For Pittsburgh Law Firms

Your Pittsburgh AI partner.

One monthly retainer. Private AI, IT support, training, web, infrastructure — what we do is set by what your firm actually needs. Pace controlled by the hours you book. Privilege stays privileged. Nothing routes through a public API.

Your associates spend twelve hours on a contract set before a partner sees it. Deposition prep means reading thousands of pages by hand. Knowledge from past matters lives in a DMS that nobody can search meaningfully. Institutional knowledge walks out the door every time a senior associate leaves.

You've seen what AI can do. Your ethics committee or IT director blocked the pilot. They were right to. Microsoft Copilot routes through Azure. ChatGPT routes through OpenAI. When you're handling privileged communications and confidential engagement files, encrypted-in-transit isn't good enough. The data shouldn't leave.

Meanwhile, your peers are moving.

Reed Smith named a Chief AI Officer. K&L Gates won BTI's Innovation Icon for AI. Both firms are headquartered in Pittsburgh and recruit from the same talent pool you do. Allen & Overy deployed Harvey AI to all 3,500 of its lawyers firmwide. Harvey raised $200M at an $11B valuation in March 2026, explicitly to scale AI agents across law firms.

The mid-AmLaw and regional firms that don't have a credible AI story in 2026 are losing on the hiring side first, then on the client side six months later.

Sources: Bloomberg Law · Harvey AI · BTI Consulting Group · A&O Shearman newsroom

A retainer. Whatever fits your firm.

The retainer is the container. The work inside it flexes per firm based on what your team actually needs. Some firms get AI-heavy retainers. Some get web rebuilds plus AI training. Some get pure IT support while their AI strategy ferments. Same hours, same price, completely different work.

Private AI implementation

Document intelligence, RAG on case files, custom Claude Code agents, multi-agent systems with audit trails, direct DMS integration.

AI training and enablement

Partner and associate training programs, practice-group workflow design, internal AI policy drafting for the ethics committee, vendor evaluation.

IT support and managed services

Ticket queue, infrastructure operations, vendor management, security posture, fractional CIO at Enterprise tier.

Website and applications

Firm website rebuild, client and matter portals, internal tools and dashboards, custom intake forms.

Cloud and infrastructure

On-prem to private cloud migration, hybrid topology, GPU infrastructure for private AI, identity and access.

Security and compliance

Annual audits, HIPAA posture, SOC 2 readiness, incident response planning, vendor security review.

Data and analytics

Practice-group revenue analysis, time-and-billing analytics, matter profitability, lateral-recruit dashboards.

Process automation

Engagement letter automation, conflict-check workflow, matter intake, client communications and reminders.

Discovery sets the scope. The free 30-minute assessment is where we map your firm's specific gaps to the catalog. The retainer agreement documents what we'll prioritize in your first 90 days. Quarterly review can shift the mix as priorities change.

Three sizes. Pick the one that matches your firm.

$250 per hour blended rate. Same rate for both senior operators. The work inside the retainer is set by your firm's needs — pull from any combination of services in the catalog above.

Starter
$1,250/month
5 hours · $250/hr
Best for a focused pilot. One specific use case. Lowest-risk way to evaluate working with us.

What 5 hours can buy

  • A scoped AI training session for one practice group
  • Drafting your firm's internal AI policy
  • An ethics-committee-ready architecture brief
  • Light technology advisory or vendor evaluation
  • One small automation (intake form, conflict check)
Growth
$10,000/month
40 hours · $250/hr
Best for firms ready to make AI or IT a strategic priority. Multi-practice or multi-initiative scope.

What 40 hours can buy

  • Multi-practice AI rollout with isolated data per group
  • Or full IT support plus a significant AI initiative
  • Or a custom Claude Code agent fleet for power users
  • Or DMS integration plus quarterly innovation roadmap
  • Strategic technology planning with managing partner

First month is free at any tier. Hours roll over one month max. 30-day walk clause if no shipped work. Firms needing more than 40 hours per month get a custom Enterprise quote.

What the retainer doesn't include: AI usage costs (Anthropic API, model inference), infrastructure costs (GPU hosting, vector storage, cloud compute), and any third-party tools required for your build. These are billed pass-through at cost — typically $300 to $1,500 per month depending on usage. We architect to keep them predictable.

