Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast

What if personal injury attorneys could say "yes" to every promising case that came through their door? That's the problem Finch Legal (https://www.finchlegal.com) is solving with a groundbreaking approach that combines human expertise with AI-powered automation.In this conversation with founders Viraj Bindra and Ben Weems, we explore how Finch Legal transforms the pre-litigation process for personal injury attorneys. After embedding themselves with law firms to understand operational pain points, these founders built a solution that handles everything from client intake to demand letter preparation, allowing attorneys to focus exclusively on what they do best.The magic behind Finch Legal's model isn't just clever AI—it's the thoughtful integration of experienced US-based paralegals working alongside AI agents that automate the most repetitive aspects of case management. This human-AI collaboration ensures clients receive empathetic service while mundane tasks like requesting medical records, opening insurance claims, and drafting documents happen efficiently in the background.What makes this conversation particularly timely is Finch Legal's recent $3.75 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital, validating their approach in an increasingly competitive legal tech landscape.For attorneys struggling with capacity constraints or legal tech entrepreneurs navigating the fundraising landscape, this episode offers both practical wisdom and inspiring vision about the future of legal practice. The founders paint a compelling picture of how thoughtful technology implementation can expand access to legal services while improving outcomes for both attorneys and clients.

Israel's innovation powerhouse isn't just transforming cybersecurity and consumer tech—it's also transforming the delivery of legal services through technological advancement. In this fascinating conversation with Idan Sivan, CTO at Fisher Law Firm and founder of the LawIT Forum, and Omri Rahum-Tweg, partner and co-head of the firm's law and technology practice, we explore how Israeli legal tech is developing at lightning speed.What makes the Israeli legal tech ecosystem special? For starters, the geographic intimacy allows startups to establish beta testing partnerships with law firms far more efficiently than in markets like the US. As Idan explains, "The market is small, the activity is small, so it's easier to gain access and to work together with law firms as a vendor." This creates a powerful advantage: Israeli legal tech companies can more often refine their products through real-world testing without the lengthy sales cycles that plague startups elsewhere.Particularly fascinating is how Fisher approaches change management across generational divides. While senior partners might not personally use every new technology, they've strategically empowered tech-savvy team members to drive implementation. This pragmatic delegation has accelerated adoption throughout the organization, allowing the firm to implement AI tools across multiple practice areas—from automated contract analysis to sophisticated due diligence capabilities that can extract substantive issues from thousands of documents.When discussing "agentic AI"—the concept of AI systems that can make decisions and complete complex workflows with minimal human intervention, both guests advocate for a balanced approach: identifying appropriate use cases while recognizing technology's current limitations. As Omri notes, "You have to be very picky and very careful and very mindful of the use cases you choose to select for this specific goal." Idan adds the crucial reminder that firms must "slow down a little bit ... you cannot talk about agentic AI and automations of legal processes if your lawyers haven't been trained for the basics."Whether you're a legal practitioner curious about technology's frontier, an investor considering the legal tech market, or simply interested in how traditional professions evolve, this episode offers valuable insights into one of legal innovation's most dynamic ecosystems. 

When you're a patent attorney facing the challenge of creating high-quality patents in half the time you once had, technology isn't just a luxury—it's survival. FX Leduc, co-founder and CEO of DeepIP (https://www.deepip.ai), joins Charlie Uniman to reveal how artificial intelligence transforms intellectual property practice from the ground up.Patent practitioners who once had 40 hours to draft applications now operate under 20-hour constraints. DeepIP addresses this pressure by providing an AI assistant that saves attorneys 20-50% of their drafting time while actually improving patent quality. Among the features that make DeepIP's approach to patent drafting unique? First, Deep IP's tech integrates directly within Microsoft Word, eliminating disruptive application switching. Second, the tech creates an iterative process where attorneys maintain complete control.The conversation takes a fascinating turn when FX explains how DeepIP handles office actions by connecting with USPTO file wrappers to analyze rejections and identify effective counterarguments. This capability becomes increasingly crucial as patent offices worldwide develop their own AI tools to generate automated rejections, creating what FX describes as an urgent need for law firms to adopt similar technologies or risk falling behind.Looking toward the future, FX highlights two key AI developments transforming the field: agentic AI, which can navigate complex workflows with semi-autonomous capabilities, and personalization, which adapts to an attorney's distinctive drafting style or client-specific requirements. These advancements represent not just efficiency gains but a fundamental shift in how patents are created and prosecuted.By addressing the unique challenges of intellectual property practice, DeepIP exemplifies how specialized legal technology can deliver genuine value. Whether you're a patent attorney, an IP professional, or a legal innovator generally, this episode offers essential insights into how AI is rapidly becoming not just an advantage but a necessity in intellectual property law.

The immigration legal landscape is shifting dramatically, creating unprecedented challenges for attorneys navigating complex cases under heightened scrutiny. Enter CaseBlink (https://www.caseblink.com), an innovative AI-powered platform transforming how immigration lawyers handle their caseloads.Co-founders Khalil Zlaoui (CEO) and Tina Zedginidze (COO) join us to unveil how their technology helps immigration attorneys spend much less time on routine aspects of case preparation. With most immigration lawyers working on a flat fee basis, this efficiency translates directly to improved margins, increased capacity, and potentially greater access to justice for clients.CaseBlink's three-pillar approach – document understanding, case research, and drafting – tackles the most time-consuming elements of immigration casework. CaseBlink's AI reads and extracts information from complex technical documents, conducts independent research based on visa requirements and regulations, and assembles comprehensive petitions – all while keeping attorneys firmly in control of case strategy.What makes this particularly valuable now? Recent political developments have significantly increased both the volume of immigration cases and the level of scrutiny they receive. Attorneys find themselves overwhelmed not just by more clients seeking help, but by the need to produce increasingly robust documentation to withstand heightened examination. CaseBlink enables lawyers to focus on high-value strategic work rather than administrative tasks.The founders share fascinating insights about their journey, from leveraging their professional networks for early adoption to participating in an accelerator program that helped these technical founders develop crucial business skills. Their experience offers valuable lessons for legal tech entrepreneurs about testing markets, building confidence, and refining your pitch.Listen now to discover how technology is helping attorneys work more efficiently while maintaining the essential human elements that make good legal representation possible.

What happens when a venture capitalist with CIO experience meets the evolving world of legal technology? Yousuf Khan, Partner at Ridge Ventures (https://ridge.vc), brings a refreshing perspective on what makes legal tech startups truly investable in today's market. Our conversation reveals why Ridge Ventures takes the unusual step of including customer introduction targets directly in their term sheets, creating genuine accountability between investors and founders. Drawing from his experience as a former CIO who worked closely with legal departments, Yousuf explains how he developed empathy for legal professionals' technology challenges and access to a valuable network of decision-makers. We explore the unique advantage legal tech founders have when they come from the legal profession. As Yousuf puts it, "Being able to articulate that pain point, being able to talk about the domain, is how you build a connection with your customers." This authentic understanding creates an immediate credibility that resonates with customers and investors. We next examine how AI is reshaping the legal technology landscape. Beyond productivity gains, AI promises substantive improvements in legal outcomes, potentially creating a future where lawyers who don't adopt certain technologies face ethical and competitive disadvantages. As Yousuf memorably quips, "The jury's still out," but market expectations are rapidly shifting. Yousuf offers practical wisdom for founders seeking investment: understand your specific market segments, demonstrate how your product will evolve over time, and focus relentlessly on customer success. "The only mode a legal tech founder needs to be in is customer mode," he emphasizes, cutting through trendy debates about founder versus manager mindsets. Join us for this insightful conversation about building successful legal tech companies in a time of unprecedented technological change and opportunity. Whether you're a founder, investor, or legal professional curious about innovation, you'll gain valuable perspective on where this dynamic industry is heading.

