AI & practice
A real practice, running on AI. Here’s the whole system.
I’m not a consultant with a deck. I’m a trial lawyer with a docket, and I built this because I needed it. Everything here has been stress-tested against real deadlines and real consequences.
Better technology has always been the advantage.
On the battlefield, the side with better tools wins. I learned that at West Point and again in the Infantry, and nothing about the courtroom has convinced me otherwise.
A personal injury practice is a good place to test that claim. Lots of cases. Hard deadlines. Information arriving faster than any person can read it, where missing one line in one record can cost a family a great deal of money.
If a system survives that, it will survive whatever you’re managing — whether you’re running a docket, a deal pipeline, or a department.
Three pieces. That’s the stack.
Claude Code
The engine. Reads the record, drafts against it, and runs the automations that keep the practice moving without me in the loop.
Obsidian
The memory. Every case, person, deadline, and note in plain markdown — linked, searchable, and mine forever.
Plain files
No proprietary case-management lock-in. Documents live in folders. If a tool disappears tomorrow, the work doesn’t.
What it actually does
Not the interesting work — the high-volume, structured, verifiable work that used to eat the week.
Medical chronologies
Hundreds of pages of records into a dated, page-cited timeline — with gaps flagged rather than smoothed over.
Document review at intake
Full productions read end to end, indexed, and cross-referenced before the first strategy call.
Deposition prep
Outlines built from the actual record, with the exhibit and page behind every question.
Deadline architecture
Every case carries its own deadline set. Nothing depends on me remembering it.
The obligation doesn’t move.
Every one of these workflows requires a page citation for every fact, because a work product you can audit in ten minutes is worth having and one you can’t is a liability with nice formatting. The rules of professional conduct didn’t get an AI exception, and the work product is mine no matter what drafted the first pass.
Verification isn’t the tax you pay for using these tools. It’s the thing that makes the output worth having.
Writing on this
- Jul 8, 2026Stop Using AI as a Search EngineAlmost every lawyer I talk to is using AI the least valuable way possible. The fix is a change in posture, not a change in tool.
- Apr 10, 2026The Claude-Powered Trial LawyerZack Shapiro showed the world what a Claude-native law firm looks like for corporate work. But litigation is different. Here's what it looks like when a plaintiff's trial lawyer builds the same thing — for depositions, trial notebooks, discovery, and demand letters.
Come find me.
I write about this on LinkedIn most weeks and go deeper on YouTube. If you’re building something similar and want to compare notes, that’s a conversation I always have time for.