Your firm runs on expertise. Your operations run on spreadsheets.
Scalewerk builds custom AI systems for professional services firms — law firms, government contractors, accounting practices, and consultancies in the D.C. metro. We take the manual, document-heavy work that consumes your best people and turn it into automation you own. Senior engineers who understand your industry. No off-the-shelf software. No vendor lock-in. Everything we build is yours.
Qualified firms may begin with a fixed-scope diagnostic — 2 weeks, by invitation.
Sound familiar?
These are the patterns we see across professional services firms. Not because they're doing anything wrong — because the tools available weren't built for how they work.
The AI tool nobody uses
You bought the platform. Your team tried it for a week. It didn't understand legal documents, couldn't handle your specific workflow, and required more babysitting than the process it was supposed to replace. The annual license renewal just hit your inbox. Six figures. For a login page.
The strategy deck gathering dust
The consultancy charged $75,000 for a 120-slide "AI Transformation Roadmap." Beautifully designed. Thoroughly researched. Their final recommendation: hire someone else to build it. You're still manually processing the same documents you were processing before the engagement started.
The project that never shipped
The development agency quoted three months and $40,000. You're on month eight, $95,000 in, and the weekly status call always ends the same way: "We're almost there." Your team has lost confidence. Your partners have lost patience. The spreadsheets are still open.
The initiative that became a committee
Someone suggested "exploring AI." That became a task force. The task force became monthly meetings. The meetings produced a vendor evaluation matrix. The matrix is still being refined. Meanwhile, your associates are working their third consecutive weekend on document review that should take hours, not days.
The tools weren't built for you.
Generic AI products are designed for generic businesses. They assume standardized workflows, clean data, and simple inputs. Professional services firms have none of these. Your workflows are nuanced. Your data is messy. Your work product is complex. When you force-fit a generic tool onto a specific process, you get the worst of both worlds: the rigidity of software with none of the understanding of your people.
Every firm handles matters, cases, proposals, and engagements differently. A 30-person litigation firm in Tysons doesn't operate like a 30-person litigation firm in Bethesda, let alone a government contractor or accounting practice. Off-the-shelf tools can't account for this. They force you to adapt your process to their product.
Professional services data isn't rows in a database. It's contracts with nested clauses, financial statements with footnotes, proposals with cross-references, and case files with thousands of documents. The tools built for "enterprise" data can't parse the complexity of professional work product.
You can't ship "good enough" to a client. A 95% accuracy rate sounds impressive until you realize that 5% error rate means missed clauses in a contract, wrong numbers in a financial report, or non-compliant language in a government proposal. Professional services demands precision that generic tools weren't built to deliver.
Built around your process. Owned by your firm.
We don't sell software. We study how your firm actually works — the real workflows, not the ones in your employee handbook — and build systems engineered specifically for those processes. Every line of code is yours. Every decision is documented. When we're done, you have a production system that fits your firm like it was built by someone who works there. Because, for the duration of the engagement, we do.
Custom-built for your specific workflow
We don't configure a product. We build a system. Your intake process, your document taxonomy, your review stages, your approval chain — we engineer around the way your firm actually operates, not the way a software vendor thinks you should.
You own everything — code, data, IP
No proprietary platforms. No subscription lock-in. No "you can't leave without losing everything." We build on open infrastructure, transfer full source code and documentation, and ensure your firm can maintain, modify, or migrate without us.
Senior engineers who understand professional services
The person scoping your project is the person writing the code. No handoffs to junior developers. No offshore teams. No "let me check with the technical team." Our engineers have built systems for law firms, government contractors, and accounting practices. They understand the work before they write a line of code.
Outcomes measured, not hours billed
We're not optimizing for billable hours. We're optimizing for the result: document review that takes 1 hour instead of 8. Proposals assembled in a day instead of a week. Reports generated in minutes instead of hours. Our success is measured by your time reclaimed.
Systems we engineer
Every engagement is custom. These are representative examples of the types of systems we build — modeled on real professional services workflows.
THE SCENARIO
A 40-attorney litigation firm spending 8+ hours per matter on initial document review during discovery. Associates burning weekends. Partners reviewing work that should have been pre-filtered. Client bills inflating from manual processing.
WHAT WE BUILD
An AI-powered document classification and review system that ingests case documents, classifies them by relevance and privilege, extracts key entities and dates, surfaces priority items, and generates structured review summaries. Integrated with the firm's existing document management system.