What if raising capital for your startup could be 10x cheaper and dramatically faster? Anthony Rose, founder and CEO of SeedLegals (https://seedlegals.com), reveals how the SeedLegals platform has revolutionized fundraising for UK startups and why he's now bringing this game-changing solution to the US market.This conversation sheds light on some hidden pitfalls of startup seed and Series A fundraising that can cost founders dearly. Among those pitfalls are hazards that can lurk in those seemingly simple YC SAFEs (where, for example, conversion mathematics often result in founders unknowingly giving away significantly more equity than anticipated). We also explore why US startups typically pay tens of thousands of dollars (or more) for priced funding rounds when SeedLegals can deliver the industry-standard documents (together with additional services) starting at a fraction of what's typically charged.Beyond cost savings, Anthony shares how SeedLegals addresses the fundamental power imbalance between founders and investors. Based on access to data from thousands of funding rounds, SeedLegals empowers founders with knowledge, particularly when it comes to knowing which deal terms are genuinely market standard and where founders should push back on investor-offered terms. By streamlining the legal aspects of a founder's startup fundraising journey, that founder can devote more energy to what truly matters – creating products customers love.The conversation also offers invaluable business advice for founders, such as the importance of focusing on customer-driven development. For example, Anthony suggests getting out from behind screens to validate ideas directly with potential users. As Anthony puts it, "Success isn't just building and shipping something; success is also people wanting what you've built." Whether you're raising your seed round or looking to optimize your Series A, this episode provides founders with the insider knowledge they need to navigate fundraising more efficiently and avoid costly mistakes that could haunt them (and their cap table) for years to come.

Introducing the first in a series of podcast episodes from Legal Tech StartUp Focus that feature legal tech power users. Discover the transformative power of legal technology with Karl Seelbach, the visionary litigator who co-founded the Austin, Texas-based Doyle Seelbach law firm (https://www.doyleseelbach.com) and Skribe (https://skribe.ai), a legal tech startup committed to revolutionizing depositions and enhancing litigation practice efficiency. Listen as Karl shares his journey from the courtroom to the forefront of legal tech innovation. Learn how Karl's passion for personal injury defense and drive to modernize legal processes sparked the creation of Skribe. Get ready to witness how a legal tech power user like Karl can unlock the potential of legal tech (especially AI's use in legal settings. This episode unpacks how pushing legal tech to greater limits can transform mundane tasks like invoice appeals and billable hour tracking. See how a power user of AI (and legal tech more generally) can improve financial outcomes and save valuable time. We also delve into the critical balance of privacy and accuracy when integrating AI into legal research and the robust discussions surrounding its capabilities.  As we look to the horizon, the episode imagines a future where technology continuously reshapes the legal landscape (e.g., envision virtual and augmented realities redefining how we conduct negotiations and make courtroom appearances). This discussion emphasizes the importance of embracing technological collaboration within the industry through conferences and community interactions. Join us in this insightful conversation on how legal tech use can assist lawyers in staying competitive and even help lawyers become more inspired by their day-to-day work in a world of ever-evolving legal service delivery methods.

Beyond Generic AI: Luminance's Specialized Approach to Legal Contract Intelligence - Episode 65 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- A conversation with Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance In this episode, recorded at the Legal Tech Fund Summit in Key Biscayne, Florida, host Charlie Uniman interviews Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, about the company's innovative AI-powered legal technology platform and its impact on the legal industry. Key Discussion Points Luminance's origin story: Founded in 2015 by Cambridge mathematicians responding to lawyers' needs for automation of repetitive tasks The company's proprietary Legal Pre-trained Transformer (LPT) model and its advantages over generic large language models How Luminance's AI knows when to defer to human judgment, building trust with legal professionals The platform's evolution from serving law firms to enterprise clients, including AMD, Koch Industries, and DHL User-friendly interface: "Push-button" simplicity in Microsoft Word integration Real-world ROI examples, including recovery of missed early payment discounts Key business metrics for scaling legal tech companies

In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus Podcast, host Charlie Uniman interviews Jack Weinberger, co-founder of Ajax (www.joinajax.com), a cutting-edge AI-powered timekeeping solution designed specifically for law firms. Join Charlie Uniman, your podcast host, and Jack as they explore: The challenges lawyers face in accurately tracking their billable hours and their impact on law firm revenue. The origins of Ajax were born from a personal experience of witnessing the tedious and time-consuming nature of manual timekeeping. The unique features and benefits of Ajax, highlighting its seamless integration with widespread practice management software and its intuitive user interface. How Ajax helps lawyers recover two to three billable hours per week, on average, by capturing time spent on short tasks that are often overlooked. The importance of user-friendly design in legal tech and how Ajax draws inspiration from successful consumer apps to create an enjoyable user experience. Ajax's significant impact on its customers includes a compelling story of a law firm that chose Ajax over a competitor after a head-to-head trial. The importance of seeking out advisors with expertise in areas beyond the legal field, particularly in product design, to ensure the development of genuinely user-friendly solutions. Don't miss this insightful conversation! Tune in to learn how Ajax is helping lawyers work smarter, not harder, and maximizing their earning potential.

In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Gary Senga, the CEO of LexCheck. This company has been at the forefront of legal technology for nearly a decade. We delved into Gary's journey as an entrepreneur, including his previous startup, Intelligize, which LexisNexis acquired, and how that experience shaped his approach to LexCheck. Gary provided an insightful overview of LexCheck, emphasizing its evolution from a natural language processing (NLP) development shop to a leader in AI-driven contract review solutions. We discussed their latest offering, LexCheck Insights, which combines NLP with large language models (LLMs) to create a powerful contract review tool. Gary highlighted the unique features of LexCheck Insights, including its ability to generate playbooks in minutes and its best-in-class redlining capabilities. As we explored the competitive landscape, Gary explained how LexCheck distinguishes itself from other players in the market. He pointed out the limitations of traditional LLMs in contract review and how LexCheck's proprietary pre-processing and post-processing technologies enhance the quality and comprehensiveness of contract analysis. This nuanced approach allows LexCheck to address the complexities of legal documents that many competitors overlook. In discussing marketing and sales strategies, Gary candidly shared that there is no secret formula for success. He stressed the importance of hard work and a balanced approach to lead generation, combining both inbound and outbound strategies. He noted that legal tech sales often require a hands-on approach, as the legal industry has historically been slow to adopt new software solutions. Gary offered valuable insights on onboarding for legal tech entrepreneurs. He advised against assuming that users will intuitively understand the software and emphasized the need for a thorough onboarding process. He encouraged startups to invest time and resources into helping users become comfortable with their products to avoid the dreaded "shelfware" phenomenon. As we wrapped up our conversation, Gary reflected on the milestones that have brought him the most pride over the past ten years, particularly the joy of seeing customer renewals and the professional growth of his team members.    

In this episode of the Legal Tech Startup Focus podcast, I welcome Damien Riehl, VP, Solutions Champion, at vLex and a leader at SALI (Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry). Damien provided an insightful overview of vLex, a legal data/legal data science company that boasts an impressive repository of over a billion legal documents from the United States and worldwide. He explained how vLex utilizes data science to tag and structure this vast amount of information, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) across the data to answer complex legal questions. We also explored the significance of having well-structured data and how SALI contributes to this by providing a comprehensive taxonomy of legal concepts, dramatically enhancing legal data's usability. As we delved deeper, we discussed the retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) concept and how vLex employs a five-stage process to increase the likelihood that the legal answers provided by vLex's LLMs are grounded in reliable data. Damien elaborated on how this process not only retrieves relevant cases but also analyzes their validity and relevance, providing users with a robust legal analysis that would typically take hours of work for a lawyer. We also touched on the implications of generative AI for the legal profession, particularly how it could disrupt traditional billing models. Damien highlighted the advantages for plaintiff-side lawyers who can leverage VLex's technology to save time and increase profitability while addressing the potential challenges for defense-side lawyers relying on hourly billing. The conversation then shifted to the competitive landscape of legal tech, where we discussed the risks posed by large tech companies potentially absorbing legal tech innovations. Damien emphasized the importance of having unique data sets and value propositions to stand out in a crowded market, warning that companies that merely act as wrappers around existing LLMs without offering additional value may need help to survive. Towards the end of our discussion, we explored the future of AI in legal tech, particularly the integration of symbolic reasoning with neural networks. Damien shared his insights on how combining these two approaches could enhance AI's reasoning capabilities, making it more effective in the legal domain. We concluded with a discussion on the importance of free access to legal data and how it could foster innovation and competition in the legal tech space. This episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone interested in the intersection of law and technology, particularly those looking to understand how data science and AI are transforming the legal landscape.  

