Plenty of people find lawyers the same way they search for late-night Pad Thai: they Google it.
But the attorneys who pop up first, thanks to sponsored links or highway billboards, are often booked solid or charge premium rates, says Andrew Guzman, a former operator at a small law firm turned startup founder.
Now he’s trying a different approach. His new startup, OpenLaw, uses artificial intelligence to match people with vetted lawyers online. The company has raised $3.5 million in funding to fuel expansion.
Here’s how it works: A client submits a brief description of their legal issue on OpenLaw’s site. The company’s algorithms sift through its database of pre-screened attorneys and surface those with the most relevant experience.
OpenLaw shares case details with those lawyers who respond with proposals. Then, the client can compare options and pick one. The lawyer sends over a contract, and the client signs — all without leaving OpenLaw’s site.
The legal industry is dominated by small and solo practices, leaving most lawyers to juggle actual legal work with the grind of running a business. OpenLaw pitches itself as a fix: by connecting lawyers directly with clients, the platform could cut down on marketing costs and free up time for the stuff they actually went to law school to do. That’s the idea, anyway.
Guzman says OpenLaw has onboarded more than 130 lawyers across Florida and Texas, with another 300 on a waitlist. So far, the platform is geared toward high-volume practice areas like civil litigation, family law, and criminal defense.
Investors are buying in. OpenLaw’s seed round was led by Flint Capital and Slauson & Co., with participation from Zach Posner’s The LegalTech Fund, Mindful Venture Capital, Jenny Fielding’s Everywhere Ventures, Gaingels, and others. The valuation was undisclosed.
Guzman says the fresh funding will be used to gas up new markets, including New York, California, and Arizona.
The “Uber for legal services” pitch is nothing new, and it’s a category that’s seen more flameouts than follow-through. UpCounsel, a marketplace for business lawyers, was once VC-backed and buzzy. But after getting hit with a flurry of lawsuits and struggling to scale, it announced plans to shut down in 2020, only to be rescued by a holding company. Another player, ContractsCounsel, has been around for years with a similar model, but remains relatively small and under-the-radar.
What’s actually new here? Guzman thinks it’s two things. The platform aims to help people facing “real-life” legal issues. You’re getting divorced. Your credit card company is suing you to collect a debt. The other marketplaces, Guzman says, focus more on business transactions like incorporating a company or filing a trademark application.
In addition, OpenLaw is betting that its use of AI will give it an edge. Guzman says the company trawls public data to identify people who are being sued — often before those individuals even realize it.
“We have a very innovative early warning system where we let people know that they are being sued,” he said. “We want them to know that they have options.”
The first page of the company’s online intake form asks, “Did you receive a notice from us?” Guzman declined to explain exactly how the system works, saying he didn’t want to tip off competitors.
Whether OpenLaw’s model proves durable remains an open question. But if the platform can deliver for lawyers and clients, it might just earn a place beyond the Google search bar.
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