Why Wait for Your Lawyer When You Have Claude?

0:00 All right. So, welcome to the Tesla Pod and Diana, welcome here. Thank you. Thank you for hosting me. Excited to start. Very much. Super interesting chat, right? And now what we do is we have this founder builder conversations, right? While Tesla FSD does this thing, right, while driving in San Francisco, right? It's quite cool actually. Yeah. So mainly your now this car is like you know taking multiple decisions, right? as it like you know really drives on its own. And your product thesis is also around right how fast to respond right to customers like you know in like know to look at like you know whatever for low law law firms to respond in time essentially speaking right is that a fair comparison yeah it's an interesting question and I had a thought because it was a very thoughtful question honestly about it and I don't think it's a fair comparison let me tell you why is basically right now, we're in the car and it's automatically running, right? So, the car has the engine to power that run.

1:09 Right now, law firms, they have so much of admin and they have so much of tax they have to go through that they don't they don't feel in control of the speed of answer that they have. Every time they answer to their clients, they're in a stretch moment. So, actually law firms miss that engine that the car has today. And that's the let's say the revolution or the technology we want to bring to the law firms is that they can run easily and they can decide of the actions they can perform if that makes sense right so it's fair to compare and try to find in what way it's different or not but I guess law firms right now they miss this engine that help them to run smoothly h I mean what's the 30 seconds version of practicing Right. If I'm running a small immigration firm, right, what does this change to me on Monday? Sure. basically practice is like a system plus agents together that help to run law firm operations. So basically what we've built it's what we call the system like first of all a repository of records for client data for past cases for invoicing and billing that help to run the law firm and

2:29 We're making it agentic by adding agents on top of it so that it's all being performed automatically based on rules of the law firm and yeah I mean I guess that's what we built so if to give you an example maybe that's also like helpful is we could take like the intake is just like the simplest example right now when a lead is coming to a law firm it take them quite a bit of time to onboard basically the lead to answer to it to run through internal checks and to come back to them. We just do it automatically for them with always the lawyers in the like in the loop so that they stay in control. And also like you know to bring perspective and context right this is like one of the toughest industries right to bring tech into as well right because I mean yeah because the industry itself it moves so slow with regards to adoption of technology. Yeah. Yeah. Well yes and no. I guess yes in a sense I think legal tech I mean legal services are well known to be like relatively slow and not moving but it's a no because I believe and we've seen it like right now clouds I mean

3:49 Even Microsoft Harvey and Legora they definitely already disrupted in a way the industry and I think the industry is getting transformed and they feel the urgency of adopting new tools. So right now the law firms they're actually shopping around quite massively about tools and they're really interested in what's happening right there and they're willing to make that change. They're also like a high pressure coming from clients because client are like why would I listen to you? Why would I wait for your answer when I have Claude that just tells me in a couple of seconds what I need to know? Right. What's the value as a law firm you're bringing there? Right. So the law firm are being really quite shicked right now. So even though it was really slow in the past, right now there is a lot of interest to move. So what is the now the clients already like you know I think at least like most of the startups here right I know they do the initial legal check right say I think they're asking from cloud or GP right and then of course like you know to get the majority of the work done you would obviously like you know start with a law firm right so what is the main like you know how does like a law firm in the current day and time right how are they backing this question right okay now I GPD could provide me with this advice or claude could provide me with this advice, right? So that

5:10 Additional value creation, right? How is the current context like you know legal firms are looking at right now? Yeah. there are multiple ones. I guess there is first is like you build like knowledge over time, right? So if we take the example of immigration, a law firm that is making thousands of cases per year, they know what's working for USCIS right now versus not, right? And that clothes in yours because they don't have a reality check. So that's maybe the great way to frame that is the knowledge of the reality check depending on their volume also cases they're going through. And same with corporate law firms for example. they just see what's working versus not what working in like for founders for other stakeholders in the in the market. So that's one. second is about like trust and in a sense of liability when like for example even when we created our company I still wanted my lawyers to check my MSAs or master agreements. So we most of it I wrote it with claude and everything but I still want someone who has been doing it for years to have a check at it right so I

6:27 Guess this is where there is a tension because before they will just do everything now is doing and they're acting more like as a reviewer or approvers themselves right they are stamping they're making the corrections and they're advising so now they getting less of like this work that was repetitive and they start to focus more on the advisory very trust part also there is depending on what type of law firms you're working with but some are really good at helping you with negotiation even conflict management right I don't know with your vendors clients or internally they really can act there like as an adviser so yeah so your site it says that law firms don't lose clients on legal work right rather they lose work on the client experience right can you help to unpack I mean what does what is the moment that the client actually walk away? Yeah. So basically first of all like a lot of lawyers they went through a law school so they got like an extensive knowledge and they paid a lot for that.

