Bios, networking,
and client intake.

What was asked

The assignment

Three deliverables, set on the closing slide of the August 24 deck and due by email before the following Monday. The wording below is the slide’s; the notes are what Professor Zadeh added when the class asked him to unpack it.

1. 01

   Deliverable one

   Three biographies, three rooms

   Generate 3 variations of your professional biography optimized for different platforms (LinkedIn, firm website, speaking engagement bio).

   In class he described the split by length and purpose: a speaking bio carries “just a few facts,” a firm website bio runs long, and LinkedIn has “that LinkedIn format.” He told the class to feed the model a résumé or past applications as source material rather than writing from a blank page.

2. 02

   Deliverable two

   A networking strategy that runs on AI

   Create an AI-powered networking strategy that includes automated LinkedIn outreach templates and a system for tracking professional relationships.

   His worked example: “find 20 people that I have a second level connection with and reach out to make them my connection. And when that connection comes in, respond with this and start a conversation.” He was explicit that the strategy is to be designed, not executed — he did not want the class turning automated outreach loose on real people.

3. 03

   Deliverable three

   The AI CRMs a small practice could actually buy

   Research and recommend 2 AI-powered CRM (customer relationship management) tools suitable for your potential practice.

   Two is the floor, not the target. Asked to restate the item in class, he said: “you don’t have to put two. You can put five or four or five, and then compare and contrast.” The scope he named is intake and responding to client inquiries.

Deliverable one

Three biographies

The same facts three times. What changes is not the length but the reader, and the decision that reader is making while they read. One line had to be left out of all three: a principal of a firm would ordinarily say where he is admitted, and this one cannot.

LinkedIn

For

A recruiter, a peer, or a second-degree connection

Deciding

Whether to accept the request, or reply to it

Voice

First person

114 words

Headline

Founder, The Richter Firm, PLLC · Corporate and transactional counsel · Houston

About

The Richter Firm is a transactional practice in downtown Houston. I advise companies on formation and governance, financings, commercial agreements, and small and mid-size transactions.

I came to law from business development, with a focus on computer science and AI implementation. I bring a business-savvy perspective and an appreciation for entrepreneurship to the advice I give clients.

I make heavy use of technology in the practice. Clients see the benefit in turnaround and in cost.

I studied at Baylor University and at Texas A&M University School of Law. I spent my 2027 summer as a summer associate at Sidley Austin in Houston.

Firm website

For

A prospective client who has landed on the site

Deciding

Whether this is the lawyer to call

Voice

Third person

151 words

Benjamin Richter is the founder of The Richter Firm, PLLC, a transactional practice in downtown Houston.

He advises companies on entity formation and governance, founder and equity arrangements, seed and venture financings, commercial and technology agreements, and asset and stock purchases in small and mid-size transactions. The practice is oriented toward technology and emerging companies.

Benjamin came to law from business development, with a focus on computer science and AI implementation. He brings a business-savvy perspective and an appreciation for entrepreneurship to the advice he gives.

Technology is central to how the firm operates. Benjamin uses it to keep the practice lean, and clients see the result in turnaround and in cost.

He studied at Baylor University and at Texas A&M University School of Law. He spent his 2027 summer as a summer associate at Sidley Austin in Houston.

The firm is located in the Esperson Buildings at 808 Travis Street.

Speaking engagement

For

A host reading it aloud to a room

Deciding

Why the room should listen

Voice

Third person, read aloud

69 words

Benjamin Richter is the founder of The Richter Firm, a transactional practice in downtown Houston, where he advises technology and emerging companies on formation, financings, and commercial agreements. He came to law from business development, with a focus on computer science and AI implementation. He studied at Baylor University and at Texas A&M University School of Law, and spent his 2027 summer as a summer associate at Sidley Austin.

Deliverable three

The CRM

Taken out of order. The networking system in Deliverable two runs on whatever CRM the firm has, so the CRM has to be settled first.

1. The market is aimed at a different funnel

   Law Ruler, Lead Docket, Captorra, Litify and SimplyConvert all sell to personal injury and mass tort — practices fielding hundreds of inquiries a week, with dialers, scripted questionnaires and call-center workflows. A transactional practice has the opposite shape: a handful of matters a year, high value, almost all referred. Buying that software means buying a call center for a phone that rings once a week.

