SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Can Law Pockets Help Solve Racial Injustice By Empowering Atlanta Residents?
13 Jun 2021
Chapter 1: What is the main concept behind Law Pocket?
People need to be able to get legal services just as fast as anything else. My thing is that you shouldn't be able to order a pizza faster than you can legal services, right? You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka, where I sit down and interview the top SaaS founders, like Eric Wan from Zoom. If you'd like to subscribe, go to getlatka.com.
We've published thousands of these interviews, and if you want to sort through them quickly by revenue or churn, CAC, valuation, or other metrics, the easiest way to do that is to go to getlatka.com and use our filtering tool. It's like a big Excel sheet for all of these podcast interviews. Check it out right now at getlatka.com. Hello, everyone. My guest today is Jordan Gaither.
He's building a tool called Law Pocket, which makes the law easier, not harder. Jordan, you ready to take us to the top? Absolutely. Thanks for coming on. So tell us a little bit, what does the company do and what's your plan to make money? You're pre-revenue today. So what's your plan to make money here? So what we're doing is we are synthesizing legal information, referring people to attorneys.
We're going to be using a pay per month model in order to get revenue. And so what we're doing is we're creating a legal marketplace. And so what we're doing is making the app affordable and necessity for non-legal users, but mainly legal. the app is going to provide features that legal peoples and legal providers will be able to utilize.
And what happens right now is that legal providers are paying different prices for different legal tech services to be able to render services to people who need legal services. And so what we're doing is we're putting it all in one place. And so we're starting it out by making it easy for people to connect with the attorney and for those attorneys to be able to have
broader reach for how they can get more clients. And why is this needed? When I hire a new legal firm, it usually comes from a recommendation from a very close friend. Legal counsel is a very personal thing. Why do you think a marketplace model is going to work here? Well, the reason why it's going to work is because things have to be more personable.
And being able to contact an attorney is a privilege that most Americans don't have. I worked at the district attorney's office for a few at DeKalb County in Decatur, Georgia, and I tell you when you see people asking you for help from the other side about what it is that they can do and you necessarily can't help them because you're representing the state, that's a tough thing to deal with.
People need to be able to get legal services just as fast as anything else. You know, my thing is that you shouldn't be able to order a pizza faster than you can legal services, right? And all other industries that you look at from STEM, from math, sciences, entertainment, they're all very rapid and they are adaptive to new technologies.
The law is very stagnant and it's very much based upon what you said. Oh, I know this person. I can do that. But If you don't know a person and you don't want to go on Google, what do you, where do you do? And right now I want to use Google for this. Well, because Google is just going to show you what people pay for through search and search engine optimization.
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Chapter 2: How does Law Pocket plan to generate revenue?
Let's try and get really specific because we're going to lose people if we don't. They're going to be asking the same things I am, which is why don't people just use Rocket Lawyer and Google? So let's talk about specifically where you're trying to launch.
What city there in Georgia are you trying to launch this and to go recruit local people that need legal services and the attorneys that can help them? We're launching in Atlanta and four other surrounding cities. And how many lawyers and attorneys have you got committed there in Atlanta to list on your platform to create a profile? I'm sorry, you disconnected for a little bit.
How many attorneys have you gotten to commit to creating a Law Pocket profile in Atlanta? Hello? Jordan, how many attorneys have you gotten to commit in Atlanta to setting up a Law Pocket profile? So we have about 20 attorneys that are pre-committed. We're in the process of building out our web prototype. So we have a roster of about 20 attorneys per state that are ready to get on the app.
And right now we're just doing a bunch of testing and getting the app set up. And what is the kind of thing that an Atlanta resident would need a lawyer for where they're going to be a perfect use case for LawPocket? One of the big things here is entertainment law, personal injury, contracts, real estate.
And law pocket is just an expedited way to where they can hop on there and get, and get in touch with that. So let's be really specific. I imagine you've interviewed folks in Atlanta that have had real life situations.
So let's, instead of just naming the category entertainment, personal injury, tell me a real story of someone that went through personal injury, where if law pocket existed, you would've made their life better. So, um, I had a situation where, uh, someone had a contractual dispute, uh, with a trucking company. And, um, they went to attorney to have their trucking agreement made.
However, the attorney made the information very convoluted. And so, uh, this was about two years ago that we interviewed them and they came to me and they said, well, where can we find an attorney that can do this for, for us? And I said, okay, well, let me search and let me do a search and find this for you. And so I personally took that, took that story and was like, okay.
This is how we're going to have a synthesis. So where if you have an attorney, if you have a person that needs an attorney for a contract issue, whether it's trucking or whatever for your small business, this is the synthesis that you'll be able to go through to be able to reach that attorney. And so that's it. Go ahead. Okay.
And how are you, so how are you building when you say a small business needs trucking? So a small business would use law pocket to hire a lawyer to represent them in a trucking matter. Give me the real example. What, what does a small business need trucking for?
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Chapter 3: Why is a marketplace model essential for legal services?
As well as we're having a feature that allows for people to record their detentions when they're being pulled over. And those type of features that you would like just aren't necessarily on some of these free platforms that you've mentioned that are available. Okay. Got it. So plan is to launch in October. What's the price point going to be? How are you going to make money here?
