On its face, Amazon’s recent lawsuit to block Perplexity’s AI agents from shopping on Amazon’s site seems like just another turf war between two tech giants with little relevance for solo and small law firms. By way of background, Amazon says that Perplexity’s Comet browser unlawfully accessed Amazon’s website and customer accounts by disguising autonomous AI agents as human users to make purchases without authorization, while Perplexity responds that it simply enables users to employ digital assistants to act on their behalf. As such, the case raises the knotty problem of how to regulate AI agents acting on someone’s behalf — an issue that will reach the legal profession sooner than most lawyers expect.
Let’s take a step back. According to Claude.AI, an AI agent is a software system that autonomously performs tasks and makes decisions to achieve specific goals, using tools and adapting its approach without constant human oversight. AI agents don’t just assist; they act. And while agents are currently in beta or experimental mode, it’s not difficult to envision how they could be deployed in legal and the attendant repercussions.
For example, just as consumers now deploy AI agents to find products, clients will soon send AI agents to find lawyers. And these agents won’t necessarily evaluate a firm the way a human would. They’ll scrape your website, LinkedIn posts, and online reviews, scanning for objective signals of competence, responsiveness, pricing, and availability, and assess how you match up against your competitors.
And that witty, human-sounding blog post that you hoped would persuade prospects that you’re relatable? An AI agent might ignore it entirely in favor of structured data like published case results, flat-fee pricing tables, or keyword clarity. In short, we’re moving into a world where your marketing must persuade machines before it persuades people.
Solo and small-firm lawyers who rely on personal voice and storytelling will need to start optimizing for machine readability. That doesn’t mean abandoning human tone, but it does mean:
- Structuring your website content with clear metadata and FAQ sections that make it easy for agents to extract key information.
- Offering standardized descriptions of practice areas (“contested guardianship litigation, fixed-fee estate plans, mediation services”) rather than narrative-style prose.
- Using clean data formats so AI crawlers can correctly interpret your credentials and offerings.
Helping consumers find lawyers isn’t the only way that AI agents may manifest themselves in the legal profession. A savvy adversary could weaponize agent capability. Picture a scenario where a divorce client dispatched an army of AI agents to schedule “intake calls” with every family lawyer in town — thereby creating conflicts that prevent any of them from representing the opposing spouse. Today, that kind of behavior would require dozens of phone calls and forged signatures. Tomorrow, it could happen in seconds, triggered by a single prompt: “Conflict out every lawyer within 10 miles of my ex.”
Law firms will need to develop clear policies to protect against such misuse. Just as websites now post disclaimers about automated scraping, firms may soon need to adopt AI-agent access policies stating whether automated agents are permitted to fill out forms or schedule consultations. Firms could also employ verification gates to detect when submissions come from bots rather than humans and software capable of recognizing duplicate or mass-generated inquiries.
Finally, don’t overlook the rise of “recording agents.” Clients may use AI-powered note-takers to record calls and then feed entire consultations into large language models for follow-up analysis. I’ve written about the ethics of lawyers recording conversations with clients, but when client agents record without permission, it raises both privacy and privilege issues. Lawyers should update engagement letters to specify that no client (or client’s agent) may record or transmit conversations without consent. Meeting-scheduling systems should include a disclosure requiring human participation, not just digital intermediaries.
In the coming years, AI agents will undoubtedly become as ubiquitous as email or the cloud, quietly handling research, scheduling, shopping, and legal intake. Those solo and small firms who deploy agents while structuring their online presence for agent discovery, setting boundaries for AI-agent interactions, and ensuring client data is secure will thrive in the AI agent age.
Carolyn Elefant is one of the country’s most recognized advocates for solo and small firm lawyers. She founded MyShingle.com in 2002, the longest-running blog for solo practitioners, where she has published thousands of articles, resources, and guides on starting, running, and growing independent law practices. She is the author of Solo by Choice, widely regarded as the definitive handbook for launching and sustaining a law practice, and has spoken at countless bar events and legal conferences on technology, innovation, and regulatory reform that impacts solos and smalls. Elefant also develops practical tools like the AI Teach-In to help small firms adopt AI and she consistently champions reforms to level the playing field for independent lawyers. Alongside this work, she runs the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant, a national energy and regulatory practice that handles selective complex, high-stakes matters.
The post Solo And Small Firm Practice In The AI Agent Age appeared first on Above the Law.
