Automate the intake. Never the judgment.
Canadian firms lose hours every week to work that never needed a law degree: intake, scheduling, chasing documents, and retyping matter details. We build the systems that take that work, and only that work, off your firm.
The billable day is leaking at the edges.
Most small firms do not have a technology problem. They have a volume of unbillable coordination that quietly sets the ceiling on the practice.
- Potential clients calling after hours and retaining whoever answered first
- Intake details taken three times: on the phone, on the form, and again by the lawyer
- Document collection that runs on reminder emails somebody has to remember to send
- Scheduling that takes four emails per meeting, across clients, counsel, and the court list
- Status update calls interrupting the work the client is actually paying for
What we build.
The unbillable layer of the practice, run by systems. Everything below automates the routing and the collecting. None of it produces advice.
- Client intake that answers every inquiry. A voice agent answers around the clock, collects what your intake form would, screens for the matters you take and the conflicts you flag, and writes it into your practice management system. The retainer decision stays exactly where it belongs.
- Scheduling and document collection that run themselves. Bookings, reminders, and the document checklist chased politely and automatically until it is complete, with your team seeing status at a glance instead of excavating an inbox.
- Matter workflow with a human gate. First drafts assembled from your own precedents, files moved through your stages, deadlines surfaced instead of remembered. A mandatory review step sits wherever the output touches advice, filings, or anything sent in the firm's name.
- Wired into your practice stack. Clio and the tools around it: calendars, e signature, accounting, and phones. We build inside what the firm already runs rather than adding another silo to reconcile.
The line between workflow and advice.
A law firm cannot delegate judgment, competence, or confidentiality. So we do not build systems that pretend otherwise.
The Law Society of Ontario's guidance on generative AI is blunt in the right way: lawyers may use these tools, and lawyers remain responsible for what goes out the door. That constraint is not an obstacle to automation. It is the design brief. Everything we build for a firm automates the routing, the collecting, and the assembling, and stops for a person wherever the work becomes the practice of law.
Confidentiality is architectural, not contractual. Client data stays in the firm's own systems, access follows the firm's own permissions, nothing is used to train anyone else's models, and every action the system takes is logged where you can read it. PIPEDA and CASL are designed in from the first diagram, not audited in later.
We will also tell you what not to buy. A tool that drafts advice with no review step, or scores outcomes from data it cannot explain, fails the standard your regulator holds you to. Part of the engagement is saying no to those on your behalf.
Who this is for.
- Small firms and sole practitioners. Where the lawyer is also the intake desk, and every unbillable hour comes out of the same day.
- Real estate practices. Where closings run on documents, deadlines, and coordination between four parties, and the volume swings with the market.
- Intake heavy practices. Family, immigration, personal injury, and employment, where the firm that answers first and follows up consistently is the firm that gets retained.
Questions, answered straight
Is this offside the Law Society's guidance on AI? No. The guidance permits AI use and keeps the lawyer responsible for the output. Our systems are built around exactly that: they automate intake, scheduling, collection, and assembly, and put a mandatory human review on anything that touches advice or leaves in the firm's name.
Where does client data live? In your systems, under your permissions. We build inside the firm's own stack, keep confidential material out of any tool that cannot meet that standard, and log every action the system takes so you can audit it.
Can the intake agent answer legal questions? It collects and screens. It does not advise. Callers hear your script: what the firm does, what happens next, and when they will hear back. Anything resembling a legal question is captured for the lawyer, not answered on the call.
Will this replace our clerk or assistant? No, and we decline engagements whose purpose is cutting headcount. It takes the after hours inquiries, the reminder chasing, and the retyping off the people you have, so their day goes to the work that actually needs them.
We run Clio. Does that help? It does. Clio sits at the centre of most Canadian small firm stacks and gives us clean access for intake, matters, and calendars. We wire around what you run today, and if a piece of your stack cannot be automated safely, we say so rather than force it.
What does it cost? A fixed fee, quoted on the call once we know the practice and the systems. We would usually start with the audit, so the build aims at the hours that are actually leaking rather than the ones that are most visible.