How law, accounting and advisory firms should use AI (internal drafts only)

If your name is on a license, a model is a junior who has read the internet and will invent a case. Use it where a wrong draft is caught before a client sees it. Do not use it where the output is the advice.

Intake is a website problem first

Collect matter type, conflict-check basics, and a time. A model may suggest which practice group based on a form you designed. It may not say “you have a strong case” or “you should elect S-corp.” That sentence is the firm’s.

Internal summaries of documents you already hold

A partner asks for a timeline from a production you uploaded to a system you control. The model proposes. The associate checks citations against the PDF. Nothing leaves for a consumer chatbot. If we build this, the processor is named in the SOW and the privacy policy, and the files stay in your tenancy.

What we will refuse

A public “ask our AI lawyer” widget. A tax chatbot. Anything that presents as advice. If you need a site, scheduling, and a private internal tool, that is in scope. Malpractice is not a product feature.

How I judge whether the idea is real

I ask three questions on the first call. What job did a person do last week that you want a machine to draft? Who checks the output before a customer sees it? What happens on Friday if we turn the feature off? If you cannot answer those, we are not ready to write a statement of work. We are ready to write the FAQ or the SOP first — and that is often the actual project.

I would rather decline a fashionable chatbot than ship something that lies about hours, stock, refunds or a diagnosis. The invoice has my company’s name on it. That is why the no’s are part of the work.

What you should have in writing before you pay anyone

The job in one sentence. The data the model may see. The human who confirms. The metric you will look at in 30 days. The kill switch. The legal name of the vendor. USD price and when the card is charged. Who owns the repo. If a vendor cannot put those on one page, you are buying a demo.

• Nothing is billed by us before you approve a written scope.
• Typical project billing is 50% to start and 50% on delivery, through Stripe.
• Code, design and prompts we write for you transfer on final payment.

The steps — do these in order

1. 01

   Move intake onto a form you designed

   Matter type, conflict basics, a time. The model does not declare you have a case.

2. 02

   Keep client files in a system you control

   No consumer chatbot. If a vendor will not sign the right agreement, they do not see the file.

3. 03

   Summaries are internal until a named professional signs

   Citations get checked against the PDF. Invented cases do not leave the building.

4. 04

   Scheduling is a website, not an advisor

   We will build the site. We will not build “ask our AI lawyer.”

5. 05

   Write the nos into the SOW

   No unsupervised advice. No tax chatbot. No public widget.

6. 06

   Train staff on what must never be pasted

   SSNs, full tax returns, medical records, opposing counsel strategy.

7. 07

   Review a sample of drafts every month

   If quality slips, you turn the tool off. The license is yours, not the model’s.

8. 08

   Tell clients when a machine drafted an internal memo

   If your ethics rules require it, you already know. Do not get cute.

Keep reading

• Think. Build. Ship.

  Think. Build. Ship. — the only order that produces a product

  Think is understand the problem. Build is engineer the solution. Ship is put it into the real world. Skip one and you have a tutorial, a file, or a pitch — not a product.

• Tutorials

  Tutorials are not a product. A link is.

  You can finish a hundred tutorials and still have nothing to send. Shipping is a link that does a job — that is what SINLE Academy is for.

• Bootcamp

  SINLE Academy is not a coding bootcamp

  No job promise. No certificate as the product. Eight people, six weeks, $400 — you leave with work someone can use, not a placement story.