After Charlie introduces Mike and congratulates him on the recent Time of London article about Contend, Charlie and Mike discuss: Just what it is that Contend (at https://contend.legal) does to provide safe, accessible, and affordable information for "regular people" when those people confront a legal issue (principally, providing both signposts to information resources (often secondary sources aimed at non-professionals) and connecting people to legal professionals and other organizations that can provide additional help) Why Contend at present operates only in England and Wales (primarily because (i) the UK's regulation of the legal services delivery system is less hidebound by outdated and overly broad "unauthorized practice of law" rules and (ii) the UK's legal innovation culture is so well developed) How Contend markets its product offerings (initially focussing on paid Google ads, now coming to rely more on organic Google search of access-to-justice content that Contend creates, and partnering with A2J nonprofits and other brand-building efforts) The significant business challenge Contend has so far faced (customer acquisition - and, in particular, conveying why Contend is a service provider that consumers can trust) and the most significant "win" that Contend is to date most proud of (having as significant and favorable an impact on people's lives as Contend has had) Link to Times of London article about Contend: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/we-use-ai-to-make-justice-more-accessible-to-ordinary-people-fk78crxtt

In this podcast episode, Chris and your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, discuss:   What Aderant's (https://www.aderant.com) software offers its large law firm customers generally and, most significantly, how Aderant's new offering, 'Stridyn,' brings a real platform technology to Aderant's suite of practice management and related tools. The Stridyn technology enables Aderant's customers to integrate all Aderant tooling and third-party software seamlessly.   How Aderant is bringing GenAI's natural language processing features (and other machine learning architectures) to Aderant's software suite, especially with Aderant's MADDI “legal assistant.” This innovative feature has the power to significantly reduce the time spent on routine tasks, allowing legal professionals to focus on more strategic and value-adding activities.   How to understand the true meaning of 'cloud-first' and 'cloud-only' in legal tech use for law firms. Chris also explains how a legal tech vendor's robust security and privacy features are not just crucial, but non-negotiable for encouraging the adoption of cloud-based software by legal tech customers, ensuring their data is always safe and protected.   Chris shares valuable insights for legal tech startup leaders on the subject of legal tech software pricing. He emphasizes that a 'value-based, ear-to-the-market' driven pricing strategy is key to gaining market share. He cautions against the risky path of bottom-up cost-plus pricing, advocating for a pricing approach that aligns with the value the product brings to the market.

Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Jim cover the following in this episode:   How Jim's undergrad major in computer science and his graduation from law school took him from his first job as a lawyer doing document review to working for over a decade in e-discovery.    Eventually leaving e-discovery work to found his own company offering services outside the legal tech field, Jim nonetheless kept track of the immense benefits accruing to document review from the use of NLP and, eventually, GenAI solutions.    Jim realized how these GenAI-driven solutions could solve longstanding problems with less up-to-date e-discovery solutions. With this realization, Jim returned to the e-discovery field to start his own business, eDiscoveryAI (www.ediscoveryai.com), and bring the benefits of GenAI to e-discovery customers.   Jim explains how GenAI-driven e-discovery tools advance e-discovery far beyond the levels of accuracy achievable from the predictive coding tooling previously used in e-discovery - all at a lower cost and with faster time-to-value.   Jim explains how, by operating as a nimble startup with virtually no bureaucracy to get in the way, Jim and his colleagues at eDiscoveryAI can get closer to the customer and build customer-requested features more rapidly than his big-company competitors.

Your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Peter discuss: Peter's professional background and his founding of Titans (https://www.titans.legal) and the creation of the Legal Tech Trends newsletter (https://www.legaltechtrends.com/) Adoption trends, including the factors promoting (or hindering) legal tech adoption by large law firms Where large law firms are when it comes to the GenAI “hype cycle” Peter's most contrarian view on legal tech What are the biggest mistakes (“own goals”) or oversights that legal tech vendors suffer from Peter's (surprising views) as to what the blue ocean spaces are in the legal tech competitive landscape

Tanguy's and Mike's Respective Backgrounds and Path into Legal Tech: Tanguy is an engineer with advanced degrees (including an MBA) from MIT and experience in venture capital, notably early-stage investing in legal tech startups (one of such startups being Ironclad) Mike has a background that includes working at the Federal Reserve, McKinsey, and co-founding a company that applied AI in the insurance space. Mike's experience with AI and legal/regulatory challenges contributed to starting Paxton. Paxton's Recent Award: Celebrated being one of the winners at the 2024 ABA Tech Show Startup Alley Paxton's Technology and Approach: Focuses on developing industry-specific, application-specific, and firm-specific legal language models for greater accuracy, response speed, and security. The data for model training includes public domain legal documents, emphasizing legal-specific training over general-purpose models. Paxton enables customization for firms by allowing connections to internal knowledge sources without training the model on client-specific data unless requested. Applications of Paxton: Legal Research: Provides access to laws, regulations, and court rulings across all states and federal levels. Document Drafting: Uses a vast corpus of legal documents to assist in drafting accurate first drafts of legal documents. Document Analysis: Offers document analysis and Q&A capabilities for large volumes of documents, ensuring data privacy and governance for firms. Use Case for Training Young Lawyers: Paxton aids in training younger lawyers by allowing them to ask questions and practice without fear of judgment, enhancing their learning and confidence. Future Roadmap: Paxton plans to develop more advanced language models, connect to more data sources, and execute multi-step workflows for synthesized answers from various data sources. Advice for Legal Tech Startups: Tanguy and Mike emphasize the importance of being customer-centric, seeking feedback, and iterating based on user input to improve and refine the product.

In this podcast episode, Jackie shares her personal journey from working as a lawyer to founding Clearbrief, an AI-powered litigation analysis tool that integrates with Microsoft Word to assist with research, citations, and document management. Jackie and Charlie discuss the challenges women founders face in getting venture capital attention and support, even when their offerings are high quality. Jackie spoke about the importance of women legal tech startup leaders speaking confidently about their product and its market prospects (especially when, as was the case with Jackie's own early product development efforts, the assessment of product prospects is based on feedback arising out of literally hundreds of customer interviews). Charlie and Jackie also talk about the difficulties of marketing a product to senior law firm decision-makers (who, after all, control budgets) based not only on the product's firm-wide and enterprise-wide benefits but also on the product's prospects for improving the quality of life for junior lawyers and paralegals. Charlie and Jackie cover the implications of AI on the legal profession, including AI's potential impact on billing practices as technology continues to drive efficiency.

In this episode, your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Dan Broderick discuss: How Dan started BlackBoiler after practicing law for 7 years, having gotten the idea for Blackboiler while reviewing large numbers of contracts for a client and realizing how much of the work could be automated. BlackBoiler's focus on automating high-volume contract review and markup during the negotiation phase, with BlackBoiler using machine learning AI to learn from historical edits and rule sets in order to suggest edits in tracked changes. BlackBoiler's target market consists principally of corporate legal departments, with people in those departments - and in other departments in the enterprise - using BlackBoiler's software to help them review contracts more efficiently and to empower business users who “touch” contracts frequently, but who aren't lawyers. What some of the challenges are in selling AI, including the challenge (and importance) of separating hype from reality and getting customers to think “problem-first,” not “AI-first.” How BlackBoiler uses machine learning, but currently not of the generative AI type, as the tasks that Blackboiler carries out are more a matter of text-classification than text-generation. However, Dan does point out that generative AI may be helpful for purposes of initial drafting and finding clauses. For legal tech startup leaders, some of Dan's key pieces of advice are finding the determination to get through business highs and lows and making sure to reward positive team dynamics.

         · Otto is CEO of TermScout, which provides data and analytics on market terms in contracts to reduce friction in negotiations. · Otto was motivated to start TermScout after seeing startups overpay for legal services due to a lack of data on market terms. · TermScout uses AI and human review to analyze contracts and provide market data on common clauses. · TermScout's offering helps lawyers know what's "market" to resolve disputes over contract terms. TermScout's customers are both the contracting parties and their legal teams. · TermScout also offers contract certification to validate a vendor's contract as balanced and have it labeled as such. · Otto sees room for more contract standardization not only by way of the use of standard forms, but also through the standardization of various contracts' overall concepts. · When it comes to the interoperation of various legal tech vendors' offerings, Otto and Charlie discuss how legal tech tools should ideally interoperate via APIs using a standard schema. · Otto and Charlie also consider how the onus is on legal tech companies to coordinate standards and seamless interoperability to improve customer experience and reduce the drag on software use that comes from having to constantly shift among different legal tech applications.