2. Seat minimums are written for firms, not solos

   Lawmatics requires three users on its Essential and Premium tiers and five on Enterprise. A one-lawyer firm pays for two seats that do not exist before it sends a single message.

3. The AI sits on the upper shelf

   MyCase advertises $50 per user per month, but its Basic tier carries neither the CRM nor the AI. Both start at Pro, so the working price is $100. Clio includes Clio Grow only in its Elite and Elite Work tiers; on Core and Signature it is a paid add-on.

4. Three of the four will not quote a price in public

   Lawmatics and Smokeball are quote-only, and Clio publishes exactly one number — “Starting at $49/user” — with every tier above it gated behind a sales call. A market that will not show its prices cannot be compared on price, which is the point.

5. The contact graph is the asset

   For a referral practice the firm is worth what it knows about who it knows. That belongs in a schema I control, sitting next to the matter data, queryable, and exportable on my terms rather than the vendor’s.

Deliverable two

The networking system

Not a separate product. One workflow running on the CRM above, with agents watching it. The relationship is the record; LinkedIn is only where some of the contact happens.

The pipeline

Six stages, built for a referral practice rather than an intake queue. Nothing here counts leads. It tracks whether a relationship is getting warmer or colder.

1. 1 Identified Sourcing agent surfaces a second-degree connection matching the practice profile Sourcing
2. 2 Requested Request drafted from the person’s profile, approved by me, then sent Drafting
3. 3 Connected Acceptance detected; the opener is queued, not fired Drafting
4. 4 In conversation A reply arrives and is classified as interested, not now, referral, or noise Triage
5. 5 Warm We have met or spoken; the record carries what was actually said Triage
6. 6 Referral source Has sent work, or is positioned to Decay

The agents

Four narrow agents rather than one broad one, so that each has a single thing to watch and a single thing it is allowed to do. A fifth talks to people, and it is set out below.

The templates

Three messages and the conditions under which each one fires. Bracketed fields are filled by the drafting agent from the contact record; a template that cannot fill them does not send.

Connection request

LinkedIn caps this at 300 characters. Brevity is the format, not a choice.

221 characters

Hi [First name] — I am a transactional lawyer in Houston working with technology and emerging companies. We share a connection in [Mutual]. I have been following what [Company] is building and would like to stay in touch.

On acceptance

Sent only after the connection is accepted. Names the absence of a pitch, then asks one question.

314 characters

Thanks for connecting, [First name]. No pitch attached. I run a small transactional practice in Houston — formation, financings, and commercial agreements for technology companies. If it is ever useful to have a lawyer read something before you sign it, I am glad to be that. What are you working on at the moment?

Dormant nudge

Fires when the decay agent flags ninety days of silence. Requires a specific, real development to reference, or it does not send at all.

167 characters

[First name] — it has been a few months. I saw [specific development]. Congratulations on that. Still glad to be a resource if anything comes up on the corporate side.

The conversation agent

The fifth agent, and the only one that talks to a person rather than about one. It runs in the thread once a connection has warmed, and its job is not to close anything. Its job is to make the meeting that follows shorter and better than it would otherwise have been.

It invites the person to describe what they are building and what is on their mind. Not a form and not a questionnaire — a conversation, which is the only format anyone actually answers on LinkedIn. What it gives back is three things, and none of them is advice.

1. What the firm would walk them through

   The shape of an engagement, not its outcome. What the steps are, what order they come in, what usually goes wrong, and roughly how long it takes.

2. Where the firm has covered the same ground

   Patterns from prior work — the kind of problem, how it was approached — with no client named and no facts of any matter attached to it.

3. What they have not asked about

   The standard questions a transactional lawyer puts to a company at their stage. Did the contractors assign their IP. Do the SAFEs stack. Who actually signed the last amendment. This is the part people find most useful, because it surfaces the thing they did not know to worry about.

What the firm gets

When the meeting is booked, the agent writes a briefing to whoever is taking it. This is the point of the whole exercise: nobody walks into that call cold, and the first ten minutes are not spent on questions the person already answered.

Status

Three of three

1. 01 Three biographies, three rooms Published
2. 02 A networking strategy that runs on AI Published
3. 03 The AI CRMs a small practice could actually buy Published