7:34 After that they often go and they join like big law. So they're getting another training basically on that and so they have a lot of like they're already accumulating some knowledge but so when the client comes in the lawyer will always have more knowledge compared to the client but what the client see is how fast the law firm is answering to them and this is how they're assessing them as well right is this person responsive when I need them right and if a law firm takes 2 to 3 days 5 days to answer to the first response that already a first bad experience, right? And then let's say they start to on board them. If it takes two to three weeks to on board a client, meaning collecting all their data and it's actually a lot of back and forth on all the documents, the client sees they even didn't start to work together that they already see all the operational side of things that is not working for them, right? So what often is happening is that law firms are losing clients at the beginning of the client journey because they're not being responsive.

8:36 And then through the part of like when the law firms are actually start to work with the clients, if the client experience is not great, right? You end up I'm sure you worked with some law firms at some point of your journey. You like in this like 100 emails back and forth thread and you're like I even don't remember when I told them to them. I think everyone can relate to that experience in their life. you don't want to refer this CL like to your friends or people around you to this law firm because you had a bad experience right and how it works in law in the legal space everything is referral based if I'm having a good experience if you're having good experience whenever your friends ask you how did you do it you'll go ahead and like I know someone for that so it's a very important channel and part of growth of their business that's why for them caring about the clients becoming it's even more priority I would say. Right. Right. Right. And diving into your experience right so you initially studied law right at Pantheon so right.

9:41 Yes. So yeah so right. So and then and then and banking and corporate and securities right at Mlon. Right. And then went into finance McKinsey and then went into a startup, right? so and now you're building four lawyers, right? So was I mean it's a it's quite a full circle, right? Did you know that you're always going to come back to law or right? What was like all these different like you know pivots all about? Yeah, multiple thoughts. I guess I was always like a builder in my heart. I builded a lot of like small projects or like small startups like through all this journey that you described just right there. I think I'm just someone who's like definitely rigorous and I love the fairness basically in general in life and that's why I studied like actually in parallel of so was my primary studies if that makes sense and I just added the sbone experience on top of that. But then yeah, I was definitely squeezed in into banking through my experience and this is how I end up like being there and through consulting. I guess what happened in my life I loved McKinsey. I learned a lot. but I was missing more like the international experience and more the startup and the building side of things

11:02 And I got an amazing opportunity here in San Francisco and it was always my dream to be here. So I moved here in San Francisco 4 years ago. I had an amazing time. I used to work at Gorgias. Gorgias. Correct. Gorgias. Right. Correct. And I spent 4 years at Gorgias and it was always my dream to build like a startup and be a builder. I guess the question was always like when to start rather than if I decided to make the leap at the beginning of this year. And then there was a question where do I want to go right and why? And basically I explored about like 12 I think ideas to be honest with you. And what I picked is where do I see the most of potential where I do can bring value and where do I feel like I will enjoy myself to be in for the next 10 years because we always think you know in terms of like quarters or months but in reality it's like a long-term game. Ooh.

12:05 Oo. That was a tough turn. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this is how we picked up with Max and also it was not only about you worked with Maxence or we were friends basically. We were good friends and he comes from a family of lawyers as well. So that played well into our decision. It was not only like a me decision, it was our decision I would say. I see. Right. Okay. And so basically you came to San Francisco to join Gorgias, right? Gorgias, which is I mean as a chief of staff, right? Correct. So that's like again like you know and you've written quite a lot about like you know becoming a chief of staff and you helped the company right to grow to 8 million RR. Is that right? Oh well actually the company grew from at the time I was there 20 to 100 million of revenue. Hi. yeah, I was after being chief of staff, I basically took a role to be like general manager of our AI agent product that scaled from zero to 1,000 customers. And this product went basically and this is automating customer experience, right? Correct. Right. Like agents was like related to customer experience. Yeah. Right. And that here basically the product we added 8 million of revenue on that product. That's I think what you're referring to. Right. Right. Right. I see. And then was there a lot of insight that you

13:26 Gained from automating this customer experience at goas of course that you you are now bringing into practice? Oh 100%. I mean also that was one of the reasons we know that law firms are it's well now not the best of cou experience right and we so as max as myself we both operated in industries where operations and client experience are has to be at very achieved a very high standards so we want to bring that to the law firms as well yeah what I learned I guess For me actually I really believe in the human in the loop. and especially in the law space. I don't believe in this blast of agents or just automating all the responses especially in low there is a huge trust element and this needs to be done properly. So I'm all in for automation but definitely with the human review to help law firms to level up but not doing the burden basically. Right. And you were also a venture partner at U.