Mat Kerbis founded Subscription Attorney LLC to offer legal services through recurring monthly fees rather than hourly billing; in that way better aligning incentives between lawyer and client.       Going solo allowed Mat the freedom to innovate with new billing models, which is harder at larger firms wedded to the billable hour.       The subscription model expands affordable access to legal help, helping close the "justice gap."       Mat leverages legal tech and other automation strategies to work efficiently and keep costs low as a virtual solo practitioner who charges on a subscription basis.       When developing their product offerings, legal tech companies should consider the needs of subscription model law firms as a growing niche.        An "all-in-one" solution tailored to subscription law firms could integrate practice management, document automation, intake, billing, etc.        Mat's "Law Subscribed" podcast profiles lawyers using alternative fee arrangements and also features the tech enabling new models beyond the billable hour.        The legal industry needs new models like subscription-based billing as it competes for talent against fields with better lifestyles and fewer grueling hours.        Mat aims to spread the subscription model to save the legal profession and head off competition from alternative legal services.     Mat's Subscription Attorney Website:  https://subscriptionattorney.com/ Mat's LawSubscribed Podcast: https://lawsubscribed.com/#podcast

Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, and Steve Fretzin discuss: Lawyers need training in business development and client relations, which is not taught in law school. Technology can help lawyers be more efficient, so they have time for business development.   Social media is a great marketing equalizer that allows individual lawyers, as well as small-to-medium-sized firms, to build their brand and get their voice out, social media's certainly not just for big firms.   Automating scheduling, email outreach, and content creation through technology frees up lawyer time and builds relationships through organization and consistency.   Becoming a thought leader takes consistency and multiple touches, through content creation, networking, writing, and speaking engagements. Business coaches can help too.   Leveraging virtual assistants, marketing professionals, and technologies like chatGPT allows lawyers to focus on their strengths and delegate marketing tasks.   Tracking marketing data and metrics helps assess what's working through things like CRMs (though CRM adoption is slow).    Investing time and money in marketing coaching provides high ROI through increased business and, in larger firms, control over one's career. Lawyers should learn enough to guide the process rather than do it all.   Steve's website: https://www.fretzin.com/ All Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast episodes at:  https://legalfocus.libsyn.com/

In this 51st podcast episode, your podcast host Charlie Uniman interviews Gaurav Oberoi, CEO and co-founder of Lexion (www.lexion.ai). Gaurav talks about how, as a software developer and not a lawyer but who recognized the potential of natural language processing AI, he ventured into the legal tech industry. He co-founded Lexion to focus on making sense of contracts for corporate enterprises. During its history, Lexion transformed from being a simple repository for contracts to a CLM for an entire organization that serves as an operational workflow platform to speed up deals.  Gaurav also describes how Lexion harnesses AI to, among other things, enhance contract visibility, manage renewals and reminders, and provide powerful search and reporting features. According to Gaurav: Some of Lexion's chief areas of focus include customer requirements and rapid implementation, and learning from competitors' shortcomings (notably, the high failure rates of CLMs generally). Lexion found that other CLM systems' complexities and steep learning curves significantly deter adoption. So, Lexion designed its system to integrate seamlessly into an organization's existing workflow, offering immediate functionality without requiring extensive setup or training.  This, and Lexion's focus on integrating with platforms like email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce, promotes high adoption rates. Lexion has recently raised funds in an environment of challenging macroeconomic conditions and increased diligence from potential investors. Gaurav attributes Lexion's recent fundraising success to, in part, the company's robust business model, dedicated team, high customer retention, and high user engagement. As Gaurav notes, Lexion's vision to serve corporate operations teams and not just the legal department (by giving just a couple of examples, automating standardized sales contracts and employment offer letters) was also an attraction to potential investors. Gaurav concludes the podcast by describing some of Lexion's guiding business principles, including the company's obsession with the customer, an insistence on clear written communication among team members, and a company-wide commitment to transparency regarding company direction and individual and team performance.                

Among the subjects that your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, discusses with Kevin are:   What does LegalSifter do and how does it do it? The hype cycle of AI.      The growth of the company?  Finding the right investor for a legal tech startup.  Partnering with other companies.  Regulatory reform in Arizona.

At the outset of the podcast, Andy shares his professional background, which spans over 20 years in the technology industry, building software solutions for various industries. He also talks about his transition to legal tech and his excitement about the future of innovation in the industry. Charlie and Andy discuss Aderant's broad functionalities, including practice management, litigation management, billing, recruiting, and knowledge management. Andy turns next to his current focus on innovation and disruption in the legal industry through data analytics and AI. Andy mentions Aderant's upcoming Momentum conference (May 2023), where it plans to unveil new technology for the legal tech space. Andy and Charlie close the podcast by covering futuristic legal tech trends (including blockchain (not "crypto") and the metaverse), Aderant's plans for staying ahead of the technology curve, and the pride that Aderant takes in its ability to evolve with the changing needs of clients and its continuing to be a leader in the market.

Our guests today are Mike Zourhi, the co-founder and CEO of Painworth, and Bryan Saunders, Painworth's Director of Growth, Marketing, & UX/UI. Mike kicks off the podcast by telling us his story where, as the victim of a hit-and-run by a drunk driver, Mike was inspired to create Painworth. Mike and Bryan describe Painworth's aim: to be the "voice" of the personal injury victim in settlement discussions of the victim's claims.  Painworth does this by educating the victim with award estimates for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages that will carry weight with lawyers and insurance adjusters because they are based on Painworth's machine learning-driven reviews of relevant court-based and other documentation relevant to award calculation.  Painworth's secret sauce is that it was built for use by personal injury victims (i.e., "regular people") themselves. Mike, Bryan, and Charlie discuss: - How Painworth simplifies processes for its users without sacrificing its use of a sophisticated approach at the back-end for award estimation, - Painworth's process for educating its "regular-people" customers in its web app's use and its processes for iterating on UI/UX improvements. - Painworth's roll-out plans for a US-based web app, - How Painworth has succeeded in gaining acceptance by both lawyers and insurance adjusters for Painworth's use by personal injury victims, and - Business events that Mike and Bryan are most proud of to date.

Podcast host, Charlie Uniman, sits down (virtually) with Jerry Ting of Evisort to talk about: (i) How Jerry planted the seed for founding Evisort while still a student at Harvard Law School (and the role that serendipity played in Jerry's finding his co-founder), (ii) what law schools can (should?) do when it comes to training lawyers-to-be in the art of legal innovation and what perspective law students can bring to innovation in legal, (iii) just what it is that Evisort does in the contract lifecycle management space (with the discussion focusing on, among other things, Evisort's out-of-the-box usability and how Evisort really does help take the grunt work out of contract review), (iv) Evisort's success in marketing to in-house legal departments and other business enterprise personnel involved with contracts (here Jerry covers how Evisort has achieved success by helping those departments transform from being a "brake" on enterprise success to becoming a "gas pedal" that accelerates business success), and (v) the very personally gratifying story behind one of the business successes that Jerry and his team are most proud of to date.

Episode 46 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) - An Interview with Zach Posner, co-founder and Managing of The Legal Tech Fund (www.legaltech.com) Interested in the subject of how legal tech startups can get funded? Thought so - that's why this is a "must listen" episode. Here Zach Posner of The Legal Tech Fund (TLTF) (i) talks about fund-pitching strategies, (ii) offers advice for legal tech startups when facing the headwinds in today's economy and (iii) discusses TLTF's forthcoming Summit conference (December 7 - 9, 2022 in Miami; register here by the November 23, 2022 deadline: https://www.tltfsummit.com) and the Summit's StartUp Challenge (apply here by the August 31, 2022 deadline:(https://www.tltfsummit.com/apply-now) ).

Luke Yingling founded his legal tech startup, Analytica Legalis, about a year ago during his second year in law school. As you'll hear from Luke, his company has already raised its pre-revenue seed-stage financing and is looking forward to launching its beta version (with law firm beta testers already lined up and eager to go) this coming August. Hear Luke (a) chart his path from law student to legal tech startup founder, (b) relate how, as a student entrepreneur, he was able to take advantage of programs at his law school and elsewhere aimed at assisting very early-stage student-founded startups, (c) describe what Analytica Legalis does and how it distinguishes itself from other tools for litigators that analyze judges' opinions, (d) explain the preparations his company undertook to ready itself for its beta testing program, (d) also explain how he attracted investors that were interested in funding a pre-revenue legal tech startup, (e) discuss the importance of data visualization techniques for making his company's UI intuitive and easy-to-use and (f) tell listeners of the pride he and his team have taken in generating both commercial and academic excitement for the results available from the built "from-the-ground-up" version of Analytica Legalis' machine learning software and in innovating in the judge analytics space.

