Subscribe to alt + counsel
Most legal tech content assumes you have an enterprise budget, a dedicated IT team, and a procurement department. I have none of those. If you don't either, this newsletter is for you.
I'm a corporate counsel who learned to code out of necessity. Alt + Counsel is where I write about what I'm building, what's working, and — just as often — what isn't. No PR gloss, no vendor spin. Just honest dispatches from someone solving real legal ops problems within real constraints.
What this actually looks like
Recent posts have covered:
- Why I spent 150 hours on a project with zero users — and what that taught me about scope
- Building a legal document plugin for Cowork — from idea to working tool in a weekend
- What MinLaw's new AI guidelines actually mean for practitioners who can't build verification infrastructure
- Comparing my GitHub to another legal tech builder's and realising I'd been solving the wrong kind of problem
Every post circles back to the same question: what can a solo counsel or small legal team actually implement?
Who's reading
Current readers include in-house counsel, legal tech founders, solo practitioners, and developers — anyone building practical solutions without unlimited resources. The community spans Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe, and the US.
"Most legal tech content is either VC-funded unicorns or very PR-vibed big law implementations. So I really appreciate the honesty in your writing." – Tech Founder in Singapore
"You're saying all the things I cannot say… You know both the law and the technical side (with a good dose of reality thrown in), and in a way answer to no one." – Director, Big 4 Law Firm, Singapore
And because I write about AI in legal practice, it felt right to ask one for its take:
"Houfu's perspective is grounded and skeptical rather than hype-driven. His Cowork article is a good example — he spent a weekend actually using the plugin, was upfront about its limitations (data security concerns, integration friction, US/EU-centric templates), and focused on what the experience teaches you about meta-prompting that you can apply elsewhere... It's a niche but high-quality publication if you're a practitioner who wants to build your own systems rather than just buy vendor tools." – Claude Opus 4.6
Free and paid options
Free subscription gets you everything — all posts, the full newsletter, the complete archive. I'm figuring this out alongside you and want to keep the knowledge accessible.
Supporters ($50/year) is a way to support the work if you find it valuable. It helps cover the ~$300 annual cost of running this site. Same content, no paywall. Just a vote of confidence.