Hatley keeps one living brief for each client, shared between you and them, and a Briefing Agent that fills it in on your behalf. Before each session it checks in with your client and sends you what changed, so the hour goes to your judgment, not the recap.
Your judgment is what sets you apart from AI, and judgment needs context. Today that context comes from paper forms, web forms, and the first part of every meeting spent catching up: what happened last time, and what's changed since. It's costly to gather, and it leaks anyway.
Intake forms are everywhere, and they all go into the same black hole. Nobody's sure it was read, so nobody takes it very seriously.
What breaks: a form nobody can see the other side of gets filled out once, half-heartedly, and never updated.
The intro session mostly repeats the form. Now AI takes the notes, but only for one side. The client never sees what was captured, and can't correct it.
What breaks: each side keeps its own notes. Two versions of the truth, from day one.
Each meeting opens the same way: where did we leave off, what's happened since. It's a fresh intake every time, and it eats the start of the hour.
What breaks: all of that could have been gathered before you met, on one shared brief, so the meeting goes to what actually needs you.
Not a form builder, and not a CRM. Hatley is the shared record of each client, with who said what, when and what backs it, plus one very good agent that asks your questions for you.
Tell Hatley what you do and it lays out the brief your practice needs, with an example client beside every item. There are ready-made briefs for coaches, consultants, planners and several kinds of lawyers. For anything else it pieces one together, so you never start from a blank page.
Your client opens a link and has a conversation. The agent asks one question at a time, asks a follow-up when an answer is thin, and never gives advice. Answers go straight into their brief, and your client can see and correct everything under Brief. Try it as your own client before anyone real sees it.
Set a client's next session. A few days before, the agent checks in with them by email, from "Hatley on behalf of" you, and asks what's changed and what they want to cover. The night before or the morning of, you get Since last time: what's new, what changed, what's still missing, and where your suggestions stand.
You or your client can add a document: a resume, a review, a lease, your session notes. Hatley files what it says into the brief, then the agent only asks about what the document didn't cover. Any entry opens the original document, with the passage it came from marked.
Notes you add, and anything your own AI writes, are private to you by default. Share a note with your client in one click, and take it back just as easily. Your client only ever sees what's theirs to see.
Every entry shows who wrote it, when, and where it came from. When something changes, the earlier version stays visible, so you can see how a situation evolved, not just where it ended up.
Connect Claude or ChatGPT to Hatley and ask it things like "Get me ready for my session with Priya" or "What's still missing across my clients?" It answers from the briefs, and says so when something isn't there. Your whole book of clients sits in one place, and you can download any client's folder.
You never write a questionnaire from scratch. Your agent starts from a brief for your kind of work, and you tune it by clicking or by telling it what to change.
"I'm a career coach helping tech managers get promoted." Your brief opens on the right. Mark what's Vital for a first conversation, then say continue.
Open Test and answer as a client would. The agent welcomes you, asks your questions, and shows what it noted. Change anything, and every client gets the change from their next message.
Press Share, enter their name and email, and Hatley sends the invite on your behalf. Your client needs nothing but the link: no app and no AI of their own.
Open the client on the Clients screen, or ask your own AI. You and your client are reading the same live brief, and before the next session it catches itself up.
Same brief and same agent, but different work. Pick the one closest to yours.
Today: every session starts with "so, where are things?" while your client tries to reconstruct six months of manager feedback, the project that shipped without credit, and the "more scope" comment from March.
Your client shares their resume and the agent fills in title, level and history from it, then asks what the resume can't say: the chain of command, who's in the room at calibration, their sponsor, and the timeline they're aiming for.
Two days out, the agent checks in: what's changed, and what they want to cover. A new org chart, a peer review sent, a stakeholder gone quiet. It all lands in the brief, dated.
You open Since last time over coffee and walk in on strategy. Your suggestions from last time show as done, started or not yet, so follow-through is part of the conversation.
What your client keeps: the whole case for the promotion, dated and in order. That's the result that gets you referred to the next person at their company.
Today: the first call goes to reconstructing dates from memory: when leave was approved, when the reviews changed, when the notice came. That's billable time spent on recap, and the severance deadline is already running.
The agent walks your client through the key dates, the people involved, the documents they hold and any offer on the table. It flags every deadline the moment it's mentioned. It never gives legal advice or predicts an outcome; that's for you.
A revised agreement, a new email from HR, a new deadline. Your client adds it when it happens, with the document attached. If their account changes, the earlier version stays visible as a correction, not silently overwritten.
You open on the legal question, with the timeline and evidence in front of you. The same brief shapes suit family, landlord-tenant and personal injury matters too.
What your client keeps: a complete, dated record of their matter, and the sense that their hourly rate bought judgment, not memory work.
Today: families arrive when the deadlines are close, and you're assembling years of activities, scores and summers into a story in one panicked season.
Target schools and deadlines, grades and placements, test plans, the activity the student has kept up longest, and what the family cares about most, all on one brief. The agent notes whether a parent or the student is answering.
A new score report, a placement moved up, a summer program picked. It lands dated, so you're steering in real time instead of discovering afterwards that a summer went to waste.
You spend the hour on what to add next and why. The agent never predicts admission; the strategy is yours.
What the family keeps: a record of deliberate growth, not a rebuilt story.
Today: a questionnaire, a Pinterest board, a budget spreadsheet emailed around, and vendor decisions scattered across three text threads, so every meeting starts with piecing it all together.
Date, guest count, budget and priorities, the look and feel, must-haves and hard no's. Both partners answer, and where they disagree the brief says so instead of picking one.
Decisions made, vendor news and quotes. The agent gathers them ahead of time, with contracts and inspiration photos attached.
You spend it deciding, not catching up. The agent never commits to a vendor or a price; decisions stay with the couple and you.
What the couple keeps: the whole plan in one place, and the kind of experience that earns the five-star review.
Today: sessions start with a tired parent trying to remember which nights went well and what they tried, and the details that matter are gone by the time you ask.
The family, the main challenge step by step, when it happens, what's been tried, and what the parents value. The agent asks only what coaching needs about each child.
How the strategies from last time went: the timer helped, the warning didn't. It's gathered while it's fresh.
You adjust the plan with real detail in front of you. It's coaching, not therapy: the agent never diagnoses, and if a parent raises a crisis it points them to help and flags it for you.
What the family keeps: a clear record of what's working, and a coach who's never behind.
No seats and no setup fee, and no charge for a client whose brief is sitting still. The founding cohort pays nothing while we build billing, and helps shape what gets built.
Later, per active client: a client counts only in a month their brief actually moves. Founding members keep founding rates.
No card to sign up, and none until billing exists. A quiet client never costs you anything.
A flat fee punishes a practice with a long tail of quiet clients. Charging for the briefs that are actually working means the price follows your book instead of fighting it.
A client never pays to answer, and never needs an account or an AI of their own. The brief is theirs as much as yours, and that’s why they keep it current.
You've told your story to a new coach, a new advisor, a new lawyer, from the top, every time. With Hatley, your expert's Briefing Agent asks ahead of your meeting, and your brief is shared with you, not hidden in their notes.
Hatley comes with the expert you work with. Send them here.
For coaches, consultants, planners, advisors and counsel. Two fields and you're in. Your agent sets itself up by asking what you do, in about two minutes.