14:37 Yeah, I did everything. Right. While you were at Gorgias, right? Correct. You nailed it. And so did seeing the investor side of things, I can make it easier to easier or harder to make this jump. it's an interesting question. So I think it came this experience being venture partner with Estonium naturally. I think I'm just a person that loves doing a lot of things and lives the life like fully if that makes sense. So I was giving a lot like let's say to gorgeous and bringing a lot but this opportunity came out and I just wanted to I guess open my mind in terms of like industries right and see what's out there right what's what can I see in the market so I know really well basically the CEO and the founder of Asterion Ventures it's a VC based in Paris so and with a presence in the United States and they proposed me to be their venture partner and I was doing it like a couple of hours per week basically to help them out. So I think it just brought me broader experience. maybe some people say it brings you FOMO like because you keep meeting founders. but for me I

15:52 Guess I always wanted to build my own company. So yeah I guess it's a it helped me out but yeah right that's awesome. So and you have a very interesting lifestyle there now right? Yeah, I mean very unique I would say. Right. And you speak French, Russian and English natively. Yeah. Well, yeah. I learned them like progressively I would say. Yeah. And plus some Spanish and Dutch and Chinese as well, right? Yes. Yes. Well, basically it's just related to my life story. I was born in Russia. So, this is how I learned to speak Russian. Then with my parents, we moved to Belgium when I was 11. So, there I learned how to speak French, but also Dur. I started to learn Spanish there. Then I moved to France. I had to level up my Spanish there. Then I moved to France. Oh, to sorry to Spain for a bit. This is where I had to really pick up on Spanish. I mean, of course, I was obviously learning English at the same time. Then I went to China where I learned how to speak Chinese. I think right now my level of Chinese, if I'm honest, is like a bit lower, but I was really fluent at that time. So that's why it's quite funny. And now I moved to the United States. So, and yeah, it's kind of funny. Everyone has like their own opinion on my accent or how I speak in different languages. But yeah, I guess it's my life was

17:15 Very full of learnings and I love the fact that I was able to learn many languages. I think it helps me. Has that helped in the building journey? Yeah, definitely. I guess it's like, you know, it's more in terms of soft skills. I would say I'm like more like open-minded I would say towards people. I think I'm quite easy to bond with if that makes sense. Wherever I go I make myself friends. So I guess that's kind of what's happening and just like learning languages. it gives just a lot of like brain flexibility a lot of like social skills I would say. Is there any instance that it's helped you to close a deal? Definitely. Definitely. I think by like right now even like my first clients, we just like we have this like business bonding. We're like let's do something together. And this it helps a lot is when you get to you know you get along really with people. So yeah. Right. Right. That's awesome. And also on top of it another thing I got to know is like you know you're an avid hiker as well, right? Oh yeah. And you've done the half without with no gear also.

18:22 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you tell us about these adventures as well? Yeah. Well, it's interesting. So, I started to hike in 2020 actually during co. So, I got a lot of friends who were like, yeah, avid hikers. They went to like, you know, they were like scoot boys or girls basically back in France and I just saw their photos doing it and I was like, "Oh, I'm missing something in my life." When I saw what they were doing, I was feeling it's not something I was exposed to, so I want to try it out. So my first hiking experience was in 2020 where I went with a friend. We crossed the Alps basically fully autonomously for 5 days. So we were like holding you know all the food and everything. This was my first hiking experience. So I went like zero to one like straight. I came back. I was like I was like what happened to my life you know like and after that I went like for three weeks in Himalayas I went what did I do else I think I went to Teneref I hiked a volcano there right and that huh where was that so the volcano was in so 2020 Alps 2021s was a volcano in Tener 2022 was the Malayas so I was like really want

19:41 To like ascend like you know like every year I was like okay what's the next mountain that I want to do or what's the next kind of challenge that I want to do and so I guess the half I did it what was it I think it was 2024 so this was like friends of mine they were like let's do it and I was like of course let's do it was a bit scary but I guess I learned through my life just to trust the experience and that I will make it happen so yeah it was a bit scary we started to hike at 3:00 a.m. But it was an amazing experience and when you're at the top you have this like humbling experience of you achieved just something great and yeah that's awesome. So tell me about your co-founder Max right so how did you two meet and then how do you split the work definitely so we met like years ago basically back in Paris so we were like we had common friends together and I guess we bonded really well together because we are both like I think zero quite authentic very direct like towards each other as well and so I moved to San Francisco 4 years ago and he moved 2 years ago so is how we reconnected basically and I guess we both knew we wanted to build companies together. So when it was the right time for me I contacted him and that's how things started let's say right yeah history yeah I guess what worked really well is that we are very complimentary in

21:04 Terms of skills and we really get along together right so in terms of skills I mean he's like a pure AI engineer so he owns all the technical side of things like architecture a agents putting them in productions in production in gel I'm more like the go to market and product person. actually something I knew I had like a good product sense. but we got like really good feedback on like the on things I built and I put into prototypes. So I actually discovered that I had a quite great product sense and Max is really like the taking the product like let's say that they built and putting it into reality.

