From Law to Code

Tales of a Lawyer Turned Developer

Hi, I'm Matthias. I practiced law for 8 years while teaching myself to code. Now I build automation tools for legal and tax workflows combining legal and technical expertise.

def review_contract(contract_pdf, client_requests):
    review_notes=[]
    for page in contract_pdf.pages:
        issues = review_page(page, client_requests)
        if issues: 
            review_notes.append(create_note(issues))
    return review_notes

What You'll Find Here

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How I Build Stuff

Tools I use, problems I solve, lessons I learn.

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Legal Tech Takes

Observations from the intersection of law and code.

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Learning in Public

How I went from lawyer to developer. The messy middle parts.

Latest Posts

Insights on automation, legal tech, and career transitions

What Your Agent Is Doing When You're Not Watching

AI agents don't fail loudly — they fail invisibly. What observability means in practice, how to set it up, and why it matters for builders and users alike.

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What Agents Need (And What They Actually Are)

An agent is four components: LLM, tools, loop, stopping condition. Simple. What it actually needs to work is a longer list, and most (legal) tech wasn't designed to provide it.

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The Vibe Coding Trap: Why 'Just Ask AI' Isn't Professional Development

Vibe coding is brilliant for prototypes, but production legal tools require engineering discipline. Here's why the difference matters, and what changes when you build with AI assistance.

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The Claude Legal Plugin Panic: Confusing the Foundation Layer for Competition

Anthropic's legal plugin announcement triggered panic in legal tech stocks. But it's not a disruption, it's a consolidation of existing capabilities.

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The Structured Data Mindset That Unlocks Legal Automation

Legal work is data work. Once you start seeing information as structured data instead of documents, you unlock automation, better knowledge management, and effective AI integration.

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What Lawyers Can Learn From Developer Tools (And Why Your Legal Tech Is Blocking AI Adoption)

Developer tools reveal fundamental inefficiencies in how lawyers work with documents. The fix isn't just about productivity—it's about AI readiness.

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