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One of the five sectors

Digital systems for Canadianprofessional services.

Law, accounting, engineering and consulting firms sell the judgement of named people. Intake is where the money is decided, and the regulator decides what the firm may say about itself.

Intake that routes itself, documents exchanged in a system, and a site that persuades inside the rules your regulator sets.

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HUREAL / Material studies

In your words

Soundslike this?

  1. Intake is a partner reading an email and deciding whose it is.

  2. A conflict check is a person and a memory and sometimes a spreadsheet.

  3. Clients send us documents by email and we send them back the same way.

  4. Our best people spend their most expensive hours on work that is not the work.

  5. Every engagement letter starts from the last one somebody can find.

  6. We are recruiting harder than we are selling, and the careers page is an afterthought.

  7. We get asked what we specialise in and the answer on the site is not the answer we give.

If the recognisable line is the last one, that is a positioning and copy problem rather than a systems one, and the page is Corporate and marketing websites.

The operational shape

Intake decides the year,and the regulator decides the words.

Three things shape almost every digital decision in a professional firm, and the third is the one that most often surprises a marketing team arriving from another sector.

01

The work is sold by the people who do it

Buying decisions here run on referral and reputation, and the person who signs is usually buying a named individual rather than a firm. The website is read before the first call by somebody deciding whether that call is worth making, and by the client they were referred by, checking that the referral holds up.

That makes the people pages and the practice pages load bearing in a way they are not elsewhere, and it makes a stale biography more expensive than a slow home page.

02

Intake is where the margin is set

A matter or an engagement taken on the wrong terms is a year of work at the wrong rate. Intake is therefore a screening process with real rules: is this the kind of work we do, is it worth doing, is there a conflict, and who should own it.

Most of those rules are already written down. That is what makes intake a good first system: the judgement stays with a person and the reading, matching, recording and routing around it does not.

03

The regulator sets the vocabulary

Law societies publish rules on marketing and advertising, and claims of specialisation are constrained. Provincial accounting bodies govern the use of the professional designation. Engineering regulators restrict the titles engineer and professional engineer, and in Ontario a firm offering engineering services to the public holds a certificate of authorization.

Practically this means the strongest available claim is frequently not the one a marketer would reach for, and the words on a professional services site are a compliance surface as much as a persuasion surface.

What we are not claiming. Nothing here is a comment on how firms are run. Professional services firms are among the most carefully governed businesses in the country, and the reason so much still happens by email is that email is the one channel every client already has. A system that ignores that fact gets used for a month.

The jobs

Four jobs a systemdoes in a firm.

Each one is a job rather than a feature, and each has a number your practice management or time system already holds. The third column names the measure rather than a value.

Professional services, the four jobs and what each one moves
The job What it looks like here The number it moves
Qualify the inquiry An inquiry read on arrival, matched to an existing client or marked as new, scored against the criteria you already use, and put in front of the right person with what they need attached. Hours between an inquiry arriving and somebody who can act on it seeing it.
Run the conflict check first The check triggered at intake rather than remembered, against the systems that hold the parties, with anything uncertain stopping for a person. Share of new matters where a documented check preceded the engagement.
Exchange documents in a system A client portal with permissions and an audit trail, replacing the email thread that currently carries privileged material. Documents exchanged outside a system with a record.
Recover the expensive hour Drafting from your own precedents, filing to the right matter, and the chasing that surrounds both, taken off the people whose hour is the product. Non chargeable hours per fee earner per week.

Scroll the table sideways to read it.

Sized with your own numbers

What the non chargeablehour is costing.

The most common first project in a firm is intake, so here is the sum that sizes it. Every figure is yours. We do not publish a utilisation rate or a conversion rate for professional services, because we would be inventing one.

