 Weekly Community Digest May 6, 2026 | ⚡ This Week in 30 Seconds| → How do you stack up against your peers? Our new "HeyCounsel Pulse" tool allows you to benchmark your practice against your peers' hourly rates, billing models, revenue, firm size, and more. Check it out Members | | → Virtual Coffee Chats are here. Join the #virtual-coffee-chats channel and we'll match you with a fellow member for a quick 1:1 every 4 weeks. Meet in person and we'll cover the coffee! Join the channel Members | | → Someone open-sourced a clone of Harvey and Legora. The community had thoughts... thoughts on confidentiality, security, running it locally, and what this means for the future of legal AI pricing. Read the thread Members |
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🔥 Discussion SpotlightSomeone Open-Sourced a Harvey Clone. Here's What the Community Made of It.An open-source clone of Harvey and Legora hit the internet this week and set off a 19-reply thread in #vendors-and-tech. Members dug into the real questions: Can you actually use this with clients? What does "free" really mean when there's still a paid API underneath? And what happens to confidentiality if you're not running it locally? The consensus: the wrapper is free, but security depends entirely on how you deploy it -- and running it locally is the only version that actually protects client data. What made the thread worth reading wasn't just the technical debate. It was a snapshot of how fast this space is moving. A year ago, these tools were valued at billions. Today, a developer can clone the core functionality and open-source it over a weekend. Hundreds of forks exist. The community is paying attention -- and thinking critically about what that means for how they practice. Read the thread → Members |
💬 Threads of the WeekCan You Early Exercise ISOs Without a Valid 409A? → The thread surfaced a genuinely nuanced answer: early exercise ISOs almost always create problems that regular exercises don't, and the IRS treatment of 83(b) elections on ISOs is counterintuitive. Worth reading if you advise startup clients on equity. Members |
Clio vs. Custom Airtable: The Practice Management Debate → The Clio conversation started up again. Eighteen replies later, a clear theme emerged: several members have ditched traditional practice management software entirely and built their own systems in Airtable -- some DIY, some with contractors. The community shared what's working and what isn't. Members |
All threads above are members only. |
✨ Community Win The first HeyCounsel Hackathon delivered. On April 21, 2026, 200+ lawyers from 10+ countries spent five hours learning, building, and experimenting with Claude Cowork. They shipped regulation trackers, marketing automations, template synthesizers, and more, then reconvened on April 28th for Demo Day. The result was 13+ projects completed and a new appreciation for the leverage AI can give each of us. See every project → |
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🚀 New Public Client OpportunitiesThese are the public opportunities only -- members get access to many more, plus the ability to submit proposals. See all opportunities → Members |
📅 Upcoming Events | HeyCounsel Tech Lab Demos (Monthly) Members show off what they're building and testing. Register → |
| Redesign My Firm Website (Workshop w/ Claude Code+Design) Hands-on session rebuilding your site with Claude. Register → |
| Demo & Q&A with Perfect Form Entity management and filings -- live walkthrough and Q&A. Register → |
Full calendar → |
⚖️ Why Join HeyCounsel?HeyCounsel is a vetted private community for solo and small firm lawyers. Independent practitioners get the same resources, relationships, and opportunities that big firms take for granted -- without the overhead or the hierarchy. Here's what membership looks like: | ✔️ New client opportunities and member referrals | | ✔️ Best practices for building AI-native firms | | ✔️ Relationships in a private Slack community of peers | | ✔️ Exclusive discounts on tech & services, including Spellbook, GC AI, and more | | ✔️ Hundreds of member-contributed templates | | ✔️ Free CLEs, educational programming, and mastermind groups | | ✔️ Private demos, hackathons, and in-person events |
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