# Marcus Thibodeaux, Managing Partner at Thibodeaux & Kellner PLLC — read of Law Firm AI, May 31 2026 > 14 years PI plaintiff work, 8 attorneys, Baton Rouge. Running Clio for case management, MyCase for intake forms, and a part-time intake coordinator named Brenda who leaves at 5:30. --- ## How I got here Googled "law firm intake automation after hours" on a Tuesday night after we lost a slip-and-fall lead to Slaughter Law because they called back in 22 minutes and we called back the next morning. Saw this in the results around the third page, underneath a bunch of Clio and Lawmatics ads. Clicked mostly because the result snippet said something about "9pm calls" and that was specific enough to feel like it knew my problem. ## What I clicked first The subhead stopped me: "Solo lawyers, stop losing prospects to the night shift." I'm not solo, but that's exactly the problem. "Calls that come at 9pm get answered, conflicts checked, and retainers drafted while you sleep. By 7am, the qualified lead sits in your queue, ready to review and sign." That sentence is doing a lot of work and it almost works. Almost. The "retainers drafted" part is where I slow down. Drafted by who? Reviewed by who? That's not a small word to throw in. ## Where I paused The stats. "47 hours/week saved. On average." I stopped there and stayed. Not because I disbelieve the number exists somewhere, but because there's no story behind it. 47 hours across how many attorneys? A 3-person shop? A 40-person shop? It matters enormously. "3.2x intake volume, same team" is the kind of thing a product either backs up or shouldn't say. "$220K ARR increase, case median" -- I don't know what "case median" means in this sentence and I work in this industry. ## What I distrusted Scrolled to the bottom and found this, in a section that felt like it was designed to be skimmed: "Honest disclosure: we don't have live customers on this idea yet. We shipped the strategy package; you ship the customer conversations." I went back and reread the hero. Those stats -- 47 hours, 3.2x, $220K -- are still sitting up there, bold, no asterisk, and there are zero live customers. That's not an asterisk problem, that's a credibility problem. The page is built like a SaaS product with proof numbers, but the fine print says it's a concept you can unlock for $5. The "Built by Wishdeal Studio" footer and the "Unlock the dossier" modal make it clear this is an idea marketplace, not a product. The conflict check FAQ says "Zero false negatives" -- that's a claim that would terrify a malpractice carrier, and they're saying it with no customers behind it. The "1 in 8 meaningful success odds" buried in the honesty section also gives me pause. That's the builder telling me this probably doesn't work. I respect the disclosure. I don't know what to do with it commercially. ## What would convince me One real firm. Not anonymized. An actual named plaintiff-side PI firm with a managing partner I can Google, saying here's what our intake volume looked like before and after, and here is whether the conflict check caught anything real. I'd also want to see the conflict check actually integrated with Clio or Filevine, not just described as checking "your entire matter database." I'm specifically asking whether it talks to my existing system or whether I'm migrating data somewhere. That's the whole deal for me. ## What I'd ask in an email reply 1. The 47 hours/week stat -- which firm, what size, over what period? Is that aggregate across all attorneys or per-attorney? 2. When the AI "drafts the retainer while I sleep," what exactly does that mean? Is it filling in a template I've pre-loaded, or is it generating language? Because that is not the same thing for a plaintiff-side PI firm. 3. You say you're SOC 2 Type II certified -- can I see the report, and are you willing to sign a BAA for anything touching client communications? ## Verdict: on-the-fence The pain identification is accurate, maybe the best I've seen on a legal tech page in a while. But the combination of confident proof numbers and a "no live customers" disclosure at the bottom is hard to reconcile, and I'd need to understand whether this is a product I can actually buy or a blueprint I'd be funding to build. --- *Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-05-31. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*