Programs and services
What the Foundation actually does
We run four programs. Each one is described below with what it currently includes, who it is for, and how to use it today. Where a program is still small, we say so rather than describing what we hope it becomes.
Program 01
One-to-One Mentorship
Every attorney and law student who qualifies is paired with a mentor who has done the thing they are trying to do. At no cost, in either direction.
Written procedures answer the question you knew to ask. A mentor answers the one you did not. This is the program we consider most consequential, because the difference between a practice that works and one that grinds is usually a decision made early, alone, with no one to check it against.
We match on the problem rather than on availability. A mentee tells us where they are and what they are stuck on; a person at the Foundation reads it and pairs them with a law firm owner, an operations expert, a finance expert, or a marketing expert whose experience fits. We say who the mentor is and why we chose them before anything is scheduled, and we rematch without argument if the fit is wrong.
Mentors are volunteers who commit to a standing monthly call with one mentee. They agree in writing to the program rules, the most important of which is that a mentor may not sell services, software, coaching, or referrals to the person they mentor. Mentorship here is educational and operational; it is not legal advice, not supervision of anyone's cases, and not a lead source for anybody.
Who qualifies
Law students, attorneys in roughly their first five years, anyone planning or opening a firm, solo and small firm owners of about ten people or fewer, and the staff who run those offices. We do not screen on revenue, school, or firm size. Full eligibility and program rules.
Program 02
The Written Procedure Library
Our core activity: documenting the day-to-day workflows of a law practice and publishing them as free, readable web pages.
A standard operating procedure is a plain-language description of how one recurring task gets done: what triggers it, who is responsible, each step in order, what gets recorded, and what counts as finished. Firms that have them stop losing work in the gaps between people. Firms that do not have them run on memory, and memory fails on the busiest days.
We choose subjects by where small firms most often break down. The eight procedures in the library cover the arrival of a new potential client, the money, the promises made about communication, the movement of paper, discovery, and the closing of a file. They are written as examples to study and adapt, not as legal advice or a compliance product, and they assume a firm of one to ten people rather than a large institution.
Every procedure is published in full on the site as HTML. You can read all of it, link to a section, and send it to a colleague without an account, an email address, or a download.
How we build one
We start from how the task is actually performed in working firms, write it step by step, strip out anything that depends on a particular vendor or jurisdiction, have it reviewed by a practitioner who runs that process daily, and publish it with the roles labeled so a reader can see who does what. When a procedure turns out to be wrong or incomplete, we revise the page rather than leaving it standing.
Program 03
Practical Tools and Self-Guided Training
Material designed to be worked through, not just read: checklists, templates, and a worksheet that walks a firm through writing its own procedures.
Reading someone else's procedure is useful. Writing your own is what changes a firm. The development guide teaches the method: pick the process that is currently costing you the most, observe it as it really happens for a week, write the steps in the order they occur, name a single owner for each step, decide where the record lives, then run it for thirty days before you edit it.
The accompanying worksheet gives a firm a structure to fill in, so an office manager or associate can produce a usable first draft in an afternoon without knowing anything about process documentation. Our templates are deliberately plain: no software required, no proprietary framework, nothing that stops working if you change practice management systems.
This program is self-guided by design. An attorney can do all of it alone, at whatever hour is free, without scheduling a call with anybody. That matters more to a solo practitioner than any live session we could offer.
Program 04
Outreach to Schools, Bars, and New Practitioners
Getting the material into the hands of people at the moment they need it, and running sessions for groups who ask.
Publishing is only half of an educational program. The other half is reaching the attorney in the month she signs an office lease, and the third-year student deciding whether solo practice is realistic. We work with organizations that already have that audience.
Any law school clinic, career office, bar association, incubator, or legal aid organization may reproduce and distribute our material for their members without asking permission and without a fee. We will also prepare a session for a group on request, built around writing one procedure the attendees actually need rather than a survey of practice management as a topic.
This is our newest program and it is small. We would rather list it honestly as an open invitation than claim a schedule of events we have not held. If your organization wants one, write to us and we will arrange it.
What we do not do
The boundaries of the program
We do not give legal advice
Our material is educational. It is not legal, ethical, tax, or accounting advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Rules vary by jurisdiction; every reader is responsible for their own compliance.
We do not sell anything
There is no paid tier, no consulting practice, no upsell at the end of a guide. If you find a page recommending you buy something from us, it is a mistake and we want to know about it.
We do not accept vendor payment for coverage
When we write about software or services, no company pays for placement and we take no affiliate commissions. Our technology material teaches selection criteria rather than naming a winner.