Review time per matter
Classification accuracy
Attorney time reclaimed
Value at blended rates
Document Review Dashboard
Johnson v. Meridian Corp
Documents Classified (3,972)
AI Processing
47 minutes
Manual Estimate
8.2 hours
THE SCENARIO
A 60-person government contractor rebuilding every proposal from scratch. Institutional knowledge trapped in the heads of people who might leave tomorrow. Past performance narratives rewritten for every submission. RFP compliance matrices assembled manually.
WHAT WE BUILD
A proposal generation system with institutional memory. It indexes past performance, maintains a compliance matrix library, auto-drafts standard sections from historical wins, cross-references RFP requirements against company capabilities, and generates first-draft proposals that capture the firm's voice and track record.
Proposal turnaround
First-draft completeness
Past performance captured
Win rate signal
Proposal Builder
GSA OASIS+ Task Order #2847
Compliance Matrix
Past Performance Matches
3 found · 98% relevance
THE SCENARIO
A fractional CFO practice managing 40+ clients, each with different chart of accounts, different reporting formats, different data sources. Monthly reports that take 4 hours each to compile and format. Partners spending evenings on spreadsheet work instead of advisory.
WHAT WE BUILD
An automated reporting pipeline that connects to client accounting systems, normalizes data across different charts of accounts, generates standardized and custom reports, performs automated variance analysis, and produces client-ready PDF deliverables with the partner's formatting preferences.
Per-client report time
Partner hours freed
Error rate (from ~3%)
Without new hires
Client Reports — February 2026
Client Status
Meridian Holdings
Generated, Awaiting Review
Capitol Advisory Group
In Progress (variance detected)
Potomac Legal Partners
Sent
Two approaches. Different outcomes.
Senior partners sell the engagement. Junior analysts do the work. You pay $300-500/hour for someone two years out of school running your "AI transformation."
The people who scope the project build the project. Senior engineers, direct access, no layers between your problem and the person solving it.
One product, a thousand customers. Your workflow adapts to their features. When you need something they don't have, you submit a feature request to a backlog of 10,000.
One system, one customer — you. Every feature exists because your workflow requires it. When you need something new, we build it.
Quote low, scope creep high. Junior developers cycle through your project. Context resets with every personnel change. The three-month timeline becomes eight months.
Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline. Senior-only execution. The context we build stays because the people stay.
Deep in your industry
We don't just understand AI. We understand the work — the specific documents, workflows, regulations, and pressures that define your practice.
Fractional CFOs & Accounting
Forty clients, forty spreadsheets, zero leverage. Monthly reports consuming partner time that should go to advisory.
Automated reporting pipelines, client financial analysis, variance detection, tax preparation automation
4 hours → 15 minutes per report
Boutique Consulting
Analysts formatting deliverables instead of analyzing data. Proposal production that's mostly copy-paste.
Deliverable automation, data processing pipelines, proposal templates with AI-assisted drafting
70% manual work automated
Trade Associations
Member communications, event coordination, legislative tracking — all manual, all fragmented.
Member engagement automation, legislative monitoring systems, reporting dashboards
Custom engagements
Don't see your industry? We build for any professional services firm with document-heavy, expert-driven workflows.
From conversation to production in weeks, not months.
We listen before we prescribe
Week 0No pitch deck. No demo. Just a conversation about what's actually eating your team's time. We ask questions like "What's the worst 8 hours of your team's week?" and "What would you build if you had an engineering team?" We want to understand the real workflow — not the one in your employee handbook.
DELIVERABLE: Honest assessment of whether we can help. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.
We map your process in detail
Weeks 1-2We sit with the people who do the work. We watch them do it. We document every step, every decision point, every workaround, every frustration. We produce a technical specification that describes exactly what we'll build, how it will work, and what it will cost. Fixed scope. Fixed price.
DELIVERABLE: Technical specification with architecture, timeline, and fixed-price quote.
We build and ship
Weeks 3-10Senior engineers building production-grade systems. Not prototypes. Not demos. Working software that handles your real data, integrates with your existing tools, and meets the precision standards your work demands. You see progress weekly. You can test iteratively. Nothing is a surprise at delivery.
DELIVERABLE: Production system, deployed and operational.