Step 01

Free 30-min IT-and-AI assessment

We map your current IT relationship and the three to five AI use cases that fit your matter mix. Recommendation on starting tier with reasoning. You leave with a 90-day roadmap, yours to keep.

Step 02

Retainer agreement

One-page short-form retainer agreement, drafted within 24 hours of the call. Three-page long-form available if your GC wants it. Standard hours-not-rolled-over-past-one-month language.

Step 03

First month free, ship in week one

We start work on day one. By end of month one, your firm has shipped artifacts, not slideware. If we miss, you walk. No termination fee.

Privilege stays privileged

No client data touches an external server. No public-API calls. The system runs where your data lives. Privilege is preserved by architecture, not by policy.

Ethics-committee ready

We build with audit trails, access logging, and matter-level data isolation. Your ethics committee gets the documentation they need to approve, on day one.

Two senior operators

Marc Shade, twenty-plus years shipping software for corporate clients. Scott Frederick Laughlin, AI/ML engineering and cloud architecture. The two people in the room are the two people writing the code. No junior labor leakage.

Pittsburgh-rooted

We're local. Same talent pool, same industry network, same regulatory and client environment your firm operates in. Same time zone for incident response.

Familiar buying motion

Monthly retainer, standard hours-included contract, partner-decidable budget line. No procurement gauntlet. No six-month enterprise software sales cycle.

Pace controlled by you

Risk-averse partners start at Foundation tier. Watch the AI work prove out for ninety days. Scale to Growth or Enterprise when the value is concrete. Your hours, your pace.

What if we already have an MSP we're happy with?
We offer an AI-only retainer at the same hours-pricing. Same model, no IT-support overlap. We slot in as the AI implementation partner alongside your existing MSP relationship.
What does the ethics committee see?
Audit trails for every AI action, access logs by matter and user, data isolation between practice groups, no external-server traffic, no model training on your data. Documentation drafted in the language your ethics committee already uses for technology vendors. We've worked through the questions before.
How do you handle privilege?
Architecture, not policy. Claude models run on your infrastructure or in a private cloud you control. No requests leave your environment. The AI never sees a privileged document outside your firewall. We'll walk your IT director and ethics chair through the deployment topology before we sign anything.
What if we don't use all our hours one month?
Standard MSP practice: hours roll over to the next month, but no further. Quarterly review with managing partner adjusts the tier if your usage pattern is consistently above or below the package.
What about a defined-scope AI project on top of retainer?
We can quote a fixed-scope project at $312.50 per hour for clearly-defined deliverables outside the retainer hours, billed separately. Most firms find the retainer hours are enough.
Are AI infrastructure costs included in the retainer?
No. The retainer pays for our time. AI usage costs (Anthropic API), infrastructure costs (GPU hosting, vector databases, cloud compute), and any third-party tools required for your build are billed pass-through at cost. Typical range: $300 to $1,500 per month depending on usage. We architect for predictable, transparent costs and quote them up front before any commit.
Why not just use ChatGPT Enterprise or Microsoft Copilot?
Both route requests through their own infrastructure. For privileged work and client-confidential engagement files, that's the wrong architecture regardless of how the contract reads. The big firms (Reed Smith, Allen & Overy, Cleary Gottlieb) deploying private-AI through Harvey or comparable tools are doing it for the same reason.
Can you work with our existing DMS?
Yes. iManage, NetDocuments, Worldox, NetSuite, and most major DMS platforms have integration patterns we've built against. Direct DMS integration is part of the Growth and Enterprise tiers; Foundation tier integrates with one document source at a time.
How long is a typical engagement?
Most retainer engagements run year-over-year. There's no minimum commitment beyond the first month. The first-month-free clause means there's no termination penalty if it's not working.

Free 30-minute IT-and-AI assessment

See what private AI looks like for your firm.

Thirty minutes, no deck, no slides, no follow-up pitch unless you ask. You walk away with a 90-day roadmap and a recommended starting tier. Yours to keep regardless of whether we ever work together.

Book Your Free Assessment →
Marc Shade · 2 Acre Studios · Pittsburgh