Episode 44 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), an interview with Susann Funke, co-founder and CEO of LEX AI (www.lexai.co). As Susann tells us,  LEX AI has built proprietary natural language processing tools that automate the preparation of accurate and readable summaries of often voluminous regulations for use by lawyers and business people alike.  From there, Susann charts her path from practicing law to co-founding LEX AI . In doing so,  Susann describes how a massive client project - with a very tight deadline - motivated her to find a way to automate the immense amount of manual effort that the project required.  Susann also explains how LEX AI: - has developed key metrics that show how its tools free timekeepers from low value work that clients won't pay for - gathers valuable feedback from its top-of -funnel sales efforts - has benefitted from building a diversified team, particularly when it comes to its solution building and cross-border marketing efforts - uses social media (including Instagram and soon TikTok) to bolster its marketing efforts (particularly among younger lawyers and younger business people) - finds a welcoming user base inside law school and university classrooms

Episode 43 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An interview with Jace Lynch, COO of HyperDraft (www.hyperdraft.ai), and Sean Greaney, HyperDraft's General Counsel. HyperDraft is an AI-driven full service document generation, editing and closing platform for lawyers and other legal professionals.   Listen to Jace and Sean describe: (1) HyperDraft's origin story, (2) their company's commitment to designed-in simplicity and ease of use, (3) HyperDraft's own brand of customer on-boarding (ranging from an intuitive UI, helpful app tools tips, written materials and video explainers), (4) their aim to expand from currently targeting North American customers to targeting the European legal tech market next, (5) their successin selling HyperDraft to boutique and other SMB law firms, as well as to solo practitioners and (6) how and why they are most proud of HyperDraft's team, product value, software development responsiveness and short time-to-value for HyperDraft's customers.

Episode 42 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) -- An Interview with Raman Malik, founder and CEO of Rhetoric (www.rhetoric.app) Most leaders at legal tech startups present at one time or another to existing and prospective stakeholders (most importantly, to customer and investor prospects). So, it stands to reason that those leaders could use an app that makes getting presentation feedback as easy as clicking a button. Raman and his team have designed Rhetoric to be just that app; a "Grammarly for presentations," if you will (as Rhetoric itself puts it on its website) . Raman discusses (1) how Rhetoric works, (2) the growing importance of asynchronous presentation-giving, (3) several of Rhetoric's chief use cases and (4) Rhetoric's success in closing a seed round. Raman also gives some presentation-making pointers of his own (including his noting of two common presentation mistakes; namely, not soliciting enough feedback and ignoring the importance of tailoring the sequencing of a presentation's topics for each different audience group). Finally, Raman explains how he and his team pride themselves on how carefully they define their goals, while at the same time being open to goal-revision as the Rhetoric team strives to learn, iterate and improve quickly.

In this 41st episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), we lear that guest Scott Leigh's company, AltFee (www.alterfeeco.com)  is on a mission. And that mission is to help lawyers (whether practicing solo, at small or medium-sized firms or at Big Law law firms) gain the freedom to implement alternative fee arrangements and break out of the billable hour model. We'll hear Scott talk about how he and his team have created an app that brings repeatable methods to lawyer/client alternative fee discussions - an app that, among other things: (1) encourages healthy and disciplined upfront conversations about matter scoping and (2) brings greater transparency to alternative fee setting. Moreover, Scott describes how AltFee's app helps lawyers build a repository of alternative fee setting best practices where lawyers (senior and junior) can go for guidance as new matters arise. Scott also talks about his company's "land and expand" strategy when selling into law firms and about the pride that he and his colleagues take in AltFee's thought leadership efforts to educate lawyers about alternative fee arrangement management. In addition, Scott provides insight into AltFee's app design and post-sale customer success efforts.

Episode 40 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Christy Burke, Founder of Burke & Company In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Christy Burke, founder of Burke & Company (www.burke-company.com). As Burke & Company says on its website, "Legal technology providers need strong, creative PR representation to market successfully. Since 2004, Burke & Company has provided the highest standard in PR and marketing for legal tech." In addition to discussing how Christy came to found her company and what kinds of communications-related services her company provides firms and companies in legal and legal tech, Christy offers listeners a "masterclass" on legal tech sales-related communications by providing some answers to the following questions: (i) What are the most significant steps that legal tech startup leaders can take to “up their game” when it comes to communicating their company's value proposition to law firms and in-house legal departments? (ii) What are some of the chief “unforced errors” that you've seen legal tech startup leaders commit in dealing with the press and in undertaking social media campaigns? (iii) Because legal tech startup founders often ask for tips on establishing their thought leadership bona fides, are there any pointers that you can offer to assist them in using their already existing subject-matter expertise to enhance their credibility as thought leaders?

In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), podcast host Charlie Uniman interviews Stephen Dowling, founder and CEO of Dublin, Ireland-based Trialview.  As TrialView puts it on its website (www.trialview.com}: "Quickly and easily digitise the trial process and save time, effort and money.  . . .  [Moreover,] TrialView's unique synchronising technology enables document led hearings to be conducted remotely." We learn from Stephen how his founding of TrialView began, as is the case with many other legal tech startup founders, with frustrations he faced while practicing law.  Stephen explains that, as a junior trial lawyer working on long-running litigations, he wondered why his and his colleagues' wrangling with many thousands of documents couldn't be handled better with the introduction of digital technologies. As Stephen's developed his thinking  about the "digitization of trial work," he came to realize that it it went beyond just the digitizing document review (a step that was already being addressed by e-discovery companies). As Stephen came to see it, digitization tools could also be applied to the task of coordinating, in real time at trial: (i) the presentation of trial documents and (ii) the collaboration among the parties to the litigation in dealing with those documents and their presentation in court. Stephen goes on to discuss, among other topics: (A)  How TrialView went from its first, very minimum viable, product to the initial funding round for the company and the company's development of a fully-featured trial management tool. (B)  The way in which the COVID pandemic accelerated TrialView's development of video features in support of trials and other dispute resolution mechanisms that were required to be conducted on a fully-remote basis. (C) Stephen's belief that, even post-pandemic, we will witness a hybrid approach to conducting trials, mediations and arbitrations (where much of what was formerly done in-person will be carried out remotely, but with a core set of dispute elements more frequently than not being handled in-person). (D) What marketing approaches TrialView has taken successfully, especially in the face of getting both judges and frequently litigating parties (such as insurance companies) "on board" with TrialView's use (with Stephen also pointing out here how TrialView has partnered with companies that handle trial-related tasks outside of TrialView's purview to call attention to TrialView's offering) . (E) TrialView's penetration of markets outside Ireland and the UK, including especially its targeting of the deposition-taking market in the US (F) How Stephen and his TrialView colleagues are most proud of the role TrialView played in keeping Irish courts functioning at the outset of the COVID pandemic.

Episode 38 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of LegalQ In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Zeb Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Legal Q (www.legalq.io). As LegalQ describes its offering on its website, “Searching [for an attorney] online feels overwhelming. Referrals from friends and family leading to dead ends. Often the only way to get legal help is by talking to an attorney. Use the LegalQ app to get help today [and] a licensed attorney will help you [to]: Know your options and legal rights, Avoid common legal pitfalls and mistakes, [and] Get personalized guidance for unique legal issues.” After talking about Zeb's professional background and LegalQ's product, Charlie's discussion with Zeb digs deeply into: Given the need to reach customers in mass, “retail-like,” markets, LegalQ's go-to-market and marketing strategies (and, more particularly, how those strategies entail Google searches, Facebook ads and, more generally, search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization strategies) The iterative process that LegalQ uses refine its app design, improve its customer onboarding and, most interestingly, revise its core revenue model (well after LegalQ's initial launch) in light of market reactions to its initial business model approach LegalQ's use of analytical tools to understand the most cost-effective ways to lower customer acquisition costs The importance for LegalQ of making a great senior marketing hire LegalQ's ambitious (and access-to-justice driven) mission statement (a mission attributable, at least in part, to LegalQ's participation in the TechStars program).

Episode 37 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- An Interview with Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Mat Rotenberg, founder and CEO of Dashboard Legal.  On its website (www.dashboardlegal.com), Dashboard Legal writes of its value proposition: "Tired of switching between email threads, apps and workarounds? Dashboard Legal lets you and your team work right from your inbox - by transforming it into a unified workspace for all the materials related to a case or transaction." Mat and Charlie talk about the following topics during this episode:   How Mat's experience working as a law firm deal lawyer led him to build a suite of tools that creates an "inbox-first" universal view of a deal or litigation that helps to solve the organizational and collaboration roadblocks that Mat confronted when he practiced law,   What Dashboard Legal does to systematize legal matter workflows and encourage lawyer-to-lawyer collaboration, while at the same time allowing its users to continue using software that they've long used as part of their day-to-day work (e.g., such as word processing and email apps like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook),   The growing importance of collaboration among legal professionals and the benefits that such collaboration offers those professionals (not least of which is the improvement of one's "lifestyle" at work), and   What approaches Dashboard Legal has taken to market its offering (including participation in partner-channels such as Reynen Court and Jameson Legal Tech) and how important a part the building of relationships with customers plays in Dashboard Legal's marketing.

