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We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a

by justin 9y ago

We raised $10.5M for our legal technology company, Legal Technology Services (LTS). My cofounders of LTS who are lawyers, Augie Rakow and BeBe Chueh, started a firm called Atrium LLP. Atrium LLP is LTS' first customer, and allows us to reduce our development cycle on building that software. I am not a partner at Atrium LLP (and am not a lawyer, nor do I give legal advice). It's a complex story that has been a little misinterpreted and simplified.

bradleyjg 9y ago
Thanks for the reply, that makes a lot more sense than how the story was portrayed in the Post.
aswanson 9y ago
Quick question: for jury selection, do trial lawyers used a statistically tested line of inquiry for prospective jurors, or is it just seat-of-the-pants, intuition based selection?
- rayiner 9y ago
  They hire jury consultants, who do those things.
  - gargarplex 9y ago
    And the jury consultants, in turn, consult statistical tables. For example, one dimension they look at is authoritarianism. A person is deemed "authoritarian" if they are likely to side with the State in a criminal trial. I helped my buddy, who is an owner of a jury consulting firm, port one of the statistical tables to a ruby model. Here's the code, if you're curious. https://gist.github.com/zackster/ac3bca42c441f16cbf2b4895fdbb2abb https://gist.github.com/zackster/ac3bca42c441f16cbf2b4895fdb... We wanted to build software to democratize the jury selection process (and bring justice to all, not just those who could afford expensive jury consultants) but the marketing process was kind of challenging and the lawyers we reached out to were unresponsive. Also, jury consultants want to keep this knowledge a trade secret in order to justify their expensive fees despite these statistical tables being available for purchase by anyone who knows where to look.
- Digory 9y ago
  Somewhere in between. In many federal cases, there is little "picking" allowed. And where picking is allowed, it's mostly intuition. In large cases, jury consultants have typically been hired to use their intuition, with a scientific-sounding gloss, so the lawyers and corporate managers have someone to blame if something goes wrong. They were famous for proposing questions that were supposed to tip you off to something important, like "Does anyone here regularly fill out a crossword puzzle?" Given the tiny samples, it was difficult to have scientific questions, or to prove that the questions were bunk. (I am less jaded about trial consultants, who deal with argumentation, compared to the 'jury consultant' industry -- which famously gave us Dr. Phil). In today's mega-cases, the money is spent on rapid profiling of the potential jurors' actual opinions, using their public-facing social media. There's still lots of armchair psychology, but not as much based on bullcrap questions.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    The crossword puzzle question as quoted could be a logical/grammatical trick-question, because most people who know they don't don't know though if any one of all of them does.
ABCLAW 9y ago
Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the scope of what software does is not the practice of law. My concern is that in order to secure regulator approval for this position most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. Do you have any plans in place to mitigate the risk of crossing the line, and how will that inform your product development plans?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  Isn't this the same sort of quasi-entity that the patent troll firm that is suing Cloudflare is using? Not saying that what this gent is doing is even remotely as bad (or even really bad at all), but seems they are employing the same mechanism to skirt the regulations a bit.
- Mathnerd314 9y ago
  > most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. source?
  - ABCLAW 9y ago
    I work in the field, have money invested in the field and have spoken with both the organizations in question (as well as their compliance counsels) as well as their regulators. In law, new business models often are in violation, compliance wise, until they make the case that they shouldn't be. If the model is successful & profitable, they fight to change the rules and sometimes end up with a complete or partial victory in that campaign - this is largely a political fight at the bar. If not, they vanish and the lack of regulatory oversight is irrelevant. Can't give you more than that without going out of bounds. Reviewing Atrium's legal careers section, they clearly understand the need to monitor the regulatory environment with respect to compliance - see their lead counsel post. That said, I'd counsel justin not to reply to my question if I was advising him.
- Digory 9y ago
  AtriumLTS appears to be working on tools for lawyers, however; wouldn't you agree that's a much easier sell for regulators? As opposed to a LegalZoom or even Clerky model? Now, if they're trying to gin up some "big data" tools, and using Atrium-client data as inputs for those tools, that raises really sticky questions. There would need to be a whole lot of education and disclosure about to clients about AtriumLTS's access to, and use of, the client's information, and the profits generated from that. You just can't monetize lawyer-client relationships like you do in the finance field.
Mathnerd314 9y ago
It's not particularly complex compared to the structure of mutual funds: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1228.Morley.1287_zmw59iqn.pdf http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1228.Morley.1287_zmw59iqn....

