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Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#51

Post by bmulholland »

mattdotc wrote: post #49
codingdave wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is off on a tangent, but... I just took a look at a demo video on your site - I'm just guessing based on appearances, but are you using CKEditor for your base editor, and then popping up a new window using the lite plugin to show tracked changes? If so, we're using the same toolkit... but if not, I'd love to know if you found a better track changes project via open source, or if you rolled your own. The lite plu…

Have you checked out Ice? I'm not sure if it will fit your needs, but if you haven't taken a look, perhaps you should. https://github.com/NYTimes/ice

lite is a plugin for CKEditor that is built on top of ICE: https://github.com/loopindex/ckeditor-track-changes/#track-c...

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#52

Post by mattdotc »

bmulholland wrote: post #51
mattdotc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you checked out Ice? I'm not sure if it will fit your needs, but if you haven't taken a look, perhaps you should. https://github.com/NYTimes/ice

lite is a plugin for CKEditor that is built on top of ICE: https://github.com/loopindex/ckeditor-track-changes/#track-c...

Nice! Thanks for mentioning it. I had no idea about it.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#53

Post by codingdave »

bmulholland wrote: post #50
codingdave wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is off on a tangent, but... I just took a look at a demo video on your site - I'm just guessing based on appearances, but are you using CKEditor for your base editor, and then popping up a new window using the lite plugin to show tracked changes? If so, we're using the same toolkit... but if not, I'd love to know if you found a better track changes project via open source, or if you rolled your own. The lite plu…

We are using CKEditor, but are not currently using lite. Our version compare is done separately using an HTML diff engine. We have a number of requests for redlining-as-you-type, which we don't currently do, and will probably implement that with lite when we get to that. I have implemented it as a proof of concept twice now, but keep finding bugs and issues that block us from releasing it as a feature. Seems like you…

Yes, we likely have some common ground on the problems we are hitting. We are doing OK on accuracy - we do keep all approved versions in an archive.

The problems relate more to the plethora of ways lite can fail - I don't have my full list in front of me, but as a minor example, deleting an entire bulleted item from a list leaves the bullet in place within the editor as normal text. It sounds nitpicky, but it really makes the documents look funky, and the formatting is very important to our people, so the content editors spend extra time reformatting documents, which is not ideal.

Nevertheless, I haven't found a solution that does any better, and we don't have the resources to reinvent that wheel (yet), so we do have lite in production... it just is one of our pain points.

And to be fair, lite is improving - our list of complaints is smaller than it was a year ago, and each new release fixes a few things.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#54

Post by pshenoy »

I am the tech lead at UniCourt https://unicourt.com and we are a legal tech startup.

UniCourt solves a few of the problems below

1. Track hundreds/thousands of on-going cases in Federal (PACER) and State Courts and only get notified on relevant updates

2. Download documents for Federal cases from within UniCourt and save money from repeatedly getting charged from PACER.

3. Upload documents to UniCourt and attach to cases.

4. Free access to documents already downloaded in UniCourt archive

5. Access to the entire RECAP documents archive, so avoid incurring PACER fees

6. Manage cases and collaborate on case research by inviting users of your organization to UniCourt

7. Get notified on all activities happening to a case of interest - a user commenting on a case, a document being downloaded, a case being updated

Take a look at http://www.lawhackers.co/ you will find most of the legal technology startups here.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#55

Post by bmulholland »

codingdave wrote: post #53
bmulholland wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are using CKEditor, but are not currently using lite. Our version compare is done separately using an HTML diff engine. We have a number of requests for redlining-as-you-type, which we don't currently do, and will probably implement that with lite when we get to that. I have implemented it as a proof of concept twice now, but keep finding bugs and issues that block us from releasing it as a feature. Seems like you…

Yes, we likely have some common ground on the problems we are hitting. We are doing OK on accuracy - we do keep all approved versions in an archive. The problems relate more to the plethora of ways lite can fail - I don't have my full list in front of me, but as a minor example, deleting an entire bulleted item from a list leaves the bullet in place within the editor as normal text. It sounds nitpicky, but it really…

For what it's worth, we're hitting many of those same problems even without lite. People are finnicky about how their contracts look, and they tend to spend a lot of time getting them to look just right. It's especially difficult with the jump from Word to HTML, even when it's abstracted via e.g. CKEditor.

May I ask where you work?

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#56

Post by gyardley »

I've talked with more than one set of specialized lawyers who had the domain knowledge necessary to identify a lucrative problem and imagine a productized solution. They all considered creating a start-up, to the point of talking to me about it, but in the end they just kicked the tires for a while and never seemed to do anything.

My theory: if you've got the specialized domain knowledge to do something in the legal space that isn't already being done to death, you're likely very well paid already, and quitting to focus on a startup would involve a huge opportunity cost. That dramatically cuts down on the number of startups that actually get created - it's just too much security to give up.

That said, there's still a good number of legal startups out there.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#58

Post by lawnuke »

theaccordance wrote: post #3

One that I remember coming across is https://www.shakelaw.com/ Cant give insight as to why that industry seems particularly more quiet than others in terms of disruptive business models however

Shake was recently (April 2015) purchased by LegalShield. http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/shake-joins-forces-legalshield/

Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups?

#59

Post by erikdykema »

Hello HN! I'm the CEO of CaseRails ( https://caserails.com ), a legal-tech startup based in New York. We just launched an online document automation platform for lawyers that makes it really quick-and-easy for a lawyer to take a generic document (like an NDA) and personalize it for the client. Though, we do have non-lawyer customers too.

I see that my colleague from Contractually (bmulholland) gave a good answer and I agree with his sentiments.

I would add that, in a broad sense, there are probably three hypothetical markets for a law startup (defined as, something to do with legal services):

1 - you could provide legal services to consumers of legal services,

2 - you could displace legal services with something else, or

3 - you could sell something, or provide another service to, the people providing legal services.

CaseRails is an example of #3, our product is intended for lawyers themselves to use.

There aren't any examples of #1 (that I know of) because, at least in the USA, ethical regulations prohibit fee splitting with non lawyers. This means you can't have non-lawyer shareholders / investors; which means you can't raise capital in the traditional markets.

LegalZoom and RocketLawyer are good examples of #2, they try to displace your need to call a lawyer with an online service where you can get document templates. (I don't want to speak for Contractually but they might also be in this category)

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