So we'll be charging about $10 for non-legal users to be a part of the app. And then we have a varying range in which we will charge not-for-profit organizations, legal aid societies, sole practitioners, and law firms to be a part of LawPockets.
So if I'm someone who's a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm worried about getting pulled over illegally, and I want to have LawPocket in my pocket to record me being pulled over whenever I want, I just have to pay $10 a month and then hope for the day that it happens, like it's ready? What do you mean hope for the day that it happens? Well, people don't get pulled over all the time.
So basically, if someone's worried, they're going to pay $10 a month. And then when they do get pulled over, whether it's a month from now or a year from now, they'll whip out LawPocket and record it. Well, people get pulled over every day. People get pulled over a lot. I don't know any, I don't have any friends that have gotten pulled over for the last 10 days straight.
Well, if you've been, you know, looking at the news, there are a lot of people that are being pulled over and a lot of people's rights are being violated, right? And so this is why it goes back. And this is, I'm glad you brought this up. This is another reason. The point I'm trying to make is you're asking. No, but this is important, right? This is a main reason why
it's taken us a long time to get funding is because people have a privileged mindset of how the law works and how the law functions. And so when you explain to people that this is a need and this is a concern, people like yourself say, well, I haven't experienced that. And that's the problem in America today. People say, well, I haven't experienced that. That's not my legal problem.
Gordon, you're putting words in my mouth. No, I'm not putting words in your mouth. I didn't say I haven't experienced that. I did not say I experienced it. What I said is I don't know anyone that's been pulled over 10 days straight. So do you know people in Atlanta, Georgia that have been pulled over 10 days straight? You're missing the point.
The point is people get pulled over every day, especially people of color. Of course. Not the same person though for 10 days straight.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do residents face when seeking legal help?
But it doesn't matter if it's the same person. That one time that you're pulled over, you don't know how recording that interaction can save you. That's my question, Jordan. That's my question. You're asking that one person to pay $10 per month. But that's not the only feature though. That's in addition to being able to contact an attorney.
That's in addition to being able to be a part of a legal community where people are able to interact with people. So I mean, given the time that we had, we haven't had much time to expound upon. We spoken more in the economics of the app and not necessarily the value add.
So I can see why that would be confusing, but it's certainly, I asked you up front for a story and the story you gave me was one from two years ago about trucking in a small business, not the use case you're just now describing, which is a totally different use case. It's a personal person paying to be pulled over to record and get other advantages.
Well, I mean, I think that's a little bit different of a use case. So We decided to add this feature based upon all the civil injustice issues that were happening last year. And so it was an initial feature that we weren't going to add, but because of the growing issues that were happening, we decided to sit down and say, okay, how can we fit this into what it is that we already have?
I gave the other issues because that was one of the first original issues that we had as a use case to see, okay, how do we make it to where regardless of what the legal issue is someone has, we can set up algorithms to where people can pinpoint an attorney per their jurisdiction or state to help them out. Yeah. What I'm challenging is not, do we need this?
It's how are you going to make money so you can reinvest to make it even better in engineers, et cetera. I don't know that you can convince residents in Atlanta, Georgia to pay $10 a month have this in their pocket so that they can use these, right? This is, this is what I'm challenging on, not the need to record every time being pulled over and the need to get counted quickly. I would love that.
We would all love that. So, you know, my thing is that, you know, we'll also have a free version, so it'll be limited. It'll be limited access to all the features, but you will be able to use some of it. And as it progresses,
this will be a place where attorneys and law firms will provide their legal services because legal services are moving from more of the brick and mortar and, hey, I need help. I know someone that needs an attorney and connecting you to more of a go to this place. And so the goal is by us moving everything to a central location where people can contact an attorney. That will be
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Chapter 5: How does Law Pocket differentiate from existing platforms like Google?
the value add and being able to do something. Because as of right now, when people need an attorney, it's a real scramble. And even if you ask an attorney for, well, do you know an attorney that can do this? They're only going to know X amount of attorneys in their network. But being able to pinpoint and say, hey, this is the place where you go for legal information.
That's where we're going to get people to be able to pay the monthly price to be able to be a part of the app. And then should they not want to be able to pay you know, $10 a month, then, you know, certainly people utilize the free version and that will provide enough traffic to where we can circumvent, you know, people to where they will need it.
And it's a new thing and it will take time, but I eventually will be able to get people on there. Yeah, look, I think it's a great idea. And anyone listening is going to agree with you and say, we absolutely need this. But the question is, is like execution, right? And so like, it's been two years, you've spent five grand of your own money, there's still no website launch.
And so that's what I want to push you on, because I'm excited about the idea. So I hope it does go live in October. I hope you get these 20 attorneys signed up. I hope you get your users, you go hustle there in Atlanta, Georgia, get some of these users signed up at 10 bucks a month. And when you get that first paying customer, come back on the show and let's celebrate, all right? Absolutely.
Thank you for having me on. All right, Jordan, thanks for coming on the top. Appreciate it. Take care. All right.
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