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Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

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Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#21

Post by gnicholas »

baus wrote: post #20
gnicholas wrote: post #10

Most startups are pitched with a problem statement: our users want X, and here's how we're going to give it to them. This article talks about how lawyers don't do X and how Justin thinks they should — but not necessarily that they want to. As someone who spent 7 years working in biglaw, I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. For example, the large law firm I…

Considering the list of investors, maybe the idea is to drive change from the client side. Basically, "if you don't do business this way, I will take my business elsewhere." Law seems like one of the last hold out professions where business practices are not driven by customer demand or expectations

Yeah, this was my suspicion. I wish them well — especially now that I see that one of their co-founders was a summer associate with me back in 2006! I'm guessing they have his former firm (Orrick) as a committed beta customer. This would help jump-start demand at other firms, for sure.

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#22

Post by pitt1980 »

arethuza wrote: post #19
redm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who is going to be able to charge more fees to an unsuspecting client?" That's my point, finding a great lawyer isn't easy, and I don't think it's related the underlying technology. The tech can make a great lawyer even better.

I'd love to have some kind of portal where you can actually track activity on your legal work and see billing as it happens. Of course, I can see why lawyers generally resist that kind of transparency...

reading between the lines, it looks like that's what's being attempted

I'm guessing getting it adopted, you need to acquire large corporate clients who want to demand this sort of accountability from law firms they hire, more than acquiring the law firms as clients

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#23

Post by gnicholas »

justin wrote: post #7

Hello HN! We are excited to be building in the legal space. Raising money is a necessary step, but Atrium LTS' biggest accomplishment so far is the great team of experts we have assembled here. My cofounders are Augie Rakow (former partner at Orrick, where he worked on over 100 financings and represented Cruise through their acquisition to GM), BeBe Chueh (lawyer turned founder who sold her last company to LegalZoom)…

Are you targeting corporate transactional practices, litigation, or a mix? What size of firm are you going after?

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#24

Post by vit05 »

chrome-style wrote: post #12
justin wrote: post #7

Hello HN! We are excited to be building in the legal space. Raising money is a necessary step, but Atrium LTS' biggest accomplishment so far is the great team of experts we have assembled here. My cofounders are Augie Rakow (former partner at Orrick, where he worked on over 100 financings and represented Cruise through their acquisition to GM), BeBe Chueh (lawyer turned founder who sold her last company to LegalZoom)…

I am wondering - why did you decide to raise outside money at all? I assume you would have been able to do the round yourself, save time / effort around the fundraising process and concentrate on product instead?

Probably because he expects people who are financing to become customers and help tell other friends in the industry how amazing the company is.

"It’s not just about the capital, but about getting a funnel of companies and individuals that could be potential customers as Atrium"

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#25

Post by rayiner »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

Most startups are pitched with a problem statement: our users want X, and here's how we're going to give it to them. This article talks about how lawyers don't do X and how Justin thinks they should — but not necessarily that they want to. As someone who spent 7 years working in biglaw, I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. For example, the large law firm I…

> I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient.

I think that's true, but I also think that these "technology-related things" are things that do not exist. Take your example: Windows has not improved in any way that is relevant to lawyers since Windows 2000. What is the point of upgrading?

I see many things in my practice where I could see technology making things more efficient. But almost never do I see legal technology that actually addresses that need. For example, the entire legal world runs on PDFs. Court opinions are in PDF form, documents are produced as PDFs, case filings are in PDFs, signed contracts are circulated as PDFs. But for some reason everyone wants to build web-based tools that cannot deal natively with PDFs, or by some miracle manages to be worse than Acrobat at handling them.

In another example, client confidentiality is a big deal in law firms. But everyone wants to build web-based tools that upload unencrypted documents god-only-knows where.

In a final example: web technology is built on getting good answers to questions everyone is asking. That's the premise underlying Google: if a website is popular as a link target, it's probably a good result. Law is often about exactly the opposite: how do I distinguish my case from all the other ones that go in a way that's bad for my client? In other words, what are the parameters that create the exception to the rule? The techniques used everywhere else on the web are awful for that.

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#26

Post by [deleted] »

arethuza wrote: post #19
redm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who is going to be able to charge more fees to an unsuspecting client?" That's my point, finding a great lawyer isn't easy, and I don't think it's related the underlying technology. The tech can make a great lawyer even better.

I'd love to have some kind of portal where you can actually track activity on your legal work and see billing as it happens. Of course, I can see why lawyers generally resist that kind of transparency...

[deleted]

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#27

Post by gnicholas »

rayiner wrote: post #25
gnicholas wrote: post #10

Most startups are pitched with a problem statement: our users want X, and here's how we're going to give it to them. This article talks about how lawyers don't do X and how Justin thinks they should — but not necessarily that they want to. As someone who spent 7 years working in biglaw, I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. For example, the large law firm I…

> I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. I think that's true, but I also think that these "technology-related things" are things that do not exist. Take your example: Windows has not improved in any way that is relevant to lawyers since Windows 2000. What is the point of upgrading? I see many things in my practice where I could see technology making things m…

> Windows has not improved in any way that is relevant to lawyers since Windows 2000. What is the point of upgrading?

Security, for one thing.

I agree that others have missed the mark (lacking encryption, not compatible with heavily-used formats like PDF). My point is that this article does not demonstrate why lawyers will actually adopt use this startup's new technology.

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#28

Post by justin »

gnicholas wrote: post #23
justin wrote: post #7

Hello HN! We are excited to be building in the legal space. Raising money is a necessary step, but Atrium LTS' biggest accomplishment so far is the great team of experts we have assembled here. My cofounders are Augie Rakow (former partner at Orrick, where he worked on over 100 financings and represented Cruise through their acquisition to GM), BeBe Chueh (lawyer turned founder who sold her last company to LegalZoom)…

Are you targeting corporate transactional practices, litigation, or a mix? What size of firm are you going after?

At first building tools for corporate transactional practices, but we have big plans for other practice areas.

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#29

Post by ABCLAW »

justin wrote: post #7

Hello HN! We are excited to be building in the legal space. Raising money is a necessary step, but Atrium LTS' biggest accomplishment so far is the great team of experts we have assembled here. My cofounders are Augie Rakow (former partner at Orrick, where he worked on over 100 financings and represented Cruise through their acquisition to GM), BeBe Chueh (lawyer turned founder who sold her last company to LegalZoom)…

Hi Justin,

I think I'm probably within your core demographics. I read everything on the aforementioned site and I'm still unsure as to what you guys are building. Can you provide us with a bit of a snapshot?

I'd love to be excited given that I'm a fan and I work in the field you're entering, but so far I'm just very confused.

Re: Justin Kan Raises $10M for New Legal Startup

#30

Post by dsfyu404ed »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

Most startups are pitched with a problem statement: our users want X, and here's how we're going to give it to them. This article talks about how lawyers don't do X and how Justin thinks they should — but not necessarily that they want to. As someone who spent 7 years working in biglaw, I can attest that there are many technology-related things that would make lawyers more efficient. For example, the large law firm I…

This article is written for a particular audience. The people selling it to law firms are going to pitch efficiency.
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