# Kathan Patel — Freelance .NET Technical Lead

Kathan Patel is a freelance .NET Technical Lead based in Ahmedabad, India,
with 8+ years of experience building enterprise systems in Blazor Server,
ASP.NET Core, WPF, and C#. He specializes in legal tech integrations —
particularly Clio and Lawmatics — and builds multi-tenant SaaS platforms
with SOC 2-aligned architecture.

## Available For
- Contract and remote engagements (C2C/W2)
- Clients in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada
- Legal tech platforms, SaaS backends, .NET modernization

## Contact
- Portfolio: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app
- Hire page: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/hire
- Email: patel.kathan555@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kathan555

## Areas of Expertise
- Blazor Server, ASP.NET Core, WPF, C#, SQL Server, PostgreSQL
- Clio API, Lawmatics API, OAuth 2.0 / PKCE integrations
- Multi-tenant architecture, EF Core, AES-256 encryption
- AI integrations in .NET (Gemini, OpenAI, custom gateways)

## Blog Posts (13 published articles)

### AI Bots Are Reading Your Data. Here's How to Make Them Sell You.
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/geo-generative-engine-optimization-for-developers
Summary: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot they're all in your server logs. Most developers block them. The smarter move is to make them work for you...
Tags: GEO, SEO, AI, content-strategy, developer-marketing
Published: June 8, 2026

### Free Claude API Access: Anthropic Console, Free Tier & Your First API Call
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/free-claude-api-access-anthropic-console-free-tier-guide
Summary: Anthropic doesn't offer a permanent free API tier but there are three legitimate paths to free Claude access depending on who you are and what you're building. This guide covers the ~$5 trial credits, the claude.ai free chat tier, and the Open Source program, with working C# code and honest limits.
Tags: Claude API, Anthropic, Free API, C#, .NET, API Guide, AI Development, Developer Tools
Published: May 28, 2026

### Free AI APIs for Developers : Claude vs Gemini vs GPT-4o vs Grok (With C# Code)
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/free-ai-apis-developers-claude-gemini-gpt4o-grok-comparison
Summary: Google is the only provider with a truly permanent free API tier. Everyone else offers credits, trial windows, or conditional programs. Here's an honest breakdown of all four real limits, real C# code, and which one to actually start with depending on your use case.
Tags: Free API, Claude API, Gemini API, GPT-4o, Grok API, C#, .NET, AI Comparison, Developer Tools, API Guide
Published: May 28, 2026

### LeadTools OCR vs AI Vision APIs. Which One Actually Holds Up in Production?
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/leadtools-ocr-vs-ai-vision-openai-anthropic-grok-comparison
Summary: I spent the better part of two years shipping document extraction pipelines with LeadTools before a client pushed me to evaluate GPT-4o. Running both on the same invoice set was humbling in some ways and reassuring in others. Here is what actually changed — and what did not.
Tags: OCR, LeadTools, OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, AI, dotNET, CSharp, DocumentProcessing, GPT4o
Published: May 20, 2026

### How to Get Free AI API Access with Google Gemini and Where It Actually Makes Sense to Use It
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/free-gemini-api-access-google-ai-studio-developer-guide
Summary: Most developers assume AI API access costs money from day one. It doesn't have to. Google's Gemini API offers a free tier through Google AI Studio with real model access, meaningful rate limits, and zero billing setup. Here's what you get, how to get it, and where it fits into your actual development workflow.
Tags: AI, Gemini, FreeAPI, GoogleAIStudio, WebDevelopment, NextJS, DeveloperTools, APIIntegration
Published: May 11, 2026

### Building an Interactive Cohort Analysis Chart in WPF and What Happens When You Ask AI to Do It Instead
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/wpf-cohort-analysis-chart-interactive-matrix-ai-comparison
Summary: A cohort analysis matrix sounds simple it's just a grid. But keyboard navigation, live cell updates, row/column highlighting, and a buy/sell popup make it one of those UI components that exposes exactly where AI-assisted development hits its limits. Here's how I built it in WPF, and what happened when I asked AI to reproduce it.
Tags: WPF, AI, dotnet, CSharp, DataVisualization, XAML, fintech, UIDesign
Published: May 5, 2026