21:47 All right. That's awesome. So, and you are in the middle of YC fall 2026 right now, right? yeah, sorry. Week five. Okay. I see. Right. So, and what was that story like and then what's the most useful thing that partner has told you so far? Mhm. So, what's a your question is or how was the journey like backtory behind what's story basically. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess we started our company with Max and we were just thinking should we what are the options do we had? I think we're both quite ambitious. So, we want to be like VC backed to go fast and help us to accelerate in our journey as well. And to be honest, it was quite spontaneous decision. Let's just apply to AC and see you know like so it was actually our first time applying. So that's a good thing for us and I guess we got N. So we applied like end of July I guess and we got our interview early August and the next day we got the answer. So it was like really fast and I guess we were very happy and we you know it's our first company building together we have already experienced so

23:03 But I think doing in San Francisco maybe it was for us a good partnership to be surrounded with and honestly I'm really grateful for the experience. I really love the partners we work with. I think they're very thoughtful. What I love really about YC, I think that we're really able to create a good safe space between us and investors, right? I think the relationship between investors and founders can sometimes be tricky or you'll hear a lot of people's having debate there. What we see is really doing is like to put you in a safe space so that you can tell anything and so that they can be the most helpful to brainstorm with you. Right. And what do you think the most useful thing that partner has told you so far? Yeah, well I guess they really pushed us on getting the feedback even from smaller customers early. So I guess when we started the journey, we were able to sign a couple of like great contracts and but with like high value, right? So we were like okay let's build towards this contracts. And they were like, "But guys, maybe you'll be building and at some point you'll just realize there is something you're missing." And so they pushed us on getting feedback even earlier, I would say, compared to the build phase. So that was helpful to also I think

24:24 Think that we could get contrast on the smaller scope but get feedback earlier and constantly. Right. Right. I see. Yeah. I think that's really easy method. Just get the feedback early and and implement it. Got it. And you're opening I mean coming to the big problem that you're really trying to solve here, right? you're starting with a very striking number which is 67% of the potential clients say that their decision to hire a firm comes down to how fast it responds basically right so there is like you know I mean say when some when a client like you know messages a law firm right say on a Friday 11 p.m. Right. And most of the time like you know most the low folks will be getting back on Monday morning. Right. But then if I am in super hurry right so I would be like you know going ahead with the one who responds the first right. Yeah. Is that the main like you know problem that you're seeing over and over again? Yeah I mean there is that but I want to basically maybe step up a bit from what we our mission to give you the overall sense of what we are doing. so right now I guess in legal tech you probably everyone heard a lot about Harvey and legal and how successful they were because of all the money they

25:44 Raised and their just impressive growth that they're going through. but what they focus on is really contract review and drafting. So it's how to write the contracts faster basically right but that's only like the emerging part of the iceberg. A law firm to make it fully operational is relying on a very old system and its client data is completely split up between different systems and there is actually law firms are hiring people just to copy paste the data between different systems and all of that is being really done manually. So first there is a huge like operational and admin bottleneck that we're solving right but it's because of this admin and operational bottleneck that law firms are drowning and not able to be responsive as they would like to be to their clients if that makes sense right so I want to first of all like just to make sure that this overall like what we're solving in terms of mission is well understood I think it's like admin but burden that we're like making it easier but also it has an impact on the client journey so It's both of the things that we are basically solving together if that makes sense, right? But then on the client journey, what you

27:00 Said is totally correct. So yeah, if you're a founder or basically looking for like a fast response, you want someone who is basically answer to you. I think like maybe a founder will prefer a referral and likely like someone they can trust. So answering at 11:00 p.m. on a Friday can be great, but what's even better, it's a great referral. So it's all about like experience that you're providing to your clients and how well they're speaking in terms of experience. So at the same time we'll be working on like tasks that will help law firms to level up and not to be you know thinking about all the admins they have to be doing. But also we have like a client portal basically and this client portal helps with the communication between the clients and the law firms to simplify the communications between them both sides. Got it. Yeah. And what is happening right now right so when someone say contacts an immigration firm for the first time right what happens where do these hours and days go okay can you repeat your question to make sure I answer well what's in general what's happening today in so what I want to understand is that what is the procedure right sort of the manual procedure right now without the

