Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 175 posts

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#151

Post by LanceH »

manigandham wrote: post #113
eganist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal is a notoriously sluggish industry, one that's almost infuriatingly incapable of adopting change and technology. Atrium's original pitch was exactly the opposite of what most legal teams are used to interacting with, and I can't think of a single biglaw attorney (sorry for the anecdote) who had faith in the idea or its execution. The original concept, as a reminder: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/atrium-lega…

It's not sluggish at all. Modern law firms use all kinds of tech including lots of software and even AI/semantic analysis systems. There's definitely a high bar before adoption due to regulations and security but that's for good reason. The problem is that there's a limit to the automation. Human lawyers can't be replaced. Interpretation, strategy, communication, court dates, etc. all require the human factor. No amo…

And the humans don't care to change their interface with all these tools every 3 years even if it is theoretically sub-optimal.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#152

Post by mywittyname »

kemitchell wrote: post #81
eganist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal is a notoriously sluggish industry, one that's almost infuriatingly incapable of adopting change and technology. Atrium's original pitch was exactly the opposite of what most legal teams are used to interacting with, and I can't think of a single biglaw attorney (sorry for the anecdote) who had faith in the idea or its execution. The original concept, as a reminder: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/atrium-lega…

I believed that law was a sluggish, tech-averse industry when I signed up to join it. But I don't see it living up to its tech-resistant reputation. It's very easy to blame the customer that way, when you have something to sell. As a lawyer, a coder, and legal toolmaker, I've been there. But my lived and observed experience of practice is that lawyers adopt what makes them competitive. As a result, they've often been…

This has been my experience as well. I used to work at a research group that was hired by law firms to build new tools and products to assist law firms in doing their jobs. Some of the firms I worked with were had custom machine learning based text classification & extraction tools that were written in the early 2000s; long before this kind of technology mainstream.

Obviously the legal field is very diverse. I'm sure there are 80 year old lawyers out there still using teletype terminals to do their work because that's what they know. But my experience with larger law firms is that they see technological innovation as a key to their success.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#153

Post by toomuchtodo »

acdha wrote: post #70
toomuchtodo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly surprised a bunch of VCs haven't gotten together yet and built out their own compute for portfolio companies considering how much VC money gets shoveled into the AWS fire.

Think about the hundreds of engineers they’d need to hire, purchases for hardware and software, security approvals, etc. that would all need to be spent up front with no guarantee that it’d actually be cheaper. Beating the major cloud providers requires some combination of large scale and/or cutting corners and most companies are not at the point where the infrastructure costs beat the staff time needed.

I used to do ops, costing for infra, build out datacenters, I’m aware!

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#154

Post by wglb »

staticautomatic wrote: post #60
slap_shot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High end firms can easily be $800+/hr for attorneys. I believe Wilson Sonsini was $1200/hr for an attorney I was recommended.

Most people who bill at those rates are no better than people who bill $300.

I disagree. It is no more true in my mind than developers paid $200,000 per year are no better than developers who are paid $80,000.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#155

Post by rchaud »

gnicholas wrote: post #114
gamblor956 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law firms use cloud software extensively and, unlike FAANG or most tech startups, actually embrace remote work. I submit that law firms are actually far more progressive about technology than the tech world assumes, but are also a lot better at sniffing out bullshit software that doesn't provide a real-world benefit.

I left biglaw in 2014, at which time my firm had barely transitioned from Windows XP. This was because we used certain Word plugins/macros for formatting briefs, and they had not yet been updated to run on newer versions of Windows. As a result, we were all on XP way past its prime. From talking with lawyer friends, I got the sense my experience was not uncommon.

Unless using Windows XP was somehow making them less money or costing more billable hours, why would they switch to Windows 7 or 10? I wouldn't even think about switching until an EOL notice went out. If it ain't broke...

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#156

Post by Digory »

robhunter wrote: post #150

One lesson that I think is getting buried here - hiring 100+ people when you're not yet at product-market-fit makes it really hard to try and get to product-market-fit. It's a lot easier to experiment, learn, and iterate when the team is small. Gets very difficult when you're 100+ so quickly.

I’m glad someone took a gamble on an MVP that needed 100+ to pull off. We need more of that — 100 people is still a pretty small organization, even for law firms. We have lots of problems that need 100+ to solve.

But the ability to pivot was obviously hamstrung. The team necessary for “plan b” didn’t have much overlap with “plan a.”

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#157

Post by Digory »

dustingetz wrote: post #16

what if a startup charged $300 per month for all you can eat email legal advice backed by a rich library of templates? they would instantly dominate and there are 6M small businesses in the USA alone

No, they wouldn’t dominate.

You can find online legal guesswork and forms for free. $300/mo is too expensive for that.

But getting someone with experience to stand behind it - to risk their license, insurance, and future income — is north of $300/hr even in suburbs and flyover country.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#158

Post by Digory »

bogomipz wrote: post #138

The article states: >"It will return some of its $75.5 million in funding to investors, including Series B lead Andreessen Horowitz." Does this simply mean it will return all funding after paying out remaining invoices and salary obligations? Or is there some significance to the phrase "some of" here?

The $75m was a 2018 series B. Atrium has been spending that money for 18 months, and probably quickly.

So A16Z isn’t getting back anything close to $75m. Just “some.”

Part of this seems like courtesy among the big boys who want to play again. I doubt Atrium wants to tick off A16z by making dubious claims to the remaining cash.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#159

Post by robhunter »

Digory wrote: post #156
robhunter wrote: post #150

One lesson that I think is getting buried here - hiring 100+ people when you're not yet at product-market-fit makes it really hard to try and get to product-market-fit. It's a lot easier to experiment, learn, and iterate when the team is small. Gets very difficult when you're 100+ so quickly.

I’m glad someone took a gamble on an MVP that needed 100+ to pull off. We need more of that — 100 people is still a pretty small organization, even for law firms. We have lots of problems that need 100+ to solve. But the ability to pivot was obviously hamstrung. The team necessary for “plan b” didn’t have much overlap with “plan a.”

"MVP" and "need 100+ people" seem like mutually exclusive things.

In this case, I think the headcount was a bug rather than a feature.

Re: Atrium shuts down, laying off 100

#160

Post by staticautomatic »

wglb wrote: post #154
staticautomatic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who bill at those rates are no better than people who bill $300.

I disagree. It is no more true in my mind than developers paid $200,000 per year are no better than developers who are paid $80,000.

In my experience working as a consultant to probably 1000 lawyers over the last 10 years-- from solos to biglaw partners-- it's absolutely true. The most highly paid are not clustered at the far end of the skill/experience bell curve.
Post reply on HN