// industry · I.05 · Professional Services
Legal, accounting, and consulting firms run on expert judgment. The waste sits around it: document prep, case context, client follow-up, billing cleanup, and status chasing. We build agents that prep the work so the licensed human or senior operator keeps authority.
// the pain
Different credentials, same administrative drag. Below is where expert time usually gets wasted.
Client updates sit in inboxes until somebody has time to write them. Missing-document requests get repeated by hand. Status calls become status archaeology.
Engagement letters, checklists, meeting summaries, and first-pass drafts all start from old files. The expert should review, not hunt for the last good version.
Context lives across email, folders, notes, PDFs, and practice tools. Before a call, someone rebuilds the story from scratch.
Time, invoices, retainers, expenses, and receivables drift until month-end. Partners find out too late which work is profitable and which work is charity.
// sample playbook
A walkthrough of the build we would scope for a legal, accounting, or consulting firm with a real admin bottleneck.
A 5 to 30 person firm. Stack: Clio, PracticePanther, Karbon, QuickBooks, Xero, SharePoint, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or a mix of folders and spreadsheets. Senior people are doing too much prep work.
Client communication is reactive. Document drafting starts from old work. Case or engagement prep takes longer than the meeting. Billing clarity arrives after the month is already over.
// the stack
Each one ships around your permissions, approval rules, and client confidentiality boundaries.
Drafts status updates, missing-document requests, and meeting prep messages from matter context. It routes sensitive work to the professional who owns it.
Pulls invoices, time, retainers, expenses, and receivables into a clean finance brief. It flags drift before the partner meeting.
Summarizes notes, documents, and threads into a prep packet. Builds the checklist so the human shows up ready to make the call.
// timeline
Four steps. No drawn-out discovery. We talk, we scope, we build, you ship.
Ten-minute form. Cortland reads every one personally.
30-minute call, then a written scope back within 48 hours.
Agents wired to your stack. You review every output.
Agents in prod. Retainer takes over for tune-ups.
Builds start at $5,000, custom-quoted on the discovery call. Most professional services fleets sit in the Operator retainer band ($1,750/mo) post-launch.
// FAQ
The four we get most often on the discovery call. If yours isn't here, ask it on the intake.
No. The agent drafts administrative work, organizes source material, and prepares review packets. A licensed professional owns the judgment, advice, and client-facing approval.
Usually, yes. We scope around the tools you already use. Read-only access comes first, then write-back only where the workflow is safe and approved.
Not by default. The client comms agent drafts status updates, missing-document requests, and meeting prep notes. A human approves before anything client-facing goes out.
We build around least-privilege access, matter-level folders, and approval logs. The agent only sees the files and systems needed for the task it owns.
// next step
Tell us your practice type, your stack, and the admin work eating senior time. Cortland reads every intake personally and gets back within 48 hours. The booking link to lock in a 30-minute call arrives after you submit.
Start the intake →