Episode 36 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Rich Lee, a co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Rich Lee, a co-founder and CEO of New Era ADR.  On its website (www.neweraadr.com), New Era ADR says “Use smarter, more intuitive tools to get to resolution faster with some of the most experienced mediators and arbitrators in the industry. Do it all from home or anywhere in the world on our fully-digital platform. Get everything done in one place, without everyone being in one place. Don't waste your time, money, or energy on logistics or fighting, make it simple with New Era ADR.” Here are some topics that Rich and Charlie discuss: How Rich made his way from law school to co-founding New Era ADR. How Rich's experience as a GC and also as a business person at IP-related businesses (where he confronted first hand the expense and inefficiencies of litigating disputes in court) informs his vision for New Era ADR. What's New Era ADR's secret sauce when it comes to providing a software-based approach to alternative dispute resolution? (Hint: Among other things, shorter times-to-resolution, a “virtual first” approach, an emphasis on UX and the customer experience, and versatility as a platform that enables New Era ADR to handle not only disputes that involve commercially sophisticated parties, but also disputes that involve consumers and disputes that have A2J implications)? What business successes are Rich and his co-founders most proud of to date.    

Episode 35 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with Senne Mennes, a co-founder of ClauseBase In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Senne Mennes, a co-founder of ClauseBase.  On its website (www.clausebase.com), ClauseBase speaks of itself as “.  .  .  [going] beyond simple template editors, offering you all the power you need to draft complex documents.” Here are some of the topics that Charlie and Senne discuss in this episode: How did Senne find his way to co-founding a legal tech startup? What does ClauseBase's product offering do for lawyers? In what markets does ClauseBase make its product offering available? What marketing and sales channels has ClauseBase found most success (and what such channels have been less successful)? What is ClauseBases's process for successful customer onboarding? How does ClauseBase avoid becoming “shelfware?” Of what business successes is Senne most proud?

In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Jeremy Small, CEO of Jameson Legal and Jon Bartman, Head of Jameson Legal Tech, a division of Jameson Legal (www.jamesonlegal.com/jameson-legal-tech). On its website, Jameson Legal Tech describes itself as follows: “With a focus on Legal Tech software sales and strategic advice, as well as Legal Tech recruitment, our specialist team is a trusted adviser to Legal Tech Vendors as well as In-House and Private Practice Legal Operations departments.” Here are the highlights what Jeremy, Jon and Charlie discussed during this episode: - How did Jameson Legal Tech “grow” out of Jameson Legal?  - Just what kind of services does Jameson Legal Tech offer the participants in its two-sided market (as of today, those participants consisting of: (i) legal tech companies that need assistance in their marketing and sales efforts and (ii) law firms and in-house legal departments looking to license legal tech software solutions)?  What additional services is Jameson Legal Tech considering offering in the future? - Which legal tech companies currently comprise Jameson Legal Tech's software solutions platform? - In what markets does Jameson Legal Tech currently offer its services? - What accounts for today's interest in the creation  of, and participation in, legal tech marketing consortiums like Jameson Legal Tech?

Episode 33 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Interview with Jonathan Fish and Kyle Richless, co- founders of Cap Gains Inc. and QSBS Expert In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Jonathan Fish and Kyle Richless of Cap Gains Inc. and QSBS Expert (www.qsbsexpert.com). QSBS Expert is Cap Gains Inc.'s first offering, one that helps startup founders, investors, and lawyers (among other startup stakeholders) understand the nuances of a significant US tax exemption that's available to eligible startups and their investors that qualify for this exemption's use. Jonathan and Kyle each first explain how their professional backgrounds led them to their co-founding Cap Gains Inc. and the introduction of Cap Gains Inc.'s QSBS Expert offering.  The “main event” follows as Jonathan and Kyle explain just what QSBS is and why it matters to startups and  startup stakeholders.  Hint:  QSBS stands for “qualified small business stock” and refers to what can be a financially significant US federal (and possibly state-level) tax exemption. Pay attention startups first, because there can be “real” money at stake here and second, because the availability of that potential for tax savings, as Jonathan and Kyle further explain, is subject to eligibility and qualification criteria that are chock full of nuance and possible trip wires that, if tripped, can “bust” the tax exemption's availability.  So, with Jonathan's and Kyle's able assistance, we get an overview of the history of the QSBS exemption, its motiving policy and some of the pitfalls to consider (and avoid if possible) to preserve the exemption's availability for otherwise eligible and qualifying startups and investors. Jonathan and Kyle go on to describe just what kinds of services QSBS Expert offers when it comes to understanding and taking advantage of this exemption.  Given the complexities of the law and regulations applicable to this exemption, QSBS Expert's service offering can be tax exemption-preserving tool that's well worth exploring. Charlie, Jonathan and Kyle conclude the podcast with the latter two discussing “words of startup wisdom” (WOSW?) that legal tech startup leaders should find helpful in managing their startup's business.

Episode 32 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Interview with Jason Gabbard, founder of JUSTLAW In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Jason Gabbard, the founder of JUSTLAW(www.just.law) a startup that, as it writes on its website, offers families, individuals and small business “legal matters covered by our [monthly] protection plan.” Jason dives right into a recounting of his career and, we learn, it is a varied one from a business standpoint.   After law school, Jason spends four years in corporate law at NYC law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Jason goes on from there (i) to found, in the early 2000's, a “distributed” law firm, (ii) to create a legal tech startup in 2010 that extracts M&A deal clauses from SEC databases and that, with humans in-the-loop, also analyzes those clauses and (iii) to found Counselytics, another legal tech startup, one that automates much of the analytics that went into Jason's previous startup's clause-based work.   Jason has successful exits from both of the above-mentioned startups. And, in fact, for several years works at Conga, the company that acquired Counselytics. All this leads to Charlie and Jason discussing the (over?) abundance of companies in the CLM space and the frothiness in the market for investing in legal tech startup (and in startups, in general). Charlie and Jason next turn to Jason's latest venture, called JUSTLAW, that aggregates small business demand for legal services and surfaces that demand to solo and small/medium-sized firm practitioners.  What's of particular note here is that the practitioners charge for their services available on the basis of a tiered monthly subscription model (with the tiers corresponding to different levels of lawyer services). Jason concludes this podcast episode with words of wisdom to other legal tech startup founders/leaders (i) who are eyeing (or may someday eye) an M&A exit, (ii) whose startups are deluged with customer feature requests, (iii) who are building senior level teams and (iv) who are just moving from practicing law to starting up a legal company.

Episode 31 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - Interview with Michael Levy, Solutions Architect at Tonkean In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Michael Levy, Solutions Architect at Tonkean (www.tonkean.com). Tonkean describes itself on its website as a set of no-code software tools that enables business people (including, of course, lawyers and allied legal professionals) to “Automate complex business processes, fast.” Michael begins the podcast by describing how he arrived at Tonkean. Michael's journey saw him begin his career as a software engineer. From that role Michael moved on to more customer-facing roles, involving product management and software deployment. Michael next spent several years as a member of Google's legal operations team. At Google, Michael became a Tonkean customer himself when he became central to the roll-out of Tonkean software to Google's legal ops team members and others at Google. (At this juncture, Charlie and Michael talk about the increasingly important role that legal operations is coming to play at in-house legal departments worldwide.) Now at Tonkean, Michael helps to bring Tonkean's process automation software to law firms and in-house legal departments. Michael next describes just what Tonkean's software does, with an emphasis (not surprisingly) on how Tonkean's process automation software applies to work carried out by in-house legal departments and law firms. Essentially, Tonkean's web-based tools gives non-coders the opportunity to use intuitive drag-and-drop functionality to build workflows. These workflows, in turn, permit data of many different kinds to move among the pieces of software that lawyers and allied legal professionals are already familiar with. By way of just a couple of examples, legal ops team members, paralegals and lawyers — who, being subject matter experts when it comes to matters like conflict waivers and client intake procedures — can automate (without needing any coding skills) start-to-finish conflict-waiver workflows or client intake workflows. And, as Michael points our later in the podcast, with Tonkean's not requiring coding and involving only software with which a lawyer and his or her law firm or legal department colleagues are already familiar, there's little, if any, change management effort necessary to encourage that use. Charlie asks Michael what it's like to be marketing and selling to law firms and legal departments out of a company like Tonkean that isn't devoted exclusively to the legal tech vertical. In answering, Michael notes that Tonkean's software is aimed at any business person who needs to funnel data through a workflow quickly and efficiently and that the business person in question can certainly be a lawyer. That said, Michael goes on to explain that Tonkean does make a strong effort to be involved with “legal,” including having a membership in CLOC (the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) and having a section dedicated to legal operations in its online learning center.

