Chapter 03 · How we bill
Faster, and for a lower total spend.
AI changes how legal work is produced, so we bill for it differently. A traditional firm bundles production and judgment into one hourly bill, then re-bills it each time you come back. We split the work in two: a knowledge base built at the start of the engagement, and the deliverables produced from it.
Built at the start. A living asset going forward.
We start by building the curated base of law, practice, and fact that matters to your engagement. This is the production layer, the part a traditional firm bills as weeks of associate hours. We automate it, and it becomes the basis for every deliverable that follows. The base is yours. You own it, and you can take it with you.
Priced to scope, quoted before you commit
A single fee to build the base at the start of the engagement, scoped to the matter. A base covering one state costs less than one spanning many jurisdictions. You see the number before anything begins, and you do not pay to build it again.
Kept living
For ongoing matters, an optional monthly subscription keeps the base current as the law and the practical picture change. You maintain the asset instead of re-buying a memo that aged the day it shipped.
The deliverables, at efficient hours.
The deliverables you use (memos, briefings, analyses, surveys, training, intelligence) are produced from the base and customized to what you need, billed hourly. Because the base is already built, it takes far fewer hours to reach a finished work product you can act on, and senior counsel does that work directly. Keep the base under maintenance and the deliverables stay current, instead of going stale the way traditional work product does.
Similar rates. Far fewer hours. A reusable asset.
Our hourly rates are in line with what you would expect from experienced counsel. What the knowledge base removes is the hours, not the judgment, and that is what brings the total down. Production becomes a scoped, upfront fee instead of open-ended associate time, and every deliverable after it starts from work that is already done.
| Traditional outside counsel | foundational.law | |
|---|---|---|
| The production work | Weeks of billed hours, rebuilt every matter | An upfront, scope-based fee for a reusable knowledge base |
| Knowing the cost | An estimate, then a bill | A fixed number for the build, quoted before you commit |
| Keeping it current | A fresh engagement, re-billed | An optional maintenance subscription |
| The deliverables | Hourly, assembled by hand | Hourly, but far fewer hours from the base |
| When you come back | Re-engage, re-ramp, re-bill | The asset already exists; you build forward, not from scratch |
| Spend and risk | Same process whatever the stakes | Depth scoped to what the question actually carries |
Comparisons describe how the two approaches are structured and what this model is designed to do. Results vary by matter.
And it compounds. After the first engagement the base already exists, so every later deliverable starts from it. Few traditional firms are structured to offer that; the hourly model's economics reward rebuilding each time.
Spend that matches the risk.
Not every question is worth the same money, and the hourly model is poor at telling the difference. It bills a routine question the same way it bills the one that could reshape the business, and you find out what each was worth when the invoice arrives.
Splitting the base from the deliverables lets you put the spend where the risk actually is. Recurring, lower-risk questions are answered from the base at a fraction of what they used to cost. The ones carrying real exposure get the depth they need, and where a matter calls for the full traditional treatment, we say so and hand your existing firm a finished record to work from. Because the build is quoted before you commit and the deliverables are scoped to what you need, you decide what a question is worth before the work starts rather than after.
Priced to how the work gets done.
If paying for an asset and efficient hours, instead of open-ended time, is how you’d rather buy legal work, we’d like to hear from you.