On its face, Amazon’s recent lawsuit to block Perplexity’s AI agents from shopping on Amazon’s site seems like just another turf war between two tech giants with little relevance for solo and small law firms. By way of background, Amazon says that Perplexity’s Comet browser unlawfully accessed Amazon’s website and customer accounts by disguising autonomous AI agents as human users to make purchases without authorization, while Perplexity responds that it simply enables users to employ digital assistants to act on their behalf. As such, the case raises the knotty problem of how to regulate AI agents acting on someone’s behalf — an issue that will reach the legal profession sooner than most lawyers expect.
Let’s take a step back. According to Claude.AI, an AI agent is a software system that autonomously performs tasks and makes decisions to achieve specific goals, using tools and adapting its approach without constant human oversight. AI agents don’t just assist; they act. And while agents are currently in beta or experimental mode, it’s not difficult to envision how they could be deployed in legal and the attendant repercussions.
For example, just as consumers now deploy AI agents to find products, clients will soon send AI agents to find lawyers. And these agents won’t necessarily evaluate a firm the way a human would. They’ll scrape your website, LinkedIn posts, and online reviews, scanning for objective signals of competence, responsiveness, pricing, and availability, and assess how you match up against your competitors.
And that witty, human-sounding blog post that you hoped would persuade prospects that you’re relatable? An AI agent might ignore it entirely in favor of structured data like published case results, flat-fee pricing tables, or keyword clarity. In short, we’re moving into a world where your marketing must persuade machines before it persuades people.
Solo and small-firm lawyers who rely on personal voice and storytelling will need to start optimizing for machine readability. That doesn’t mean abandoning human tone, but it does mean:
- Structuring your website content with clear metadata and FAQ sections that make it easy for agents to extract key information.
- Offering standardized descriptions of practice areas (“contested guardianship litigation, fixed-fee estate plans, mediation services”) rather than narrative-style prose.
- Using clean data formats so AI crawlers can correctly interpret your credentials and offerings.
Helping consumers find lawyers isn’t the only way that AI agents may manifest themselves in the legal profession. A savvy adversary could weaponize agent capability. Picture a scenario where a divorce client dispatched an army of AI agents to schedule “intake calls” with every family lawyer in town — thereby creating conflicts that prevent any of them from representing the opposing spouse. Today, that kind of behavior would require dozens of phone calls and forged signatures. Tomorrow, it could happen in seconds, triggered by a single prompt: “Conflict out every lawyer within 10 miles of my ex.”
Law firms will need to develop clear policies to protect against such misuse. Just as websites now post disclaimers about automated scraping, firms may soon need to adopt AI-agent access policies stating whether automated agents are permitted to fill out forms or schedule consultations. Firms could also employ verification gates to detect when submissions come from bots rather than humans and software capable of recognizing duplicate or mass-generated inquiries.
Finally, don’t overlook the rise of “recording agents.” Clients may use AI-powered note-takers to record calls and then feed entire consultations into large language models for follow-up analysis. I’ve written about the ethics of lawyers recording conversations with clients, but when client agents record without permission, it raises both privacy and privilege issues. Lawyers should update engagement letters to specify that no client (or client’s agent) may record or transmit conversations without consent. Meeting-scheduling systems should include a disclosure requiring human participation, not just digital intermediaries.
In the coming years, AI agents will undoubtedly become as ubiquitous as email or the cloud, quietly handling research, scheduling, shopping, and legal intake. Those solo and small firms who deploy agents while structuring their online presence for agent discovery, setting boundaries for AI-agent interactions, and ensuring client data is secure will thrive in the AI agent age.
Carolyn Elefant is one of the country’s most recognized advocates for solo and small firm lawyers. She founded MyShingle.com in 2002, the longest-running blog for solo practitioners, where she has published thousands of articles, resources, and guides on starting, running, and growing independent law practices. She is the author of Solo by Choice, widely regarded as the definitive handbook for launching and sustaining a law practice, and has spoken at countless bar events and legal conferences on technology, innovation, and regulatory reform that impacts solos and smalls. Elefant also develops practical tools like the AI Teach-In to help small firms adopt AI and she consistently champions reforms to level the playing field for independent lawyers. Alongside this work, she runs the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant, a national energy and regulatory practice that handles selective complex, high-stakes matters.
The post Solo And Small Firm Practice In The AI Agent Age appeared first on Above the Law.
