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Firm operations agent

Engagement letter drafting

Every engagement letter or statement of work drafted from the accepted proposal and your templates, with rates, terms and scope checked against your rules. Anything non-standard goes to the partner.

  • $12,500 fixed
  • Live in 3 to 6 weeks
  • Yours to keep
The review screen for Engagement letter drafting: four items, three done, and one (Liability cap) waiting for the partner, who is asked: Client wants liability capped at fees paid. Accept it for Marlow Health?
How it works

The client wants a liability cap. The partner sees it first.

Here’s a typical run, step by step: what automation handles, what the agent does, and the calls that stay with your team.

The workflow for Engagement letter drafting, in 5 steps. It starts with “The client says yes” and ends with “A letter ready to send”. Each step lists what automation, the agent and your team do there.
Engagement letter draftingA typical run
Starts withThe client says yesMarlow Health accepts the proposal for a 14-week operations review, and the deal is marked won.
Automation: When the deal moves to won, gathers the accepted proposal and the client emails about it into one file.
The agent: Reads the proposal for the four phases, the $126,000 fee over 14 weeks, the named team and the start date, plus anything changed by email.
~8h/mo

Step 1 of 5Read the proposal

  • Automation

    When the deal moves to won, gathers the accepted proposal and the client emails about it into one file.

    A deal moving to won is a clean signal in the CRM.

  • The agent

    Reads the proposal for the four phases, the $126,000 fee over 14 weeks, the named team and the start date, plus anything changed by email.

    The final scope often lives in a reply that says “let’s push phase four to spring”, not in the proposal.

Reads
  • CRM
  • Shared inbox
Writes
  • Document store

~8 hours a month back

The agent: Picks the statement of work template for an operations review and fills in scope, phases, fees, team and dates in your firm’s own wording.
~22h/mo

Step 2 of 5Draft in your template

  • The agent

    Picks the statement of work template for an operations review and fills in scope, phases, fees, team and dates in your firm’s own wording.

    Retainers, fixed fees and time and materials each have their own template, and some jobs mix two.

Reads
  • Letter templates
Writes
  • Document store

~22 hours a month back

Where teams differA master agreement with a short SOW per job, or a full letter every time: firms go both ways.

Automation: Compares every rate in the draft with your 2026 rate card, and the payment terms with your standard ones, like Net 30 billed monthly.
The agent: Reads the client’s requested changes against your standard terms and marks each one, like the ask to cap liability at fees paid.
~10h/mo

Step 3 of 5Check every term

  • Automation

    Compares every rate in the draft with your 2026 rate card, and the payment terms with your standard ones, like Net 30 billed monthly.

    Each rate in the draft either matches the 2026 card or it doesn’t.

  • The agent

    Reads the client’s requested changes against your standard terms and marks each one, like the ask to cap liability at fees paid.

    Clients rarely say “we’re changing clause 9”. They write “we’d need liability limited to what we pay you”.

Reads
  • Rate card
  • Standard terms
Writes
  • Document store

~10 hours a month back

IfYour team: Accepts the cap at fees paid for Marlow Health, sets a different limit, or sends it back to the client with a counter.
~2h/mo

Step 4 of 5Decide the liability cap

  • Your teamIf a term departs from yours

    Accepts the cap at fees paid for Marlow Health, sets a different limit, or sends it back to the client with a counter.

    A liability cap changes what the firm is on the hook for. That’s a call for a partner.

Reads
  • Document store
Writes
  • Document store

~2 hours a month back

Where teams differLarger firms often send liability and indemnity to a risk lead too. Smaller ones leave every clause with the partner.

Automation: Saves the final letter to the client file, logs the fee and terms, and hands it to the engagement lead to send for signature.
~5h/mo

Step 5 of 5Log it and hand it over

  • Automation

    Saves the final letter to the client file, logs the fee and terms, and hands it to the engagement lead to send for signature.

    With the partner’s ruling in, what’s left is the paperwork around the letter.

Reads
  • Document store
Writes
  • Practice management
  • E-sign tool

~5 hours a month back

Ends withA letter ready to sendThe statement of work in your template, terms logged, and the engagement lead ready to send it for signature.
Total~47h/mo

What changes

The letter is ready the day the client says yes, in your wording. Partners start with the clauses that moved away from your terms.

  • 3steps automated
  • 3steps for the agent
  • 1call kept with your team

Pick any step to see what happens there and why it sits in that lane.

