separate private links. Neither side can touch the other's record.
The ruling lands
Minutes after both sides are in: fault split in percentages, who owes whom what, and a rule-by-rule reasoning trace under the published doctrine. Both sides get it by email.
One appeal each
Think the ruling got it wrong? File your grounds — the case is re-decided in full with your objections on the record. The appeal decision is final at the venue.
What people bring us
If you can paste the messages, we can rule on it
The deposit that never came back
Tenancy ended in March, "we found damage," no photos, no itemisation, no refund. Paste the lease clause and the thread; get a reasoned split.
The invoice nobody will pay
Work delivered, client "not happy with the direction," silence since. Was it to spec or wasn't it? The doctrine separates taste from breach.
The half-finished job
Sixty percent of a website, three weeks late, scope that grew mid-project. Fault rarely sits all on one side — rulings say who owes what, proportionally.
No money at all — just stuck
Sometimes the fight is over what was actually agreed, not a payment. Set the amount to zero and the ruling decides the disagreement itself.
Open your case — free Free while in MVP — published pricing. No account needed.
Before the dispute exists
Put the venue in the contract
The best time to agree where disputes get decided is before there is one. One sentence in an agreement names Recourse under the Standard Rules — the same way contracts already name governing law or an arbitration institution — and every future dispute under it has a venue from day one.
Generate your clause
Jurisdiction, contract type, value ceiling, appeal — copy a clause that incorporates the versioned Standard Rules by reference. Free forever.
Clause generatorAdd Recourse to an existing contract
Paste or upload your contract — see the dispute clause you're currently working under, in plain language, and the Recourse wording for your next renewal or template update.
Analyse my contractDrafting for clients?
The Recourse Accredited Lawyer programme: model clauses, a public profile, referrals from cases that need escalating — free, practising status verified.
For lawyersAlready in a dispute, no clause?
No clause needed after the fact: both sides agree to refer the existing dispute when they sign the venue agreement at submission (Rule 4).
Open a caseWho decides — stated plainly
One arbiter first. Three on appeal. Humans when it matters.
Claude
Anthropic
first instance appeal panel
GPT
OpenAI
appeal panel
Grok
xAI
appeal panel
Claude rules first instance
Every case is decided by Claude against the published doctrine — rule-cited reasoning, proportional outcomes, a confidence score. No black box: you read exactly why you won or lost.
Both sides are heard
Claimant and respondent each submit their own statement and evidence — documents are read, photos are looked at — through private links. Neither side controls the record alone.
Appeals go to a three-model panel
Disagree with the ruling? File grounds and the case is re-heard in full by three independent frontier models — Claude, GPT, and Grok — each ruling separately, with a presiding synthesis that records concurrence and dissent. No single lab's model gets the last word alone.
Humans where it matters
Low confidence, high stakes, statutory questions — escalations pass the Recourse bench before any instruction becomes final.
The honest answer
Is the ruling binding?
It binds the way a handshake deal binds — because both of you agreed to it. When each side submits, they tick the venue agreement: this dispute is decided by Recourse under its published doctrine, and I accept the ruling as binding between us. That mutual agreement is a contract, and the ruling is its outcome.
What we're not: a court, a regulator, or a debt collector. A ruling is a contractual determination, not legal advice, and it doesn't override mandatory local law. What it is: a reasoned, neutral decision both parties signed up to — which, in practice, is what most arguments are actually missing. Most disputes end when a reasoned answer from a venue both sides chose says who owes what, in writing.
Full details in the Terms. Where funds sit with an escrow provider or platform, rulings execute automatically — that's the Verdict API.
No platform? No problem
Or just CC the venue on the email thread
Most deals are just an email thread. CC witness@recourse.so when the work starts and the venue travels with the conversation — terms witnessed, log preserved. If it ever goes wrong, either side emails dispute@recourse.so in-thread and the ruling arrives as a reply-all.
How the email witness works — early access.
The bigger picture
Built as a Verdict API
The dispute room runs on the same engine that platforms plug into: marketplaces outsourcing their dispute queues, escrow providers executing rulings as signed money instructions, and AI agents naming a neutral venue in machine-readable terms before the first transaction. Same doctrine, same reasoned rulings — at API scale.
For platforms → For AI agents → Try the engine in the playground