Decision Infrastructure and Intapp
How Decision Infrastructure complements legal intake, conflicts, and workflow systems in the legal technology stack.
Why this is not a replacement relationship
Intapp is a powerful platform for managing intake, conflicts, approvals, risk, and legal workflows. Decision Infrastructure does not replace it — it adds the runtime layer that governs whether execution remains admissible at the moment of action, after the workflow has done its job.
They sit at different layers of the same stack: Intapp operates primarily at L5 (Decision Systems); Decision Infrastructure operates at L6 — the governance layer between decisions and their consequences.
What Intapp Does Well
Intapp is a broad legal intake, risk, and workflow platform. Within a firm it can:
- manage client and matter intake end to end
- run conflicts checks and clearance workflows
- route approvals across roles and committees
- coordinate risk, compliance, and business acceptance
- manage matters and cases and orchestrate legal workflows across the firm
What Happens After Intapp?
Intapp coordinates the work and routes the approval. Decision Infrastructure validates admissibility before the consequential action that follows an approval becomes real.
Examples include:
- client intake
- conflicts review
- risk assessment
- matter approval
- new business acceptance
The matter was approved. The question Decision Infrastructure answers is “does that approval remain admissible when execution occurs?” — because authority, risk, and restrictions can change between approval and action. That question is resolved at L6.
L5 · Decision Systems
Intapp
L6 · Decision Infrastructure
Governs whether the action may execute now.
L7 · Decision Intelligence
Learns from governed outcomes.
Intapp coordinates legal work.
Decision Infrastructure governs legal execution.
What Decision Systems Fix — and What They Don’t
L5 · Decision Systems
Decision Systems
What they fix
- Structured decisions
- Decision tracking
- Traceability
- Repeatability
What they don’t answer
- Should this decision exist?
- Is it valid under current constraints?
- Can it control execution?
- Will it produce evidence?
Core question: “What decision was made?”
L6 · Decision Infrastructure
Decision Infrastructure
What it adds
- Decisions validated before execution
- Policy enforced at runtime
- Human and AI accountability
- Evidence across the lifecycle
- Runtime admissibility
Core shift
From structuring decisions to governing whether decisions are valid, executable, and accountable.
Core question: “Is this decision valid, executable, and defensible?”
Most platforms optimize decisions. Very few govern them.
L5, L6, and L7: Different Roles
Intapp sits in the L5 column. The distinction is not a feature gap — it is a different layer of the stack.
L5 produces and routes decisions.
L6 governs whether those decisions remain admissible at execution.
L7 learns from the outcomes of governed execution.
Why Trusted Decision Intelligence Requires L6
Decision Systems determine what should happen. Decision Infrastructure determines whether it may happen now.
Decision Intelligence learns from outcomes. If those outcomes were never validated at execution, the learning is built on actions that may never have been admissible.
Decision Intelligence is not the input to Decision Infrastructure. It is the output of governed execution.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Decision Infrastructure replace intake, conflicts, or approvals?
No. Intapp remains the system that manages intake, runs conflicts, and routes approvals. Decision Infrastructure is the runtime governance layer (L6) that governs whether the consequential action following an approval remains admissible at the moment it executes. They are complementary layers.
What happens after approval?
An approval in Intapp records that something was permitted to proceed. Decision Infrastructure revalidates, at the commit boundary, whether the action is still admissible under current authority, policy, and constraints at the instant it executes — because conditions can change between approval and action — and returns Allow, Hold, Deny, or Escalate with evidence.
Is it an Intapp replacement?
No. It does not run intake, conflicts, or approval workflows. It governs the admissibility of actions at the commit boundary — independent of, and portable across, the systems that coordinate the work, including Intapp.
Can it run alongside Intapp?
Yes. Intapp coordinates the work and routes the approval; Decision Infrastructure governs whether each resulting action is admissible at execution and captures independent evidence. L5 produces and coordinates; L6 governs the act.
What does L6 add that L5 does not?
Runtime admissibility, commit-boundary enforcement, execution governance, evidence at execution, and ALLOW/HOLD/DENY outcomes — applied to each individual action at the moment it executes. Intake and approval systems clear work to proceed; they do not revalidate admissibility at the act.
Why does Decision Intelligence depend on L6?
Decision Intelligence (L7) learns from outcomes. Without L6, it may learn from legal actions that were never admissible. With L6, it learns only from governed execution — making the resulting intelligence trustworthy.
Related Concepts
Vocabulary an analyst can quote
The canonical concepts referenced on this page, each with its one-sentence definition.
Where Decision Infrastructure Fits
The canonical L5 → L6 → L7 model — the full explanation of the stack.
Execution Governance
Ensures decisions remain admissible at the moment they execute.
Runtime Admissibility
Validation of authority, policy, and constraints immediately before execution.
Commit Boundary
The point where a decision becomes a consequential action.
Legal Decision Intelligence
How QuNetra governs consequential legal execution in regulated practice.
Decision Systems
The L5 layer that coordinates workflows; Decision Infrastructure governs the act.
How the Layers Work Together
Where each legal-technology layer sits relative to Decision Infrastructure. L6 governs whether consequential legal actions remain admissible, authorized, compliant, and evidenced at execution.
Legal AI, research, drafting, analysis
Document, knowledge & matter management
The consequential legal action commits
Reference Surfaces
Reference Surfaces
Understanding a category requires more than comparisons. These reference surfaces explain the core concepts, architecture, vocabulary, and placement of Decision Infrastructure within the enterprise stack.
Definition
What Is Decision Infrastructure?
The canonical introduction to the category. Defines Decision Infrastructure, execution governance, runtime admissibility, and governed execution.
- Category definition
- Execution governance
- Runtime admissibility
- Governed execution
Placement
Where Decision Infrastructure Fits
Where Decision Infrastructure sits between Decision Systems and Decision Intelligence in the enterprise stack.
- L4 Decisioning
- L5 Decision Systems
- L6 Decision Infrastructure
- L7 Decision Intelligence
Architecture
Decision Infrastructure Architecture
The architecture that enables execution governance — how Decision Infrastructure operates across enterprise systems.
- Commit boundaries
- Runtime validation
- Execution control
- Evidence generation
Vocabulary
Decision Infrastructure Glossary
The canonical vocabulary of the category — the lexicon analysts can quote precisely.
- Runtime admissibility
- Commit boundary
- Execution governance
- Governed execution
- Evidence at action
Related Comparisons
Related Comparisons
Use these comparisons to understand how Decision Infrastructure differs from adjacent categories, systems, and governance models.
Decision Infrastructure and Harvey
Harvey generates legal reasoning and drafts; Decision Infrastructure governs whether the actions taken from that reasoning are admissible at execution.
Decision Infrastructure and iManage
iManage manages legal knowledge; Decision Infrastructure governs the consequential actions taken using that information at execution.
Decision Infrastructure and Relativity
Relativity surfaces and reviews evidence; Decision Infrastructure governs the consequential actions taken because of it at execution.
Decision Infrastructure and Reveal
Reveal surfaces evidence with AI-assisted review; Decision Infrastructure governs the consequential execution based on it.
Decision Infrastructure vs Decision Systems
Workflow-and-approvals systems exit before execution; Decision Infrastructure governs the act itself.
Decision Infrastructure and Icertis
Icertis manages contracts and obligations; Decision Infrastructure governs whether an action taken under them is admissible at execution.