What intake and administration cost, per month, with your own figures
The number Where you already have it Your figure
Fee earners in the firm Your payroll or partnership records. your figure
Non chargeable hours each, per week Your time system, or an honest week of recording. your figure
Share of those hours spent reading, matching, recording and chasing The categories are usually already in your time codes. your figure
Your effective hourly rate Billings divided by chargeable hours, over the last year. your figure
Recoverable hours a month Fee earners, times the hours, times the share, across a month. the result
What that is worth a month at your rate The line above, multiplied by the effective rate. the result

This is an arithmetic, not a claim. Every figure is yours, and the honest version of this sum uses the hours your people would actually bill rather than every hour recovered. If the recovered hour goes into capacity rather than into billings, say so and run it that way. The same sum runs for document handling and for the intake to engagement letter turnaround.

By category

What a firm'sbuild connects to.

By category, with the systems firms actually run. In this sector the document system and the practice management system are usually the two that matter, and the interesting question is which one owns the client record.

  • Practice and matter management

    Where matters, engagements, time and billing live.

    Clio, PCLaw, Actionstep, an in house system

  • Document management

    Where the work product and the correspondence are filed.

    iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint, a structured file system

  • Conflict and client records

    Where the parties, the relationships and the history are held.

    the practice management system, a conflicts register, your CRM

  • Accounting and trust

    Where the firm's own money and client money are kept separate.

    your accounting system, a dedicated trust ledger

  • Tax and assurance tools

    Where an accounting firm's engagements are actually performed.

    CaseWare, tax preparation software, your working paper system

  • CRM and intake

    Where an inquiry becomes a prospective client with an owner.

    Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, the practice system itself

  • Signature and identity

    Where an engagement letter is signed and a client is identified.

    e-signature services, your own verification step

  • Email and calendar

    Where, realistically, most of it still starts.

    Microsoft 365, Google Workspace

Every connection is validated by HUREAL's engineers during scoping and confirmed in writing before signature. Where a system genuinely cannot be connected, you hear it during discovery rather than during the build, and the scope is drawn around it instead of making a platform migration the price of entry.

What a build here is designed around

What a build herehas to be designed around.

Professional firms carry obligations about confidentiality, client money and what they may publish, and the applicable rules depend on the profession and the province. These are the requirements a build here is designed around, and the line between what we build and what your counsel or your regulator decides.

  • Professional marketing and advertising rulesLaw societies, accounting bodies and engineering regulators, by province

    What we design forLaw society rules constrain marketing claims, including claims of specialisation. Provincial accounting bodies govern use of the professional designation. Engineering regulators restrict the titles engineer and professional engineer, and Ontario requires a firm offering engineering services to the public to hold a certificate of authorization. Every claim on a site we build is traced to the document or register that supports it before it is published.

    What we document for your counselEvery claim, the source behind it, and the date it was checked, so your general counsel or your regulator is reviewing one list rather than a website.

  • Confidentiality and privilegeProfessional obligations, and the systems that carry them

    What we design forA client portal carries material that may be privileged or confidential, so access is scoped to a matter rather than to a firm, every access is logged, and the retention rule is set per record type rather than at a default. Anything uncertain at intake stops for a person before a record is created.

    What we document for your counselWho can reach what, how access is logged, and how long each record type is kept, in a form your risk partner reads rather than infers.

  • Client identification and reportingAnti-money-laundering legislation, where the firm is a reporting entity

    What we design forAccounting firms carrying out certain triggering activities are reporting entities under Canada's proceeds of crime and terrorist financing legislation, with identification and record keeping duties attached. Where that applies, the identification step is part of the intake design rather than a manual task beside it.

    What we document for your counselWhich identification records the system holds, where, and for how long, so the obligation can be evidenced from records rather than from files.

  • PrivacyPIPEDA, and provincial privacy legislation where it applies

    What we design forIntake, portals and marketing all collect personal information, often before anyone is a client. A stated purpose per system, the smallest data set that does the job, consent captured where the firm initiates contact, and retention per record type.

    What we document for your counselWhat is held, where it is stored, who can reach it and for how long, including the records of people who never became clients.

  • AccessibilityWCAG 2.2 AA, plus AODA or the Accessible Canada Act where they apply

    What we design forEvery surface a client or a candidate uses, tested with a keyboard and a screen reader rather than asserted. Public sector clients frequently bring accessibility requirements of their own into a procurement.

