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 still working on Whale? Also, what's going on with Zero-F?
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)…
Good to hear of this fine effort. For the most part, if law were a person, you would say it is incorrigible when it comes to being tamed for efficiencies. It remains a guild system, which severely limits who can perform legal services and how they can be performed. It also remains an apprenticeship system by which personalized and customized services by highly-trained specialists remains the norm and is perennially tied to the billable hour, which can sometimes inject perverse incentives for law firms to stay with technologically outmoded systems that nonetheless yield higher billings. It embraces vast and amorphous technical areas that can bewilder all concerned with their complexity and, even in simpler areas, it can set unsuspecting clients up for being blindsided when they (at times) ignorantly assume that something is standard or routine when it is not. So quality lawyers can and do earn their keep but often at a stiff cost to the client. That part of the system is intractable and, in my view, there is little any technological provider can do to effect systemic changes to limit costs relating to that core aspect of the legal business. That said, the means by which lawyers (and other timekeepers) work can be vastly improved from the stone-age systems one can all too easily encounter in today's legal field. I note that Atrium LTS is (from its website) "dedicated to providing exceptional tools and processes to transform the delivery of corporate legal services" (italics are mine). That mission statement is spot on. Work around the incorrigible and intractable areas, focus on mechanisms and process, and limit the substantive field to those in which you can take regular and recurring transactions and inject massive efficiencies into the doddering or sclerotic systems now in place. Doing this is not easy. Indeed, it is a massively difficult undertaking. But, put together top people who know the problems, add seasoned technologists who can develop the right systems, and give it the backing of serious investors who have the wherewithal to fund a disruption of major industries, and you have the makings of a great opportunity. Good lawyers will not resist this. They will welcome it because it enhances the value of the customized work that is in reality what they sell. Moreover, it is definitely an idea whose time has come. Others who are highly credible are trying to do this as well, from different angles (e.g., Clerky) and, from the standpoint of one who has long labored in this field, it is exciting to envision what will come of such efforts. Very exciting to see it happening.
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…
I can vouch for the fact that legal technology as a category does not address the needs of lawyers. And which is obvious to most practicing attorneys. As an example:
> "spend less time [billing] on research"
is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice.
Rayiner is of course authority enough on this subject qua the intended market. But I'm here to confirm further that legal technology startups which ignore these central things -- PDFs are essential, confidentiality is maintained on in-house systems with their own vendors, and depth and specificity is critically more important than survey-like breadth -- will probably fail to address any real needs.
Source: I worked at a highly atypical IP litigation boutique (where drafts were written in LaTex and we scripted common ediscovery stuff), and later in relevance ranking at a legal tech startup.
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)…
Congrats, Augie is a great guy so a huge win there as you already know.
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've done a few interviews with junior lawyers for my newsletter OppsDaily. I've encountered several individuals who want better technology but don't have the pull at their firms to actually get it implemented.
Here's one, but there are 2-3 more that fit this pattern:
"My job industry is Law.
We are still using paper files for cases.
Software would make it easier to file and search for case information.
I personally would Pay $1500 for a business license for this type of software, but I can't speak further with a developer because my boss is old-fashioned."
> 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…
I can vouch for the fact that legal technology as a category does not address the needs of lawyers. And which is obvious to most practicing attorneys. As an example: > "spend less time [billing] on research" is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice. Rayiner is of course authority enough on this subject q…
> "spend less time [billing] on research"
is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice.
I'll note that for many cases these days, there is an incentive to enhance efficiency. Alternative fee arrangements, e.g. fixed monthly fee irrespective of hours, are getting more and more common, particularly with regard to big corps that get sued regularly over the same sorts of cases. Not even commodity work even--these are complex cases for Fortune 100 companies handled by well-regarded firms.
> 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…
I can vouch for the fact that legal technology as a category does not address the needs of lawyers. And which is obvious to most practicing attorneys. As an example: > "spend less time [billing] on research" is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition; and which would be obvious to anyone in anything but the most niche putt-putt fields of practice. Rayiner is of course authority enough on this subject q…
> > "spend less time [billing] on research"
> is not, and never will be, an effective value proposition
It will be if it means you provide better value for the cost, attracting more and more valuable business.
Or, if you can just deliver the same results at the same cost, with fewer associates and paralegals. Sure, the firm won't make more money, but everyone still in it will. And firms don't have interests, individual partners do; firms interests are just a shorthand for those of the partners.
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)…
Congrats, Augie is a great guy so a huge win there as you already know.
Just wanted to second close to the top that Augie is not only a great lawyer, but a fantastic human being and committed to helping the startup community.
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)…
Last year I sold my interest in a startup with a patent application for SLAP (Statutory Litigation Automated Pricing) we partnered with law firms and were consumer facing automating law firm fee calculation and hiring online. After that I worked with Walmart to develop a "self serve legal kiosk" for use in Walmart stores with another vendor.
At some point with the former project I was in talks with both legalzoom and Avvo, but I was never able to close a mutually beneficial deal and was eventually acquired.
I've always been a legal maverick, graduating early from law school and simultaneously completing 3 legal clinics including a externiship/judicial clerkship. Generally, I'm a workhorse, having ran 27 half marathons last month. I checked the jobs and it doesn't look like your team is searching, but I would be interested in talking if your team could use extra legal talent for developing firm tools.