6/ The platforms could build this. They haven't.
Because the chaos is profitable โ fees get collected whether or not the fan ever gets in.
So someone outside that system has to. That's what we're building at Ekho.
The National Taxpayer Advocate, Erin Collins, said that the integrity of the American taxpayer system is held up by tax professionals.
Basically, the IRS is so understaffed, and the tax system is so broken that it wouldn't take much to completely destroy it.
There's already so much tax evasion going on that they can't keep up... So if it weren't for honest tax pros, tax cheats would be commonplace.
This is one of the main factors why I think we should have a simpler tax system.
Man I love architecture and been researching these past daysโฆis there any city in the US with cooler looking architecture than Chicago? I havenโt found one yet ๐ ๐บ๐ธ
Men tend to choose higher paying careers like doctor, engineer, lawyer, or CEO.
While women tend to choose lower paying careers like female doctor, female engineer, female lawyer, or female CEO.
A senior litigator was telling me about his career last week. Thirty-five years in. Civil litigation. Big firm and now solo. We were talking about what actually changed in the practice.
He said the thing nobody talks about is what disappeared after 2020.
Not the trials. Those had been declining for years. Not the case-management conferences - Zoom handled those fine. What disappeared was the hallway BS.
The conversation in the courthouse cafeteria after a hearing. The walk down to Fred's office two doors down: "What do you think damages might be on this one - am I missing anything?" The drink after a deposition. The half-sentence over coffee that became the argument that won the case.
For fifty years, that was the actual mechanism that built legal competence. Not CLEs. Not firm trainings. The informal "let me bounce one off you" conversation in physical proximity to other lawyers who knew the work.
Zoom killed it. Remote work finished it.
The senior litigator I was talking to gets to retire with the skill he built in the hallway. The junior litigator coming up in 2026 will never have that. She will get her Zoom CLE, her case-management software, her billing platform. She will not have a Fred down the hall.
Here is what most legal-AI vendors are missing.
The most valuable thing AI can do for lawyers is not draft the brief faster.
It is be the Fred down the hall.
The "let me bounce one off you." The "am I missing something." The "what would you argue if you were on the other side." Those are not productivity tasks. Those are competence-building tasks. They are exactly what disappeared in 2020 and exactly what nothing has replaced.
This is the actual case for AI in legal. Not faster work. Sharper lawyers. The informal sharpening conversation, on demand, every day, no scheduling required.
The 35-year litigator gets to retire with the skill he built in the hallway.
The 35-year-old litigator coming up now will only get to that skill if she builds her own Fred.
That is the work.