28:15 Assistance of right know these AI tools that's been implemented right where are like you know all these hours go into like you know make to whereas this process is like very slow. Yeah. Well, it's a lot of small tasks basically as these systems are quite old. Let's say lawyers and their systems they spend a lot of like clicking on the different task if that makes sense and moving things through the tool. So for example when a client comes in terms of what we are doing we are ingesting the email data securely. So that these leads appear in the client data. Right now when a leads comes in a law firm a legal system will be actually copy pasting the data from email. Best case searching something and filling it out in the form and then saying I'm creating a lead. So just to create a lead it takes I don't know maybe 10 minutes or 15 which is ridiculous because it should be instant right. We have all the information right now that's coming from the email. we can run an enrichment basically to create the lead. That's example one. Then two let's say when the lead becomes they pay right now it's like they

29:32 Are not collecting the data about the payment as it's two different system they will have to see oh the client has paid let's go back to system one and marked it as paid and now let's open a new client application and the client application is completely dis disconnected from the lead application. So let's reenter all the data from the lead to the clients basically. So I see you following me but here is like first there is a lot of collecting the data copy pasting into the system is disconnected. So you have to basically manually clicking the data between them and then removing it from one place to another and that the problem we're solving by building like a systems that talk to each other and that moves the data around it. Hm right and there are raw other players in the same space right so then especially like you know one thing that I came across was Clio right and then other practice management like you know firms they've been around for years time right and Clio recently they launched their AI grow tool as well which is so what is it differently that you do right that u like you know you are helping your clients to get hit faster. Yeah. Well, basically Clio has been around for 20 years. There is also ATM. They have been around for 20 years. There is another firm called Practice

30:54 Panter. So, unfortunately these tools were not able to reinvent themsel and they're not on par compared to the technology like that we use on tech right now today. So before even to getting into what we are doing right now, we tested all these systems and we were just like it's not possible that they that law firms are using these tools and these people are making like crazy money to be honest and this is how we saw also our opportunity. We were like these systems are just too old if that makes sense. So everything I explained to you like right before what the current systems I'm talking to you about this tools actually. So they don't ingest the data. They for example Clio unfortunately grew by acquiring a lot of startups. So they have the systems but they are not interconnected. So they promise to have a lot of things but in the end the law firms it's not help them to run and to have this engine of a Tesla that we talked at the beginning right. So we want to bring this Tesla engine to law firms so that they actually have a system that works well for them.

32:02 To maybe yeah pin like pinpoint to concrete examples so like of what the systems are not doing well. So their leads and clients data and invoice are once again disconnected. So even though they exist within one system, they have to re-enter the data through everywhere. Right? So that's one. two is for example every time they have a create a document as well the data is not populating automatically as well. So they have to do it again and that's why we create agents that basically run enrichment and that run enrichment and that move the data across the client journey as well. And the portals they created or forms they created to collect the data are very outdated, not flexible. A lot of law firms are complaining about it and they're not moving. They to be honest they're not taking feedback that law firms are giving and we here to change that as we were starting I guess from like new coding base. we want to make sure that any feedback we're able to implement it within the same day to make it to move things fast.

33:22 Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm going to dive now into your manifesto the big thing right which is I think this is something that lot of people are talking about right now which is regarding the billable hour becoming obsolete right and these are like you know there's a big call right and then lot of professions are actually built on this billable law right especially like you know the legal firm right so legal firms so then how do you see this being transition right from this billable art to more of a value creation based billing. Yeah. Well, I guess it's really a core topic right now in the legal space. So, the billable hour is being challenged a lot. So right now big law firms they're getting a lot of pressure from their clients and even smaller law firms on changing and clients are also asking a lot for transparency. Basically they ask to understand why did you build me that much of hours and why this person cost that much of money and why this task takes you that much of time I can do it faster than you right so they won't be able to despite all these like you know still it

34:40 Is being buil by the right. Yeah. Yeah. It's still the case, right? But it's being challenged a lot. So, it's a it's a topic they're going through. They're thinking how they could change. So, right now you see first of all also the emergence of AI native law firms. I don't know if you've heard about this. So, you have I mean the whole of service industry is like towards AI native right? Yeah. Yeah, to site a couple, you have General Legal, Vector Legal, you have Morates, you have Crosby basically and all these firms they started to charge per outcome or having subscriptions, right? Right. So, they're still early, but the business model is so different, right?