Episode 30 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Interview with Raj Goyle, co-founder and CEO of Bodhala In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Raj Goyle, the co-founder and CEO of Bodhala (www.bodhala.com). Bodhala assists in-house legal departments in managing their outside counsel spend and describes itself on its website as follows: "Bodhala’s mission is to create a transparent market for legal services. Using data to illuminate price discovery, we can drive competition and innovation not just for buyers of legal services, but for the entire industry." Raj begins the podcast by talking about his professional journey to legal tech. After college and law school, Raj worked in the non-profit sector and on public interest and civil rights law matters, entered politics after winning election to the Kansas State House of Representatives and served as the director of a family investment office. Listeners will hear from Raj about how it was his work in public interest law and the public sector (and not - as one might have expected - any prior work in a commercial law practice) that motivated him to strive for efficiency in the delivery of legal services and, at Bodhala, to help in-house legal departments monitor and control their law firm legal-spend Raj next describes what differentiates Bodhala from other legal tech companies in the spend management space (hint: offering data cleansing and data organization to its customers, together with up-to-date "what's market" information about legal-spend). In this segment of the podcast, Raj pulls no punches in explaining what it is about much of private law firm practice and the self-regulation of the legal industry that incentivizes behavior that, in turn, makes spend management such a pressing issue for so many law firm clients. Charlie and Raj close this episode with a discussion of legal tech startups' increasing success in fundraising from institutional investors. Here Raj observes a surge in interest in investing in the legal tech vertical on the part of not only venture capital firms, but also private equity firms.

Episode 29 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast - Interview with Marc Doucette, Director, Strategic Partnerships at Koho Software In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Marc Doucette, Director, Strategic Partnerships at Koho Software. Koho is a value added reseller (VAR) of contract lifecycle management software that describes its mission as ". . . mak[ing] the contracting processes faster, more collaborative, and more secure . . . by providing a solution that’s built around [a customer's] specific processes and [that] scales with [that customer's] organization." During the podcast, Charlie and Marc discuss the following: - Marc's professional background; including, of course, how he and his team took Koho from providing help desk services to its customers to the legal tech vertical where it operates today - What it means for Koho to act as a VAR in the contract lifecycle management space, and how it offers its principal customers (namely, in-house legal departments worldwide and of various sizes) not only an explanation of what contract lifecycle management's business case is and assistance in assessing the need for such software in the case of a particular in-house department's operations, but also advice in choosing the right contract lifecycle software and, once chosen, implementing that software and providing software support services to get (and keep) the software running - Insights into how Koho markets its services to potential customers around the world.

In this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), Charlie Uniman, your podcast host, interviews Jim Chiang, founder and CEO of My Legal Einstein (www.mylegaleinstein.com). As My Legal Einstein puts it on its website, the company " . . . is an online software technology company . . . that leverages the latest AI NLP technology to transform the legal contract collaboration and negotiation process." The episode begins with Jim describing his professional journey in founding My Legal Einstein. Jim, with an engineering degree from MIT in hand, started his career by working (outside legal tech) on the application of AI to video streaming. This work expanded into Jim's taking an interest in AI's applicability to data beyond the video streaming space. After exploring AI's application to still images and sound, Jim became intrigued by how AI can be applied commercially to written text. And, from there, it was a short step for Jim to understand how, with the law's everyday involvement with large language data sets, AI was a "natural" when it came to helping lawyers wrangle with contract management issues. Jim next takes listeners on a tour of My Legal Einstein's product offering. Here we learn that My Legal Einstein's mission overall is to make AI, and it application to contract management, readily accessible to lawyers. In fact, making "access to AI" easy and intuitive for lawyers is one of My Legal Einstein's core values. We also learn from Jim how My Legal Einstein assists lawyers' contract review work with contract clause extraction and collaboration tools that can be up and running within five minutes of a law firm's or legal department's signing into My Legal Einstein. As Jim, explains, shortening "time-to-value" for the My Legal Einstein customer is another core value for Jim's company, with the company achieving this time-to-value acceleration by - among other features - flattening the learning curve for putting My Legal Einstein to use. Jim tells tells us that one of My Legal Einstein's features is a built-in messaging service that sends extracted clauses to the client's business people with no need to "switch apps." As a web-based service, hosted by Google Cloud, Jim notes that My Legal Einstein necessarily takes privacy and security needs very seriously and even adds application-level security features to those that Google Cloud itself provides. Jim points out that My Legal Einstein offers a monthly subscription for its services (thereby avoiding long-term customers contract lock-in). And, as Jim notes further, his company also offers a free 30-day trial. The conversation next turns to how My Legal Einstein markets its product. Jim here talks about how the company makes itself known to potential customers by leveraging its AI know-how to provide educational content (in what Jim describes as an almost CLE-style) through various media (including presentations to bar association members) that familiarizes lawyers with AI's use in legal practice and dispels misunderstandings that foster distrust and even "fear" of AI among lawyers. The podcast concludes with Jim describing how he's most proud of My Legal Einstein's fast achievement of product-market fit and the company's respect for its customers when it comes both to avoiding marketing hype about AI and to educating lawyers about AI.

Episode 27 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- Interview with Tom Dunlop and Dave Smith of Summize Charlie Uniman, host of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), welcomes to this episode two co-founders of UK-based legal tech startup Summize (www.summize.com): Tom Dunlop, Chief Executive Officer, and Dave Smith, Chief Development Officer. Among just one of its several contract-related solutions, and as described on its website: "Summize is a lightweight assistant to the contract lifecycle. Upload any contract and the platform creates an instant, easy-to-read summary." The podcast kicks off with Tom and Dave talking about the career paths that brought them together to co-found Summize. Speaking of his own career path, Tom says that he started out as a private law firm lawyer in the UK and from there moved into in-house GC roles at tech company scale-ups. As Tom puts it, his role as a tech company GC enabled him to see business innovation first hand, but that role also exposed him to the frustrations that lawyers face in dealing with the inefficiencies in their day-to-day work. Those frustrations resulted in Tom's exploring software solutions that could mitigate those inefficiencies, his meeting Dave and their co-founding Summize. As Dave explains, he brought his 30 years of software development experience to bear in co-founding Summize. One of the questions that Dave entertains from Charlie is whether Dave believes that developing software for lawyers differs from developing software for other types of business users. Tom and Dave next describe just what Summize's software offerings do. Its original product offering was the "instant" creation of contract summaries. As that offering operates today, law firms and in-house departments can augment their Microsoft Office 365 experience with a plug-in that Summize built to generate these summaries directly in Microsoft Word and can also obtain those summaries by querying their contracts through plug-ins for Slack and Microsoft Teams as well. Summize assists private practice and in-house lawyers in, among other things, creating contracts, assessing the conformity of contracts with a firm's or enterprise's contract playbooks and contract precedent banks, and understanding contract definitions and other clauses. According to Tom and Dave, all of Summize's contract analytics offerings emphasize ease of use, short time-to-value and a modular approach that enables Summize's software to "play well" with other vendors' contracts software. In fact, one of Summize's chief aims is to have its post-signing offerings enhance a customer's use of that customers's other, existing, contract management tools. The final segment of the podcast has Tom and Dave offering "words of wisdom" when it comes to legal tech startup management. Here Tom describes Summize's successful efforts at content marketing and its use-case based method for customer onboarding. Charlie, Tom and Dave conclude the podcast with a discussion of what aspect of startup management Tom and Dave are most proud of to date (hint: that aspect involves the growth and maintenance of a company culture that is both customer-centric and committed to continuous product improvement).

