Exception paths

Professional-service workflows fail in the edges long before they fail in the happy path.

That is especially true in legal intake. A system may look impressive while cases are clean, complete, and easy to classify. The real design work begins when the information is partial, contradictory, urgent, or simply strange.

Exception handling is the product

The usual temptation is to optimize for apparent autonomy. The stronger move is to optimize for explicit exceptions:

• when the agent should stop
• what evidence it should surface
• how it should route the ambiguity
• what a human should see at the point of takeover

This is not a fallback detail. It is a central part of the design.

Why this matters commercially

It also changes how bespoke agent work should be sold. The studio is not selling abstract automation. It is selling workflow design that remains reliable even when the work becomes messy.