He lost his biggest client —Then doubled his revenue
When a major retainer client walked away, Charlie Shane had to rebuild his income fast. With SMB Team’s marketing, coaching, and AI Workforce Pro, he more than doubled his revenue, grew from a two-person office to a team of 11, and built over 100 AI skills that let him carry a workload he says he couldn’t handle any other way.
“The only way I can handle my current workload and grow my firm is because of AI Workforce Pro.”
Charlie Shane, FounderA family law practice built to scale
The Law Office of Charlie Shane focuses on family law. For years it ran lean — Charlie and a single paralegal — with a large share of its income coming from one monthly retainer client tied to his family’s business. Today the firm is a team of 11, with an operations manager running day-to-day work and attorneys and paralegals adopting AI into their workflows.
A hole in his income and a workload one person couldn’t carry
Charlie lost his biggest client — a monthly retainer tied to his family’s business — and with it, a substantial part of his income overnight. Replacing that income required growth — more clients, more matters, more communication — at a firm that was still essentially him and a paralegal.
“I had lost a major client I had a monthly retainer from, and it was a substantial part of my income. I needed to make a change if I wanted to maintain the lifestyle and the income that I had.”
The core issue was capacity. New clients only help if the firm can serve them, and Charlie was already the bottleneck — on casework, on hiring, and on an inbox that regularly topped 100 emails a day.
He was already experimenting with AI on his own and pushing his attorneys and staff to use it more. But adoption across the firm was uneven, and running it through separate tools was getting expensive.
What we put in place
AI Workforce Pro: more work done without more hours
A custom AI skills library
Charlie has built over 100 skills in AI Workforce Pro — repeatable workflows for the work he does every day — and keeps adding new ones from the SMB Team community.
Inbox triage
AI Workforce Pro runs through his inbox, drafts quality responses for review, and marks FYI messages read with a brief summary. He tailors each draft before it goes out.
More billable hours
With admin work off his plate, Charlie gets more quality work done in a day — and has increased his billable hours and kept them there.
Firm-wide AI adoption
AI Workforce Pro is rolling out to the firm’s attorneys and paralegals, starting with the people who take to it fastest.
Business coaching: a bigger vision and the team to reach it
Business coaching
A dedicated coach helped Charlie see a bigger vision for the firm, then plan the hiring needed to scale into it.
Operations leadership
An operations manager now runs day-to-day work, and Charlie is learning to delegate whole areas of the business.
From a lost client to a doubled firm — and the 2x Growth Award
“I would say go all in. After losing this big client, I thought I’d have to make some real adjustments to my lifestyle — and so far I’ve been able to maintain it. You can’t just dabble your toes in the water. Apply what you’re learning, listen to your coaches, and put the work in.”
Charlie Shane, Founder — The Law Office of Charlie Shane See what AI Workforce Pro could take off your plate