With this episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your host, Charlie Uniman, welcomes Kevin Miller, CEO of LegalSifter (www.legalsifter.com). According to its website, LegalSifter " . . . fixes many of the pre-signature contract challenges [its customers] face. It reads contracts and gives in-context advice. It's fast, easy-to use, and is configurable for [the customer's] organization." LegalSifter's website also describes its post-signature contract management tools where "[LegalSifter] keep[s] track of [a customer's] contracts using A.I., easy-to-use contract software, attorneys, paralegals, and a passion for technology and service."   Kevin begins by describing his professional journey, first, acquiring a JD, next undertaking a brief stint in legal practice, then on to getting an MBA and working as a senior manager at growth-stage companies outside the legal tech sector. This description leads to the story of how Kevin became the CEO, about five years ago, of LegalSifter, a startup squarely in the legal tech vertical.   Charlie follows up with questions about LegalSifter's product offerings and we learn that LegalSifter offers both pre-signing and post-signing contract analysis and management services. As Kevin describes those offerings, his company uses natural language processing technology (its "legalsifters") to surface ("sift" out), and give advice concerning, key provisions in contracts. Kevin also describes his company's "Concierge" services where, AI and related technologies, together with LegalSifter's personnel, an enterprise can have LegalSifter act as the enterprise's "contract librarian" to assist with post-signing contract management.   Kevin next offers some helpful "words to the wise" advice for fellow legal tech startup leaders. First, Kevin emphasizes the importance of post-sale customer nurturing and the how even very early-stage legal tech startups should target hiring people whose talents are particularly geared to post-sale customer success. Kevin then notes that a well-designed and ongoing "land and expand" strategy (i.e., growing the number of users at an existing customer) is an oft-neglected path to solid sales growth. Kevin concludes by talking about a realization that came to him only after several months of leading LegalSifter. This is when Kevin came to understand that managing a startup did not mean tearing up the big company "playbook" that he had developed in previous roles, but instead that leading an early stage company meant just the opposite; namely, calling on that playbook's management strategies to manage a startup like LegalSifter.

This episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) has your host, Charlie Uniman, interviewing Chris Draper, founder and CEO of Trokt (www.trokt.com). As Trokt describes itself on its website, ". . . we build technologies and engineer solutions designed to lessen the clutter associated with document collaboration and secure finalized versions of various digital file types with immutability against digital fraud." After learning of Chris's professional beginnings in engineering-related ventures (and also after learning just how the company's name, "Trokt," came to be), Charlie and Chris first discuss what it is that Trokt offers. Chris establishes an excellent use case for blockchain technology as he describes, in a very understandable and user friendly way, how Trokt's "thumbprint" tech enables document creators/users to establish securely the authenticity of a document as it may move from one law firm, enterprise or custodian to another. There's no better way to appreciate what the blockchain can offer than to hear Chris describe what Trokt's tech can do to track and confirm a document's authenticity (and, by the way, it is indeed blockchain that we're talking about here, not cryptocurrency, which happens to be just one use for blockchain tech). Chris then goes on to offer wisdom to legal tech startup leaders from his own experiences in leading such a startup himself. Most significantly, Chris cautions against overpromising and underdelivering on a startup's tech (don't be the "smoke," be the "fire") and alerts listeners to ethical considerations that must accompany a legal tech startup leader's decision making.

In episode 24 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast), your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Seb Shakh, founder and CEO of LoveLegal (www.lovelegal.com) and Caroline Ragan, LoveLegal's COO. As stated on its website, LoveLegal wants to make "legal services easy, affordable and, dare we say, enjoyable" through a platform for lawyers (as well as accountants and financial advisors) that provides clients with legal documents such as wills, powers of attorney, advance directives, lifetime trusts and more. Seb and Caroline begin the podcast by talking about how LoveLegal came to be. Of special note is how, when doing web development work for an estate planning firm in a neighboring office suite, Seb saw an opportunity to improve the way law firms deliver legal services. Seizing that opportunity, Seb initially created a predecessor company, Wills Suite, and then used his experience with that predecessor to enlarge the scope of his offering with the founding of LoveLegal. Charlie, Seb and Caroline next dive more deeply into LoveLegal's offering. At bottom, LoveLegal aims enable its customers to use white-label, client-facing and web-based automation tools to do client intake and to provide legal documents -- all in a less expensive, less mystifying and less drawn-out manner when compared to the way documents were for the most part provided before LoveLegal came on to the scene. As Seb and Caroline go on to explain, LoveLegal isn't a "do it yourself" destination for consumers with legal document needs because lawyers remain in the loop; reviewing and signing off on the documents that are produced on LoveLegal's platform Seb and Caroline move on to discuss: (i) LoveLegal's approach to marketing (the thought leadership approach to marketing plays a major role here), (ii) the relative ease with which LoveLegal onboards its customers (and, in turn, the ease with which those customers onboard their clients), and (iii) the pride Seb and Caroline take in successfully bootstrapping LoveLegal's growth in the face of the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Episode 23 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast — Interview with David Chan, Co-Founder and CEO of Intellext This is episode 23 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast (www.legaltechstartupfocus.com/podcast) where your host, Charlie Uniman, interviews David Chan, Co-Founder and CEO of Intellext (www.intellext.ai), a platform that offers tools for enhancing the efficiency of, collaborating on, and bringing actionable insights into the process of negotiating term sheets. As with many legal tech startup founders, David explains how his years of experiencing the pain of dealing with the contracting process; in David’s case as a business person who negotiated the principal terms of contracts (before turning matters over to lawyers) led him, with his co-founders, to try to mend the broken process of term sheet negotiation. David goes on to describe Intellext’s approach to (i) using templates, (ii) providing what David describes as “smart highlighting” to capture the principal terms of an enterprise’s full-length contracts, (iii) integrating with Microsoft Word and email programs and (iv) using machine learning — all with the aim of getting to a negotiated term sheet more quickly, with greater adherence to enterprise negotiation guidelines and better and more consistent negotiation outcomes. Charlie and David next cover (i) Intellext’s success in negotiating funding rounds, despite the constraints imposed by the COVID pandemic, (ii) David’s thoughts on startup pivots and his own encounters with pivoting at Intellext and (iii) Intellext’s broadening the reach of its platform to find customers in verticals adjacent to legal tech (such as fintech and proptech)

In episode 22 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast, your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Dan Sinclair (email: dan.sinclair@mishcon.com), Head of MDR LAB (lab.mdr.london). MDR LAB, which is part of the Mishcon de Reya law firm in the UK, consists of (as stated on the LAB’s website) consists of a “series of programmes that seek to launch, improve and scale the next generation of LegalTech.” Dan kicks off the discussion by describing how he went from university to a career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) (where he worked in strategy initially and then helped to start PWC’s tech startup accelerator program) and then on to join the MDR LAB team. Once at MDR LAB, Dan and his colleagues were tasked with broadening the LAB’s reach by moving beyond what might be called a “plain vanilla” type of legal tech incubator; namely, one that worked with legal tech startups only at a single stage of their development in a program that lasted only several months in any given year. In broadening the LAB’s reach, Dan and the rest of the team aimed to have the LAB take a more agile, three-prong approach to the structure of its programs that enabled MDR LAB to work with startups at all stages of their development, all year round. Dan paints a picture of how the three-prong program structure at MDR LAB works. As Dan outlines it, there are now three separate legal tech startup development programs at the LAB, each with its own cadence and duration and each catering to companies at different stages of a startup’s development. The “Launch” program lasts approximately 6 months and caters to earliest stage legal tech startups, i.e., those at the problem solving/idea stage. The “Improve” program lasts 12 weeks and caters to legal tech startups that have achieved product-market fit and that want assistance in working with their target market and improving their product development; all in partnership with product users at Mishcon de Reya. The “Sell” program is for later-stage legal tech startups that have customers and market traction and are eager to determine, by way of a pilot of their product offering with Mishcon de Reya itself, whether they are a good fit as a legal tech vendor to the law firm. Applications for each program can be found at the MDR LAB website, with the Launch and Sell programs getting under way in 2021. As Dan explains, the LAB considers a number of factors in assessing applicants, with a focus on assessment of (i) the significance of the problem addressed by the applicant, (ii) the applicant’s value proposition and (iiii) the team’s ability (or potential ability) to execute on solving the problem and realizing that value proposition. Speaking specifically to the Launch program, Dan explains that the LAB is interested in hearing from applicants who, armed with a sound product idea, may nevertheless have yet no tech or startup experience themselves. Not only is the the “recovering lawyer” with years of practice experience welcome to apply, but equally welcome to apply are law students or junior lawyers who may have the “right” idea. In operating the Launch program, the LAB can be understood as almost a kind of co-founder to the individuals who have been accepted into that program. As Dan explains, the LAB will provide program entrants with assistance from experts in tech, data science, business strategy and other areas of startup management. Moreover, MDR LAB has partnered with Founders Factory, an accelerator and venture studio for corporate investors, whose team of founders, operators and investors will provide program entrants with a wide variety of operating , financing and other management advice in such areas as, among others, marketing, revenue growth, hiring and product development.