Technology

Five Legal Startups You Should Get to Know

What legaltech companies are hot?

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Legaltech is booming.  Don’t believe me, just ask fellow ATL columnist Joe Borstein who recently explained to me that the reason famed Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator is investing in legaltech is, “those people are smart.” My post here on ATL has given me a chance to meet with some of the best and brightest, and here are five companies I’ve found myself following closely.

1.  Willing

Founded by Eliam Medina and Rob Dyson, and backed by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley like Y Combinator, 500 Startups and Ashton Kutcher, Willing is looking not only to change trust and estates, but the entire death care industry. Willing lets your write a will for free in five minutes, plan your funeral and after life and then connects you with the right vendors.  My question: is Willing even a legal tech company, or are they simply using a free, automated legal service — will writing — as a way to get customers? It’s a really interesting business model and I’m curious to see whether other companies will start using free legal services as a hook for related paid services.  Bonus points for Willing who, according to Eliam, is actively looking to hire an attorney to join the team in their Miami office.  Know someone awesome? Send a resume to jobs at willing.com

2.  Lawgeex

This company started by Israeli Biglaw vet Noori Bechor is looking to put all lawyers and laypeople on equal ground.  How do they do it? Their artificial intelligence can analyze documents against the precedents in their database and flag provisions that are not market.  This is a task lawyers do manually and ultimately the Lawgeex AI is going to do it better than we can.  I’ve already used the free service to review two documents, an NDA and a residential lease, and even as an early stage product, I’ve been impressed with both Lawgeex’s ease of use and efficiency.  At this point, I wouldn’t review a document without at least consulting Lawgeex.  Noori insists that he’s not trying to remove lawyers from the equation, but I’m intrigued by the idea of anyone, anywhere being able to analyze and understand their own documents without the help of a lawyer.

3.  Kira Systems

Speaking of automating tedious tasks that robots clearly can do better than humans, I’ve been keeping my eye on Noah Waissberg’s Due Diligence Engine, one of a suite of products offered by his company Kira Systems. One of the silliest tasks lawyers do is review documents in search of specific provisions and fill out diligence charts.  As a junior M&A lawyer, I used to always lament doing a job that I knew software could do quicker and better than I could. Diligence Engine not only reads the documents and locates the key provisions but fills out the charts as well. Why am I tracking Kira? For me, it’s not simply about saving clients money on their legal bills, it’s the promise of bigger companies being able to more easily acquire smaller companies.  This is what Michael Scott called a win, win, win.

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4.  UpCounsel

Matt Faustman at UpCounsel is convinced that the law firm model is going to change and he just raised a cool $10M from Menlo Ventures to prove it.  I’m curious to see, not only, how UpCounsel tries to position itself as one of the law firms of the future, but which other players will get into the game as well.  Will established law firms adopt any part of UpCounsel’s model? And, as a former lawyer who was miserable in Biglaw, I really want to know not just whether UpCounsel can make it easier for clients to find the right lawyers, but also to make it generally more pleasant to be a lawyer.

5.  Separate.us

“There are tons of dating apps that connect people.  But what if you need to disconnect?” says lawyer Sandro Tuzzo, founder of divorce service Separate.us.  The service, which has launched a private beta in California, aims to simplify a complicated and messy process: divorce. I am yet to meet someone who went through a simple, inexpensive divorce, but Tuzzo doesn’t think divorce needs to suck.  I plan to host Tuzzo on ATL soon for a conversation to learn more about his company, but until then I’m watching closely.

Outraged that a company you’re following didn’t make my arbitrary list? Let me know about it in the comments section, on Twitter or shoot me an email.

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Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

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