What it could be worth

~47 hours a month back

$42,300 a year in time

For a consultancy signing around 25 engagement letters a month, at $75 an hour. We work out yours from your own volumes before you sign.

Let’s build your agent
What we customize with you

One proven agent, plugged into how you work.

Every team does this job a little differently, so we set these five with the people who do it today. We’ve done this in dozens of businesses, so we know where teams usually differ and ask about those first.

The agent

Same for every client
  • Follows the same proven steps
  • A person on every exception
  • Every decision logged
  • Tested on your past work first
  • Never agrees to a non-standard term
  1. Your systems

    Where the work comes in, and where the result goes.

    For this agentProposals from your CRM or document store, letters into your e-sign tool and practice management system.

  2. Your rules

    The limits and exceptions it works to.

    For this agentYour rate card, your standard terms, and the clauses only a partner can change.

  3. Your team

    Who signs off, and who covers when they’re away.

    For this agentThe engagement partner for anything non-standard, and a risk lead on liability terms if your firm has one.

  4. Your channels

    Where your team hears from it.

    For this agentEmail with the draft attached, a weekly list of letters waiting on a signature.

  5. Your output

    What it hands back, in the format you already use.

    For this agentA letter in your template, with every change from standard marked.

Proposals and client onboarding are other agents in this catalog. Legal review and negotiating terms stay with your partners and counsel.

What you get

The agent, and everything that keeps it working.

  • The agentRunning on your systems, under your rules.
  • The review screenWhere the exceptions land for your partners and practice managers.
  • Your rulebookYour limits, exceptions and who signs off, in one place, often for the first time.
  • A test reportYour past engagement letters, run through it and checked against the number.
  • The runbookHow it works, what to check, and what to do if it stops.
  • 30 days of tuningAfter it goes live, through a full month of your real engagement letters.
The number we agree

Hours a week your team spends drafting engagement letters. We measure it before we start, and again at day 30.

How we get there

Live in 3 to 6 weeks. About seven hours of your time.

We do the building. Your side: access, twenty recent engagement letters and the proposals they came from, and a short weekly check-in.

  1. Before kickoff

    We send the access checklist.

    You, 2 hours. Access, an owner, and twenty recent engagement letters and the proposals they came from.

  2. Weeks 1 to 2

    We connect your systems and set it up.

    You, 1 hour. Walk us through your rules.

  3. Weeks 2 to 4

    We test it on your past engagement letters.

    You, 1 hour. Review what it flagged.

  4. Weeks 3 to 6

    It runs beside your team, then goes live.

    You, 1¼ hours. Work from the review screen.

Then 30 days of tuning, with a short check-in each week, about two hours of yours. At day 30 we show you the number and hand everything over.

After it’s live

It keeps running whether or not we stay.

  • It runs in your accounts

    Your cloud, your systems, and an AI account in your name, billed by the provider at their rates.

  • Changes in the first 30 days are included

    A new rule, a changed limit, someone new signing off. That’s what tuning is for.

  • After that, your call

    Your team edits the rulebook, the care plan covers it, or a bigger change is quoted first.

Questions

About this agent.

Does it give legal advice on the terms?
No. It checks each term against the rules your partners set. Anything outside them goes to a partner, and to counsel where you use one.
What if the client sends their own paper?
It compares their draft with your standard terms clause by clause, marks every difference, and sends the comparison to the partner.
Our process isn’t quite like this. Will it still work?
That’s the usual case. The job looks the same in most businesses, but the details never do. We map how your team does it today, then set the rules, systems and approvals to match. That’s what most of the 3 to 6 weeks are for.
How do we agree the number?
Together, before any work starts. For this agent it’s the hours a week your team spends drafting engagement letters. We measure it before we start, and again at day 30.
What does it cost to run once it’s live?
Hosting and AI, paid straight to the providers, not through us. It usually runs 5x to 25x cheaper than doing the same work by hand, and we work out your figure from your real volumes before you sign.

Want the letter ready the day the client says yes?

Tell us how your team handles engagement letters today. We’ll show you this agent on examples like yours, and whether it fits the fixed price.

New to Switchboard Agents? How it works, what’s included, and what it costs.
  • 3 to 6 weeksto live, then 30 days of tuning
  • $12,500fixed, per agent
  • Yours to keepno license fees
See the service
Switchboard Agents$12,500 fixed · live in 3 to 6 weeks How it works Let’s build your agent