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)
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)