35:23 Because they get actually VC money. Are they startups still? Yeah, they're very startups and they're all let's say in seed series A. maybe crossb is getting to series B, but they're still series A stage, right? So they are still Alma also recently raised the 17 round. Correct. Correct. Correct. Series A, I think. So there are still like they So it's impressive, but they're still in the challenger position. M the question is like when they'll become real players and they'll start to steal even more market shares compared to what they're doing right now right so definitely I think all the law firms are feeling and they want to get transformed so you ask me how I see this I guess it's happening now so it's a matter of a couple of years right before the CI native law firms take be big shares also of the markets where we want to be us in this part of this journey is to work with law firms that have usually not the knowledge to hire engineers not the capacity to build the engines right the Tesla but to provide this Teslas for

36:40 At scale for law firms so that they can compete with this like players right so we are there you are you're essentially betting on that the billable would die right another 10 years time essentially. Yeah, I think the proportions will change. Yeah, I think it's a good way to reframe. Okay, let's imagine in 10 years from now where we'll be let me make some hypothesis and guess probably right now if we look at the old low industry billable hour let's say it's like 60 to 70% of the market still right now we like flat fees it's probably yeah 10 to 20% and the rest is subscription so it's quite new. If we project in 10 years from now, billable hour will probably become 10% or 20%. And subscription and flat fee will be the majority of it.

37:41 Right? So that's the change that is happening and where we're going to. Right? And law firms will have to go through that change in terms of how they bill, how they invoice, collect the data and provide services and how they provide the client experience and what do they spend time on and they cannot spend that much of time on admin as they're spending today and doing all this like copy paste. It's just not possible. Right. So walk me through the product. I mean product experience end to end, right? so inquiry comes at 11 p.m. on a Friday, right? What does he love this example? Yeah. So what does Praxis actually do between then and then the signed engagement data? sure. it will go even further but sure. So let's say it's 11:00 p.m.

38:35 It's a Friday. So what will happen? First of all, the system is capturing there is a new lead and it automatically draft an email for the lawyer. We don't send it without the approval of the lawyer. But let's say the lawyer is still wake up or the next day in the morning while they're taking a coffee, they're like, "Oh, a new lead came in." So the email is already proddrafted. They sent they hit send and it's basically being sent in the background depending on the law for practice. We're going to run the qualification so that the law also like I mean the lawyer can read more about the entering client, right? Get more information about them. if there is a need to run a conflict check, we'll run a conflict check. So it's basically to make sure there is no potential conflict that the lawyer has in working with that person and we'll basically go ahead and automatically schedule some time that works for both parties and try to make sure it's happening on Monday, right? when it's business hours for both sides so that they can go and hop on a call during the consultation. This is where the most of law firms are providing values. They're building trust. law lawyer will collect basically all the necessary information that they have. And right when the consultation is finished, our system is automatically pre-drafting the engagement letter and the invoice based

39:55 On what both parties agrees during the call. Right. instead of the lawyers opening a system, you know, trying to draft the engagement letter and everything, the system is doing automatically for all of that. So, we can see that we can sign a client here just very fast, right? If we talk about Friday, on Monday, technically 11:00 a.m. it should be signed already because it's just all moving. Right now, it will take maybe till Wednesday, Thursday for whatever reasons. because it's not only one client, it's multiple clients that they have to juggle through. But here the system helps a lawyer to run through that, right? Then they will start to work together. Basically, they'll get into document collection phase. So we'll be collecting the documents and verifying them on the go as well to avoid this back and forth between clients and the law firms that I mentioned to you with this like email thread like basically very long. So the onboarding can happen within the same day instead of like two weeks of back and forth potentially. And now that the lawyer has all the information they need, they can start to work and do their work and focus on the legal practice if that makes sense. While they're doing the work, we have like a client portal that keeps up to date the clients actually on where the law firm stands and wherever the law firm needs basically as a client, they're able to ping through the system on the other

41:12 Side the client so that it's automatically being sent as well. so it's basically a more like an AI native way to interact between the client and the law firm as well. And finally when the like whatever is finished whenever the monies needs to be collected the invoice is basically prefilled the hourly the hours are being collected and wherever the invoice needs to be chased is being chased as well. So yeah that's the full circle moment basically and yeah we kind of call it win on board run and get paid like the full circle at the same time. So you see it's a system right because all of these tools needs to be interconnected but at the same time we build it in an AA in I mean agentic way so that it runs by itself instead of yeah having all this copy paste of data in manual intake to be happening right and one of the most important things here is like there with regards to the human in the loop right because it's not possible right now right for AI or any software to give legal advice as per say, right? So, it needs to be done by a lawyer, right? So that what you provide is this methodology so that the it becomes super easy for the lawyer to give the go ahead. Exactly. Did I frame it right? Yeah, that's totally correct. And I

42:32 Will add something here because I got a lot of questions on that. I guess where Harvey and Legora are focused is really on the legal work itself, right? But the legal work can only happen well when everything around is running right. So we are building that system that help a law firm to run smoothly so that also the legal work is correct and the data that is being populated in the documents is correct and up to date. Right. Right. And you're starting things off with immigration and corporate law. Right. Correct. like corporates often with corporate law firms there is like other practices are being mixed like tax IP actually estate planning comes a lot and yeah also immigration as well they came out quite fast. I think a lot of this practice are being challenged because they do quite a bit of like quite repetitive work so they have a higher need of transforming as well.

