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Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#31

Post by aswanson »

justin wrote: post #19
bradleyjg wrote: post #9

There's a big unanswered question in the article. It says that the company is a law firm, that only two of the four co-founders are lawyers, and that it raised $10.5 million dollars, presumably on an equity basis. However, law firms are not permitted to have non-lawyers as owners. It is considered unethical as it would mean decisions would be made by people that aren't obligated to follow the cannons of legal ethics…

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little…

Quick question: for jury selection, do trial lawyers used a statistically tested line of inquiry for prospective jurors, or is it just seat-of-the-pants, intuition based selection?

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#32

Post by rayiner »

> As anyone who has racked up legal fees due to lawyers’ mounting billable hours can attest, law firms remain almost surprisingly low-tech operations.

That’s like saying programming remains surprisingly low tech because you walk into a tech company and everyone is hunched over an emacs window.

Even at the fanciest Wall Street law firms, 10-20% of billed time is written off. The largest clients who get sued a lot are demanding things like flat retainers (e.g. we pay a flat $5 million per month and you hanldle all our products liability work). There is a lot of pressure to get things done within certain budget targets, but time is routinely written off because those targets cannot be met. Plus, competition is high. Even at the top of the market there are dozens of firms in direct competition. If there was a magic way to do more with less firms would do it.

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#33

Post by ABCLAW »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #14
bradleyjg wrote: post #9

There's a big unanswered question in the article. It says that the company is a law firm, that only two of the four co-founders are lawyers, and that it raised $10.5 million dollars, presumably on an equity basis. However, law firms are not permitted to have non-lawyers as owners. It is considered unethical as it would mean decisions would be made by people that aren't obligated to follow the cannons of legal ethics…

Seems like there is enough leeway in ABA rule 5.4 that they are probably covered, but I'll bet some people will contest it. Augie is a great lawyer so I would be confident that he's thought through all of that. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...

The ABA rules are model rules - they provide a framework for state bars to build upon, but they aren't directly enforceable unless a state bar decides the ABA model code is their code.

The state bar of california has their own set of rules. See: http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Attorneys/Conduct-Discipline/Rules/...

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#36

Post by ABCLAW »

justin wrote: post #19
bradleyjg wrote: post #9

There's a big unanswered question in the article. It says that the company is a law firm, that only two of the four co-founders are lawyers, and that it raised $10.5 million dollars, presumably on an equity basis. However, law firms are not permitted to have non-lawyers as owners. It is considered unethical as it would mean decisions would be made by people that aren't obligated to follow the cannons of legal ethics…

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little…

Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the scope of what software does is not the practice of law.

My concern is that in order to secure regulator approval for this position most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide.

Do you have any plans in place to mitigate the risk of crossing the line, and how will that inform your product development plans?

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#37

Post by Mathnerd314 »

justin wrote: post #19
bradleyjg wrote: post #9

There's a big unanswered question in the article. It says that the company is a law firm, that only two of the four co-founders are lawyers, and that it raised $10.5 million dollars, presumably on an equity basis. However, law firms are not permitted to have non-lawyers as owners. It is considered unethical as it would mean decisions would be made by people that aren't obligated to follow the cannons of legal ethics…

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little…

It's not particularly complex compared to the structure of mutual funds: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1228.Morley.1287_zmw59iqn....

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#38

Post by Mathnerd314 »

ABCLAW wrote: post #36
justin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little…

Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the scope of what software does is not the practice of law. My concern is that in order to secure regulator approval for this position most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. Do you have any pl…

> most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide.

source?

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#39

Post by rayiner »

aswanson wrote: post #31
justin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little…

Quick question: for jury selection, do trial lawyers used a statistically tested line of inquiry for prospective jurors, or is it just seat-of-the-pants, intuition based selection?

They hire jury consultants, who do those things.

Re: Startup wants to build tools for lawyers to speed up legal services

#40

Post by pavel_lishin »

justin wrote: post #26

Headline is a little misleading. We started LTS, our legal tech company, with the goal of helping lawyers provide legal services to startups in a more speedy, transparent and price predicable way. To us, that means building tools that lawyers use, and not creating the Uber of lawyers or a master AI that replaces lawyers (I don't think the latter is possible right now). Atrium, the law firm founded by two of my LTS co…

> Headline is a little misleading

I guess you can't say "Your article hits a factual error before it even begins" to the Washington Post, huh.

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