Build Custom Automation for Your Law Firm's Workflow

Many small law firms rely on the built-in features of their practice management software (PMS) like Clio or MyCase. These tools are excellent for case tracking and billing but their automation capabilities are limited. For example, Clio’s automation is rule-based, triggered by simple events like a case status change. It can send a template email, but it cannot read the content of an incoming document to decide which template to send or who should be assigned the task. The system is event-driven, not content-aware.

Consider this common scenario: a 10-attorney personal injury firm receives a new client's medical records as a 150-page scanned PDF via email. A paralegal must open the PDF, manually read through it to identify the date of injury, treating physicians, and type of injury. They then write a summary and enter these key data points into the firm's PMS. This process takes 45-60 minutes per document and is highly susceptible to data entry errors. If three of these arrive on a Monday morning, a key team member is already behind.

The structural problem is that practice management systems are architected as databases with a light automation layer. Their purpose is to store and retrieve structured data, not to intelligently process unstructured content like a PDF or an email body. They lack the native integration with large language models needed to understand documents. Any task requiring interpretation of text must fall back to a human, creating the exact administrative bottlenecks firms are trying to eliminate.

The first step is an audit of your firm's document flow. We would map how new client information arrives—via email, a web form, or physical mail—and trace its path to the final case file in your PMS. This audit identifies the highest-value bottleneck to automate first. You receive a proposal detailing the specific workflow, the technical approach with a system diagram, and a fixed timeline.

For a document intake system, we would build a FastAPI service on AWS. An AWS Lambda function would trigger when a new email with an attachment arrives in a designated inbox. The system uses AWS S3 for secure document storage, performs OCR on any scanned files, and then sends the text to the Claude API. A carefully engineered prompt instructs Claude to extract specific entities (e.g., matter type, key dates, opposing counsel) and generate a 250-word summary. The response is returned as structured JSON, ensuring reliable data entry into your systems.

The delivered system would run on your firm's own AWS account, ensuring you control all data. New documents would be processed and routed to the correct attorney's queue in under 90 seconds, complete with a summary and extracted data fields ready for your PMS. You receive the full source code, a runbook for maintenance, and an audit trail of every document the system processes.