### I Built a Full-Stack E-Commerce Website Entirely with AI. Here's What Actually Happened
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/build-full-stack-website-with-ai-nextjs-prisma-real-experience
Summary: I built Craftura Fine Furniture - a complete Next.js 14 e-commerce platform with admin panel, analytics, B2B ordering, and SEO -using AI as my primary development tool. Here's the honest truth about what AI got right, where it needed correction, and why technical knowledge is still non-negotiable.
Tags: AI, Next.js, WebDev, TypeScript, Productivity, Prisma, Fullstack, AITools
Published: May 4, 2026

### How AI Is Transforming Legal Practice Management: Contract Analysis, Call Summaries, and Intelligent Matter Insights with .NET
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/ai-legal-tech-contract-analysis-call-summaries-dotnet-semantic-kernel
Summary: Law firms sit on mountains of unstructured data — contracts, call recordings, case notes, emails. AI can read all of it, extract what matters, and surface insights that would take a paralegal hours to compile. Here's how to build AI-powered legal features using Semantic Kernel and .NET.
Tags: AI, .NET, Legal Tech, Semantic Kernel, Azure OpenAI, C#, Blazor, GPT-4o
Published: April 30, 2026

### AI-Based OCR in .NET: Extracting Structured Data from Documents Using GPT-4o Vision
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/extract-structured-data-from-images-ai-dotnet-gpt4o-ocr
Summary: Traditional OCR struggles with real-world documents — skewed scans, varied fonts, handwriting, inconsistent layouts. Learn how to use Azure OpenAI's vision API in a .NET app to extract accurate, structured data from any image with a single prompt — and why AI beats regex every time.
Tags: .NET, AI, Azure OpenAI, OCR, C#, Image Processing, GPT-4o, ASP.NET Core
Published: April 28, 2026

### Building a Legal Tech Automation System: Syncing Clio, Lawmatics, Zoom & Box Using .NET Hangfire
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/legal-tech-automation-clio-lawmatics-zoom-box-hangfire-dotnet
Summary: A deep dive into how we built a fully automated data sync pipeline for a law firm — connecting Clio, Lawmatics, Zoom, and Box using ASP.NET Core, Hangfire background jobs, and OAuth 2.0. Real architecture, real code, real problems solved.
Tags: Blazor, .NET, Hangfire, Legal Tech, API Integration, Clio, Zoom API, C#, OAuth 2.0
Published: April 28, 2026

### Building a Multi-Tenant SaaS with ABP.io and Blazor: A Practical Guide
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/building-multi-tenant-saas-abp-blazor-guide
Summary: Multi-tenancy is at the core of modern SaaS platforms. In this guide, we break down how to build a scalable, secure multi-tenant application using ABP.io and Blazor — based on real-world architecture patterns.
Tags: .NET, ABP.io, Blazor, SaaS, Architecture, Multi-Tenancy
Published: April 24, 2026

### How Much Does Custom .NET Software Development Cost in 2026?
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/dotnet-software-development-cost-2026
Summary: One of the most common questions I get: 'How much will it cost to build X?' The honest answer is: it depends — but not in the hand-wavy way. Here's a real breakdown.
Tags: .NET, Pricing, Freelance, Software Development, Blazor
Published: April 24, 2026

### How to Migrate a WPF App to Blazor Server in 2026
URL: https://kathanpatel.vercel.app/blog/wpf-to-blazor-migration-2026
Summary: WPF apps are powerful — but they're hard to deploy, update remotely, or access from outside the office. Here's my step-by-step approach to migrating a WPF app to Blazor Server without rewriting everything.
Tags: Blazor, .NET, WPF, Migration, C#
Published: April 24, 2026