43:32 Right. Right. And there is a line between like you know running intake and giving legal advice right how do you keep the AI on the right side of it intake and c can you repeat this question but you're helping is to for the clients to come on board that is the part that you're mostly helping out with right so but you specifically do not focus on giving legal advice as exactly This is where the law firm should be become good at, right? This should be they should be focusing on is serving their clients and doing legal work and not be and the burden. Exactly. Right. I see. So what's the part of practice that doesn't work yet that you wish it worked? H doesn't work yet and I wish it worked. Hm. So I guess right now so we act as a system of record, right? in a way because we store also the client data.

44:38 So also like the matter data, so the case itself and everything. And so where we want to get is really into the prompting the systems that prompt a lawyer on what they need to be doing. So this is where definitely where we are heading. but we haven't built it like fully yet. So what it means is basically when a law firm owner is connected to the system, we want to tell it okay this is the three most important task you have to fix today. you have this I don't know invoice you really need to look at you need to sign this contract for example because it's has been like really urgent or you have this client you need to really serve basically so we have the ability to resurface but I think we could be like even better at that right now right I see and we spoke about this AI native law firms before right so between the existing law firms that are adop opting like you know these AI practices right getting practice on board right and then setting these procedures up right so and there are new law firms right that are being built from ground up as AI native law firms right who do you think that will win between traditional law firms and AI

45:55 Native law firms I guess you know what I believe that the market will just grow and there'll be a distribution of the market I guess right now what's interesting for example so let's say let's take the example of Alma I think it's an interesting one and it could be replicated to others so right now I think Alma is eating the share of smaller law firms because of like basically the firms that you'll find here in Los Angeles and San Francisco that they maybe they have like five to 10 employees but Alma to stay competitive they'll have to move really up market and they'll have to compete with I think it's BA is one of the largest immigration law firms here in the United States. they'll have to compete with the largest, right? So by the time they get largest they might also lose somewhat of market share. We have this proximity law firms right. so yeah I guess my take is the market share will be redistributed with new players as well right

47:11 But in the end I do believe that the venturebacked will have to move in the enterprise markets while the traditional law firms will own like more down the market. So it's the enterprise market that will have more challengers. Right. Right. So if this bill of Allah it goes away altogether right how would you price practice is it per seat per matter or per outcome? Mhm. Yeah. Let me think. Right now we price per seats because it's the easiest to be honest. I want to I want to make it also easy for law firm basically you know to make a choice and to move on with us. But do I believe in the seed for the long term? Probably not. You know, if a law firm is basically will be charging only per outcome, I think we'll charge per outcome as well. Maybe we'll have some of tiers to give you know predictability, but I would believe in like plan like like plans basically per with certain tiers but with a certain amount of outcomes in there. Yeah. Right. Right. I see. so you're a French founder in San Francisco building

48:31 For American law firms, right? Yeah, in a way. Yeah, in a way. Yeah. Is being an outsider to this US legal system, right? do you consider this to be an advantage or a disadvantage? I, you know, I feel we're living in a world where nationalities even doesn't matter. You say French, you know, but I was born in Russia originally. So I am my French even it's it's questionable if that makes sense. I'm a citizen of the world you know and I guess you know there is advantages and disadvantages in both sides but I don't care you know I'm here just to go and win the market and to play my world and I even don't want to think about it. I just have one mission. I my focus should be on like winning this market and bringing value. yeah right that's awesome. Okay. what's been I mean in your founders's journey, what's been the hardest like moment so far? Yeah, it's an interesting one. I've been thinking about this a lot because it's interesting because I kind of feel like very you know I have high trust in what we're doing and we get a lot of positive feedback from our clients. So it builds this like very strong inner confidence and I feel like

49:47 For my business it's a lot about basically building the product getting feedback and just bringing new clients in. So I'm very confident in that process. What I found for myself like at a personal level more challenging is I have less time I would say for people around me like people who I'm close with. recently around me a lot of my friends went through hard moments and I spend time with them but I also you know I knew that I couldn't spend all my time with them as I used to in the past my personal time is way more time right now and I have to be really careful on that and I guess it's kind of where I found the challenge for my own personal life. I would say between the work is like how can I be the best version of myself in my personal life while staying on top of everything also in my professional life. I guess it's just like we're all humans and staying on top of everything is generally like really hard. Right. Right. And u coming into hot takes.