    What we document for your counselThe test results per surface and the standard tested against, so a barrier report or a procurement question can be answered with a measurement.

HUREAL designs to a standard, tests against it, and documents what was built. The determination belongs to your counsel or your regulator, and a vendor offering to make it for them is offering something they do not have. Our own conformance target and how to report a barrier are on the accessibility page.

Where to start

Which of the eightmatter most here.

Four services, and the reason in each

  • Agentic Operating Systems

    Intake is a person reading an email and deciding whose it is. That decision has rules, the rules are usually already written down, and the conflict check that follows is exactly the kind of work that should stop and wait for a person.

  • Customer portals and booking

    Privileged material currently moves by email because email is the channel every client has. A portal with permissions and an audit trail is the smallest change that fixes that, and clients adopt it when it is genuinely faster.

  • Corporate and marketing websites

    The work is sold by named people, so people and practice pages carry the argument. They also have to persuade inside rules that constrain claims of specialisation, which is a writing problem before it is a design problem.

  • Content platforms

    This is a sector where buyers research for weeks and the answers already exist in what your people explain on every first call. A publishing system turns that into something a prospective client can read before they are ready to be sold to.

Read on this

Articles about intake, conflict checks and marketing inside professional conduct rules will live under the Insights index.

The Insights index

three articles to set

Asked and answered

What firmsask us.

  • Can an agent read our inbound and decide who it goes to?

    It can read it, match it to an existing client or mark it new, score it against the criteria you already use, and put it in front of a person with what they need attached. It does not accept work and it does not clear a conflict. Those stop at the line, every time.

  • Our marketing claims are restricted. Does that limit the site?

    It limits the devices, not the argument. What it removes is the easy route, which is superlatives and claims of specialisation. What is left is specific, checkable and usually more persuasive to the reader you want, and every claim on the site is traced to a source before it is published.

  • Will clients use a portal instead of email?

    Many will, when it is faster than attaching a file, and adoption is measured rather than assumed. The ones who will not are designed for too, because a client who prefers email is not going away and should not get a worse service.

  • Can it connect to our practice management and document systems?

    Usually, and we check yours by name in discovery. The interesting question in this sector is which system owns the client record, because that decides where the portal reads from and where a conflict check has to look.

  • How do you handle privileged material?

    Access is scoped to a matter rather than to a firm, every access is logged, retention is set per record type, and anything uncertain at intake stops for a person before a record exists. What was built is documented so your risk partner can review it.

  • We are recruiting harder than we are selling. Can the site help?

    Yes, and it usually needs less than firms expect. A careers surface that says what the work actually is, who a candidate would work with, and how the first year goes, connected to your tracking system so an application is a record rather than an email.

  • What does it cost?

    The build price is set after the discovery call and sent in a written proposal, because an honest number needs the scope, and here the scope is mostly the intake rules and the systems that hold the client record. The number is written into the signed scope and does not move once it is signed.

Close

Two ways to start.Both end with a document you own.

Book a discovery call

For when you know which hours you are losing and want the scope before the spend. A discovery call with whoever owns intake and whoever owns risk. We fill in the arithmetic above with your own figures, and afterwards you get a written proposal with a scope, a price and a timeline you can sign or walk away from.

Book a discovery call

Request a performance audit

For when you want the evidence before the decision. We look at what you have against the job you want it to do, and give you a prioritised plan with the arithmetic attached. The document is yours either way.

Request a performance audit

Know what you are building? Book a discovery call. Not sure where the problem is? Request the audit. If neither is right for you, we will say so, and tell you what is.

Not ready for either? Talk to the demonstration in your browser for three minutes, or paste your own address and hear it answer as your business. No form and no booking, and the transcript arrives by email a minute later.

Hear it work
A material study photographed in bright daylight. A thin sliver of the monumental pleated turquoise glass wave enters from the right edge of a very wide frame, its fins and one polished silver ribbon catching the light at the crest, above a pearl reflective floor that runs the full width. The left of the frame is an almost empty pale mint room.

Judgement stays with the people. The rest does not have to.

HUREAL / Material studies