We grow with you
OngoingSystems need tuning as your business evolves. Your team needs support as they learn. New opportunities emerge. We stay engaged — not because you're locked in, but because the relationship creates value. Monthly partnerships structured around your firm's complexity and pace — from ongoing support to dedicated engineering capacity.
DELIVERABLE: Continuous improvement, priority access, accumulated context.
We listen before we prescribe
Week 0No pitch deck. No demo. Just a conversation about what's actually eating your team's time. We ask questions like "What's the worst 8 hours of your team's week?" and "What would you build if you had an engineering team?" We want to understand the real workflow — not the one in your employee handbook.
DELIVERABLE: Honest assessment of whether we can help. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.
We map your process in detail
Weeks 1-2We sit with the people who do the work. We watch them do it. We document every step, every decision point, every workaround, every frustration. We produce a technical specification that describes exactly what we'll build, how it will work, and what it will cost. Fixed scope. Fixed price.
DELIVERABLE: Technical specification with architecture, timeline, and fixed-price quote.
We build and ship
Weeks 3-10Senior engineers building production-grade systems. Not prototypes. Not demos. Working software that handles your real data, integrates with your existing tools, and meets the precision standards your work demands. You see progress weekly. You can test iteratively. Nothing is a surprise at delivery.
DELIVERABLE: Production system, deployed and operational.
We grow with you
OngoingSystems need tuning as your business evolves. Your team needs support as they learn. New opportunities emerge. We stay engaged — not because you're locked in, but because the relationship creates value. Monthly partnerships structured around your firm's complexity and pace — from ongoing support to dedicated engineering capacity.
DELIVERABLE: Continuous improvement, priority access, accumulated context.
The math on custom vs. subscription
30-attorney litigation practice, D.C.
Ownership: Nothing (cancel = lose everything)
Workflow Fit: 60-70% (you adapt to the product)
Ownership: Everything (code, data, IP)
Workflow Fit: 100% (built for your process)
Figures are representative. Actual costs depend on scope and complexity.
AI Opportunity Assessment
2-week diagnostic of your operations. Prioritized roadmap of AI opportunities specific to your firm. Fixed scope, standalone value, no commitment to continue.
Learn MoreProof of Concept Build
Working prototype of a single workflow in 2-3 weeks. Real data, real results. Show your partners something that works, not another slide deck.
Learn MoreMonthly Engineering Partnership
From Foundation support to embedded technical co-founder. Engineering capability that grows with you. Cancel anytime after the initial commitment.
See Partnership TiersEvery engagement starts with a conversation. No pitch deck, no pressure, no 47-slide presentation about our "methodology." Just an honest discussion about whether we can help.
What we engineer toward
Document review transformation
Target reduction in initial review time for litigation document systems
Operational cost reduction
Typical cost reduction achievable when automating manual document-heavy workflows
Concept to production
Standard timeline from first conversation to deployed, operational system
Client code ownership
Every client receives full source code, documentation, and deployment infrastructure
We know what it looks like when associates spend full days sorting discovery documents instead of analyzing them. Our systems are built to flip that ratio — hours to minutes.
Scalewerk Engineering
On building for litigation firms
AI consulting shouldn't mean helping you buy licenses. It should mean watching your team work, understanding the real friction, and building a system that addresses problems you haven't fully articulated yet.
Our Approach
How we think about professional services AI
The professional services industry is full of vendors who want more meetings, more discovery, more phases. We ship working systems in weeks, not quarters.
Scalewerk Engineering
On delivery timelines
We believe the best outcome is a system you own outright. No annual license negotiation. No vendor holding your data hostage. Your code, your infrastructure, your IP.
Our Philosophy
On ownership and independence
Senior engineers. Not a sales team with subcontractors.
Scalewerk is a small engineering firm that does the work ourselves. The person on your call is the person writing your code. No account managers, no project coordinators, no offshore handoffs. We kept the team small on purpose: because professional services firms deserve the same senior-level attention they give their own clients.
Engagements begin with a private conversation.
No pitch deck. No demo. No 47-slide methodology presentation. Just a 30-minute call about what's consuming your team's time and whether building something custom makes sense for your firm.
If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you. If we can help, you'll know exactly what that looks like — scope, timeline, cost — before you commit to anything.
Every inquiry receives a direct response from a senior engineer within 24 hours. No sales team. No gatekeepers. That level of access is deliberate.