LegalDocs is a Mumbai-based AI-start-up that was established in 2016 for making CA, CS and lawyer services as easy as ordering from an e-commerce website
Gauravkumar Kate, CEO of LegalDocs established the start-up after his tryst with what he calls the mundane process of trying to get legal documents starting from his rental agreement to the marriage certificate. “After getting married I had to go through mundane documentation like rent agreement registration, marriage registration, name change etc. It was a nightmare for me because there was a lack of information about how to get these documents and from where to get it,” Gaurav says about his struggle which prompted him to think differently.
Gaurav, who previously worked as an Innovation and Product Development Manager immediately saw a business opportunity there and went on to establish the start-up along with brother Makarand Kate with their friend Shrishail Thote.
Soon after its commencement, LegalDocs started working with SMEs who were facing problems related to accounting and legal matters. “We understood that SMEs are facing more problems in these areas and so we started helping SMEs through our professional marketplace,” Gaurav says.
Through LegalDocs, the three primary steps of legal documentation such as drafting, paying stamp duty and document validation can more or less be outsourced to Gaurav’s team. All the customer needs to do is to go online and opt for the service that they need.
AI At The Core
According to Gaurav, some of the biggest challenges that individuals and business face is to find legitimate CA, CS and law professionals. More often, there are fraudsters who loot the customers and do not get the work done on time as well.
So taking these factors into consideration, the inbuilt AI algorithms within LegalDocs will enable the customers to avail verified legal documents at a predetermined rate, thus solving the problem of discovery and right pricing. AI is also leveraged to draft regular legal documents like employee agreements, vendor agreements, non-disclosure agreements and cheque bounce, thus democratising the processes along the way.
“At the core of LegalDocs platform is a proprietary AI algorithm for matchmaking and tracking of customer satisfaction. At a point of time, if a customer is not happy or have any issues with the professional, she or he can request for change of professionals. This solves the problem of communication and progress tracking,” says Gaurav.
To make their platform more robust, the team has studied over 5000 drafts to train the AI with each draft. Though the system is currently at a testing phase, Gaurav’s team hopes to make it available for the public from January 2019.
An AI-Enabled Backbone
The application of AI cut-across LegalDoc’s platform right from understanding customer preferences to procuring customer feedback. Here are the four main areas where AI has been leveraged.
– LegalDocs’s major product development revolves around simplicity and process automation.
-AI help them understand customer requirements and product offerings are customised based on the algorithm.
-AI also help in matchmaking. Based on customer requirement suitable professional is chosen for them. In order to do this, the AI matrix goes through more than 50+ parameters to get the best possible match.
-Feedback and performance improvement metrics for professionals is driven by AI algorithms.
The Road Ahead
Within just two years of its inception, LegalDocs has already carved a niche in the legal tech domain. Presently their client base includes Swiggy, Zomato, Nestaway, No broker, Lodha Group, Rustomgee for various CA, CS and legal requirements across seven metro cities in India.
Under the watchful eye of Ex Infosys CEOs S D Shibulal and S Gopalakrishnan, the start-up’s revenue has grown substantially and presently serve more than 50,000 customers.
In the future, the start-up plans to turn itself into a business consultancy and capture more than 10% market share and emerge as a market leader in CA, CS and legal services.
