The solo back office · pre-launch

Hang your own shingle.

A practice is a lawyer and an office at the same time, and only one of those bills. The robots do the office work. You do the lawyer work.

See docketing.legal, live today What hangs on the board

You didn’t hang a shingle to run an office.

The unbilled office

The office nobody staffs.

The moment the sign goes up, you inherit a second job: dates that must be watched, papers that must reach an agency, records that must survive scrutiny. The office work is real work. It is simply work no client pays for, and no lawyer went to law school to do.

Docket fearThe 2 a.m. question: is anything running out that I don’t know about? A missed date, not a lost argument, is the classic way a good lawyer’s independence ends.

Filing logisticsEvery matter carries papers that must reach a government, tracked by hand and priced by guesswork, and the only software on offer is priced for a bench of forty.

Conflicts bookkeepingThe card file that keeps the license safe: kept perfectly, checked on every intake, billed to no one.

The staffing alternative buys the whole villain at salary prices before the revenue exists to carry it. Improvising it makes you the practice’s calendar, courier and filing clerk. The office is machinery. Machinery should be bought, flat-priced, and watched by something that never sleeps.

Deadlines watched

A clock, not a worry.

docketing.legal runs one deterministic deadline ladder over every asset that carries a statutory date: patents, marks, entity good standing. Rungs close on evidence, never on optimism. We watch; you decide.

T-30Notice fires 30 days out. The countdown is open from the day the asset is enrolled.

T-14A harder rung at 14 days. Quiet is not an answer the ladder accepts.

Final weekA daily acknowledgment window through the last seven days, closed only by a named person acknowledging.

VACANTThe instant a live deadline has no named owner, the vacancy alarm sounds. Silence means watched, never forgotten.

$12 per monitored asset, per month. No seats, no minimums.

Honest state: docketing.legal is a proof-of-concept surface today, live at its own door and labeled exactly that.

Filings made · flat prices

Priced on the receipt.

filings.legal releases its meter only on the government receipt: no filing, no charge, and the receipt lands in your record. Every product fee on these rails is flat, disclosed in advance, and separately invoiced. Never scaled to a legal fee. A solo can put the whole office on a rate card before taking the matter.

$12per asset / monthdeadline watch at docketing.legal. Flat. No seats, no minimums.

$199flatthe pro-se provisional patent filing at filings.legal, charged only on the government receipt.

At costgovernment feespass through at cost. Never marked up.

Honest state: filings.legal is a preview build today, live at its own door and labeled exactly that.

The back office

What hangs on the board.

One back office for a one-lawyer practice, assembled from products the estate already runs at their own doors today, plus what is on the road, marked exactly that.

docketing.legalLIVE: Deadline watch. One ladder over every asset with a statutory date, closed by evidence. A proof-of-concept surface today, and it says so.
filings.legalLIVE: Receipt-metered filing rails: the $199 pro-se provisional, metered on the government receipt. A preview build today, and it says so. Everything reserved is described, never sold.
Registered-agent railsCOMING: On the road and labeled that way: not built yet. A registered address and service of process as vendor machinery.
Conflicts toolingCOMING: Coming, and marked coming. A solo’s conflicts records kept as carefully as any firm’s. Not built yet, so not sold.

You buy software and vendor rails as a Customer. Never routing access, never a Tenant seat, and never legal services. No reserved act lives anywhere in the product; the licensed practitioner is you.

The agreement

Fine print, first.

Six promises, each one built into the design rather than appended to it.

The price promise: Every product price is flat, disclosed in advance, and separately invoiced. Never scaled to a legal fee.
The pass-through promise: Government fees pass through at cost. Never marked up.
The receipt promise: Filing rails charge on the government receipt. No filing, no charge.
The boundary promise: Zero reserved acts in the product, zero legal advice, zero legal services. Your clients are yours, your judgment is yours, your fee arrangements are yours.
The dead-air promise: A watched docket always has a named owner. If it doesn’t, the system says so: vacancy is an alarm, never a default.
The independence promise: Your practice’s records are your practice’s records. Buying the rails buys you software; it costs you nothing of your independence.

Where this stands

Pre-launch. Honestly.

shingle.legal is a pre-launch door, and nothing is sold on this page: no checkout, no plan, no bundle price. When the door opens, it opens as a profile-aware waitlist. It will ask which posture you are in: hanging the shingle soon, already solo, or arriving from gigs.lawyer with your rails already in hand. It will collect interest and promise nothing dated.

Hanging it soonLeaving with clients, competence, and a lease, about to meet the office.
Already soloAlready good at the law, spending nights on the part no client pays for.
The gigs.lawyer graduateYou practiced on rails. Independence shouldn’t mean giving them back.

The practice you wanted is the one the office work is eating.

Until then, the live pieces are already at their own doors, each labeled with its honest state:

docketing.legal, live today filings.legal, live today