I burned out. For over a decade, I ran law firm marketing through my agency, JSO
By John O Connor · October 9, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I burned out.
For over a decade, I ran law firm marketing through my agency, JSO Digital. Many of those clients are still with us today. But most of the biggest accounts, I referred out.
The agency retainer model is broken. Marketing work is front-loaded and swings from month to month, and I wasn’t comfortable charging a flat retainer for it in perpetuity. So I stepped away.
Then I spent months running our old workflows through AI agents. I saw what they could do, and where general-purpose tools fell short. So I built Associate, an AI agent that runs legal marketing workflows better than an agency can.
There’s still a human touch. When the agent can’t handle a task, my team steps in.
Associate charges a monthly base for the agent’s work. When a person on our team is needed to close a loop, we open a Work Order and bill for it à la carte. You pay for the work that actually happens, not the same number forever.
Pricing is transparent.
Still skeptical of AI agents? My new post, “The Best Law Firm Marketing Agency Is an AI Agent,” breaks down, task by task, where agents outperform agencies.