Legal, consulting, and agency firms
Legal and consulting firms: own the systems and the data before you automate the draft.
Services firms run on billable hours and client confidence. We take the technology leadership role: the plan, the spend, and who directs IT. Matter files in tools no one chose are the live risk. We write the rule, then build automation in what you own.
Systems common in this industry.
The setup
What we usually find in legal, consulting, and agency firms.
In a services firm the work lives in documents, email, and time entries, and the money is decided by whether that time was billed. No one has one view of billable hours, unbilled work, and the pipeline. Each sits in a different system with a different owner.
AI arrives the way it does everywhere. Someone finds a tool that writes a decent first draft, uses it on live client material, and tells no one. The exposure is not the draft. It is what went into it.
What leadership gets
Three reports worth having first.
- ✓Unbilled and at-risk time by client, matter, and owner
- ✓Billable hours as a share of hours worked, and billed value against standard rates, by person and practice group
- ✓Pipeline and proposal-to-engagement conversion in one view
Report names are typical for the industry. Yours come from the systems the applications assessment finds. The base dashboard also shows what your technology costs, so license and vendor spend sits beside the operating numbers.
The steps for your industry
How the work usually runs.
- AI Use Policy adopted by the partners, with a matter-data rule and an exception owner
- AI security assessment finds the tools already in use and prices what can be approved
- Applications assessment maps CRM, time tracking, document management, and billing
- Base dashboard set up with billable hours, unbilled time, and pipeline reporting
- Automation scoped from what the dashboard shows, not from the first idea proposed
- Monthly watch: maintenance, AI security reporting, and a license and usage review
The order is fixed. Where you start is a decision, and the first meeting is where it gets made.
Where this has run
A profile from this industry.
The firm asked for automation, but its systems were not ready for it.
Professional services firm · ~30 staff
The firm asked for automation, and we recommended the advisory review first. It found AI tools in use that no one had counted, which changed the first project. The automation the firm wanted came second, built on a platform the firm owns.
Start here
What this industry buys first.
- AI Use Policy · Advisory review
- Applications assessment · Assessment
- Base dashboard deployment · Deployment
- QuickBooks dashboard · Deployment
- AI automation · Build · priced per feature
- Grok assistant development · Build · priced per assistant
- vCIO Solutions · Advisory · monthly agreement
- Copilot readiness · Delivery · scoped from the review
- AI web design · Build · priced per site
Where we work
Legal, consulting, and agency firms firms across the Carolinas.
We already use AI for drafting. Is that a problem?
Using AI for drafting is only a problem if live client matter detail went into it. The assessment establishes what was used and on what information. The AI Use Policy then decides what continues, what stops, and what gets logged. Banning everything is usually the wrong answer, and it never survives a busy month.
Does the policy need client consent?
Whether the policy needs client consent is a question for your own lawyer and your engagement letters. What Third Shift delivers is the internal rule: which tools are allowed, which kinds of information may go into them, who approves an exception, and what gets recorded. Your lawyer decides what clients are told.
Can you work with our document management system?
Yes, Third Shift can work with your document management system, as a system to read from rather than replace. If it offers a connection or a scheduled export, it can feed the dashboard. If it does not, we say so and leave it alone. Documents themselves are not copied into the dashboard.
Start here
The first step is the same in every industry.
Every engagement starts with advisory work: a written assessment of your environment, the AI Use Policy, and a recommendation you own whether or not you continue with us.