by justin 9y ago

bradleyjg 9y ago

Thanks for the reply, that makes a lot more sense than how the story was portrayed in the Post.

aswanson 9y ago

Quick question: for jury selection, do trial lawyers used a statistically tested line of inquiry for prospective jurors, or is it just seat-of-the-pants, intuition based selection?

rayiner 9y ago
They hire jury consultants, who do those things.
- gargarplex 9y ago
  And the jury consultants, in turn, consult statistical tables. For example, one dimension they look at is authoritarianism. A person is deemed "authoritarian" if they are likely to side with the State in a criminal trial. I helped my buddy, who is an owner of a jury consulting firm, port one of the statistical tables to a ruby model. Here's the code, if you're curious. https://gist.github.com/zackster/ac3bca42c441f16cbf2b4895fdbb2abb https://gist.github.com/zackster/ac3bca42c441f16cbf2b4895fdb... We wanted to build software to democratize the jury selection process (and bring justice to all, not just those who could afford expensive jury consultants) but the marketing process was kind of challenging and the lawyers we reached out to were unresponsive. Also, jury consultants want to keep this knowledge a trade secret in order to justify their expensive fees despite these statistical tables being available for purchase by anyone who knows where to look.
Digory 9y ago
Somewhere in between. In many federal cases, there is little "picking" allowed. And where picking is allowed, it's mostly intuition. In large cases, jury consultants have typically been hired to use their intuition, with a scientific-sounding gloss, so the lawyers and corporate managers have someone to blame if something goes wrong. They were famous for proposing questions that were supposed to tip you off to something important, like "Does anyone here regularly fill out a crossword puzzle?" Given the tiny samples, it was difficult to have scientific questions, or to prove that the questions were bunk. (I am less jaded about trial consultants, who deal with argumentation, compared to the 'jury consultant' industry -- which famously gave us Dr. Phil). In today's mega-cases, the money is spent on rapid profiling of the potential jurors' actual opinions, using their public-facing social media. There's still lots of armchair psychology, but not as much based on bullcrap questions.
- posterboy 9y ago
  The crossword puzzle question as quoted could be a logical/grammatical trick-question, because most people who know they don't don't know though if any one of all of them does.

ABCLAW 9y ago

Justin, with respect, there are many organizations working within the structure that you've put together. All of them get by on the basis that they argue the scope of what software does is not the practice of law. My concern is that in order to secure regulator approval for this position most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. Do you have any plans in place to mitigate the risk of crossing the line, and how will that inform your product development plans?

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
Isn't this the same sort of quasi-entity that the patent troll firm that is suing Cloudflare is using? Not saying that what this gent is doing is even remotely as bad (or even really bad at all), but seems they are employing the same mechanism to skirt the regulations a bit.
Mathnerd314 9y ago
> most of these legal support contractors substantially misrepresent the scope and depth of the work they provide. source?
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  I work in the field, have money invested in the field and have spoken with both the organizations in question (as well as their compliance counsels) as well as their regulators. In law, new business models often are in violation, compliance wise, until they make the case that they shouldn't be. If the model is successful & profitable, they fight to change the rules and sometimes end up with a complete or partial victory in that campaign - this is largely a political fight at the bar. If not, they vanish and the lack of regulatory oversight is irrelevant. Can't give you more than that without going out of bounds. Reviewing Atrium's legal careers section, they clearly understand the need to monitor the regulatory environment with respect to compliance - see their lead counsel post. That said, I'd counsel justin not to reply to my question if I was advising him.
Digory 9y ago
AtriumLTS appears to be working on tools for lawyers, however; wouldn't you agree that's a much easier sell for regulators? As opposed to a LegalZoom or even Clerky model? Now, if they're trying to gin up some "big data" tools, and using Atrium-client data as inputs for those tools, that raises really sticky questions. There would need to be a whole lot of education and disclosure about to clients about AtriumLTS's access to, and use of, the client's information, and the profits generated from that. You just can't monetize lawyer-client relationships like you do in the finance field.

Mathnerd314 9y ago

It's not particularly complex compared to the structure of mutual funds: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1228.Morley.1287_zmw59iqn.pdf http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/1228.Morley.1287_zmw59iqn....