51:03 Mhm. So what's the hottest stake in legal tech that people in the industry won't really say out loud? yeah, I guess I gave you a bit of a hint earlier today on that. but I think Harvey and Legora only resolve like the emerging part of the iceberg. There is all this operational side of things that needs to be solved in the client experience. there is a lot more to come basically in the legal market than we think. are there not enough startups building in the space? Actually not enough. so even like Clio I think I've heard some of their leaders they recognized everyone is surprised that they people didn't go into the space. I think yeah so there is more to come right and what's the most overrated thing in AI right now and what's the most underrated? Yeah overrated and underrated.

52:00 Hm. So maybe underrated is how much of human in the loop still happening I think right now and how much the systems we have to prompt them well for them to work well. I would say I think it's we all talk about like you know the agents running their work and everything but for agents to work you still need the human input in there and for them to work in your system. overrated h yeah maybe like of agents completely replacing the humans. I to be honest I'm I believe that agents will help humans to be better at what they who they are and move to this like place where humans will be more able to provide advice focus on building trust but agents I'm not going to replace humans for example I don't believe in all the concept of like AI SDR thing you can find leads and reach them. Yes. So that's more like system, right? Okay. Agents are becoming good in terms of voice and, you

53:18 Know, calling people. I'm still waiting for a pure, you know, conversation between an agent and a human to be fully look like a human conversation, you know. I hope it's coming but I didn't see it yet. Got it. So this is where our worlds meet, right? So your you can't really AB test, right? A client journey on real prospects, right? Whether this client journey works, so this doesn't work, right? Because then you've lost a client for good, right? So with markets like what I'm doing is I we simulate tens of thousands of users, right? On these scenarios, right? So that you are able to find out like you know where are the teams like you know they drop off or like what are the ones that actually work out right so how do you currently test a change into these client journeys right before a real client really sees that? Mhm. So how do we test? I mean right now we basically run like also pilots to be honest with you. So how it happens?

54:27 So we work for example with law firms. We created them like let's say client portals or answers and we get the feedback mainly from law firms themselves. So that's first level of feedback. And then the law firms are picking a couple of customers they want us to work with. And so we get the feedback from the customers at that moment as well and they tell oh actually did I like it? Yes or no. So it stays a bit like also with the human in the loop. I would say overall definitely if there is a system that is able to capture it's interesting because it's like a double feedback right it's not only the law firm feedback but the feedback from their law firm clients that will be like really helpful as well right but in terms of AB testing I guess you could also you know just like so we take this like so we have like a pilots right with the law firm clients that also they are looking at this client portals and everything so we could take those and see what was their like basically experience and like how much of referrals did they make right that I think like if it was a great experience the referral rate will be high if the experience was not great the referral rate will be low so it's not something we did yet but if I had to do this AB test I will be basically comparing those who we kind of

55:46 Helped with in terms of client experience versus not and look at their referral rate got it so if there's someone in consulting or chief of staff role right now, right? wondering whether this is the time that I should like go ahead and build something of their own right so you literally made that jump right so what would you tell them just go now don't wait too much don't wait too much I mean I think be surround yourself with other builders and founders yeah I would say basically personally what I found for myself like really useful when I decided to build my own company I just went and talked to so many founders and I was just like tell me everything kind of what are the mistakes I could the biggest mistakes I could make why would they happen and basically how can I avoid them and that was like so tremendously helpful and I'm very grateful I did that it's not the first thing came to my mind to be doing if that makes sense it came after 2 3 weeks I was like hm maybe I should do it and then I was like oh yeah I definitely should do it and so did you finalize on the idea of a practice and then made the jump or like you know you decide okay I'm going to build a company and

57:06 Then start to like you know figure out ideas. Yeah, I did it that way. Basically, I think my thing was I want to build my own company. Then I was like, okay, I want to find a co-founder to for that journey because I know it's a like can be a lonely journey. It's like a long journey. And this also came from me starting to talk to a couple of like founders. Initially, I started to build the stuff on my own and everything. And then I realized yeah it's kind of you know you're always by yourself and you have to juggle between your go to market brain which is very hectic you know always on and your brain that is more like focus architecture building and I was like it will be great to be with someone so I went to into co-founder search and when with max we decided to basically build our own company we went through the idea phase right so I think I'm more the type of people who is more like a builder at heart first and that just knows that they will do something that people love and will do their best to do that. and then just will figure it out I would say. And this has been a wonderful chat. Diana, where do people find you and practice?

58:19 I guess LinkedIn it's a good it's a good start. just u what I love is when people tell me and they clearly say their intention. why do you reach out to me or bluntly you know how can I help you know and when people are clear on that I'm more than willing to help and discuss and chat when the intention is kind of unclear I think it's make just a conversation harder so yeah so for anyone who wants to chat or I'm happy to answer on LinkedIn and yeah to help to figure out anyone's journey if they need to all right thanks a lot for your time and the test has been Yeah, you do. Awesome.