Legal tech startups: problems we solve
27 problems legal tech startups bring us, each with the cause, what it costs and what we build to fix it.
Legal tech startups problems
27 articlesHow Does a Legal Tech Startup Get Through a Law Firm's Security Questionnaire?
Law firm IT and risk teams send legal tech vendors long questionnaires on confidentiality and AI use. We build the controls, evidence and answers they expect.
Every Law Firm Runs a Different Practice Management System. How Do We Integrate With Them?
Legal tech startups lose deals when they cannot connect to a firm's practice management system. We build a matter-centred layer with an adapter per system.
How Do We Charge Law Firms per Fee Earner When Nobody Agrees Who Counts?
Legal tech startups pricing per fee earner end up arguing over trainees, secretaries and part-timers. We build clear seat rules, usage counts and billing sync.
Why Do Our Law Firm Pilots Stay With the Innovation Team and Never Roll Out?
Legal tech pilots stall when the innovation team likes the product but practice groups never adopt it. We build pilot measures and matter-level evidence.
Law Firms Want Our Outputs Saved in iManage or NetDocuments. How Do We Build That Properly?
Legal tech products that cannot save to iManage or NetDocuments leave documents outside the matter file. We build integration with filing rules.
How Do We Move a Law Firm's Matters Off Their Old Case Management System Into Ours?
Law firms will not move matters off an old case management system unless key dates and ledgers provably survive. We build mapping, date checks and sign-off.
How Do We Support Fee Earners Who Email the Founder Instead of Reading the Guide?
Legal tech support falls on founders when fee earners email them directly with one-line problems. We build in-product help, ticket context and safe triage.
How Do We Make Our Product Respect a Law Firm's Ethical Walls on Every Matter?
Legal tech products that search across matters can breach a firm's information barriers. We build matter-level access that follows the firm's ethical walls.
We Want to Add a New AI Provider. How Do We Tell Every Law Firm Customer Properly?
Legal tech startups adding a new AI or hosting provider usually owe law firms notice of sub-processor changes. We build a register and per-firm notices.
A Law Firm Wants to Know Which AI Draft a Fee Earner Checked. Can We Show Them?
Law firms ask legal tech vendors who generated an AI draft, from what sources, and who reviewed it. We build an audit trail for every AI output and edit.
One Firm Only Allows Azure OpenAI, Another Bans It. How Do We Serve Both?
Law firms approve different AI providers and regions, and legal tech vendors must follow each one. We build per-firm model routing and region control.
Why Do Time Entries From Our Product Fail to Post to the Firm's Billing System?
Legal tech products that record time lose firm trust when entries fail to post to practice management. We build validation, retries and a failed-entry queue.
The Firm's IT Team Says No Sign-On Through Entra ID, No Deal. How Do We Add It?
Law firm IT teams refuse legal tech products without single sign-on and automatic user provisioning. We build Entra ID SSO, SCIM provisioning and role mapping.
Why Won't the Law Firm's IT Team Deploy Our Outlook Add-In?
Legal tech Outlook add-ins stall when firm IT will not approve permissions or deployment. We build least-privilege add-ins with central deployment.
Our Generated Documents Break the Firm's Numbering and Styles in Word. How Do We Fix It?
Legal tech products that generate Word documents break firm numbering, styles and clause references. We build output on the firm's own templates.
The Firm Bought Licences for Every Fee Earner. Why Is Hardly Anyone Using Our Product?
Law firms buy legal tech licences for every fee earner, then few use them. We build adoption tracking by practice group and in-workflow prompts.
Why Does Setting Up Each Law Firm's Precedents in Our Product Take Weeks of Manual Work?
Legal tech onboarding stalls when each firm's precedents and clause banks are loaded by hand. We build precedent import with variable detection and review.
Every Law Firm Wanted Its Own Workflow. Now Our Code Is Full of Special Cases. What Now?
Legal tech startups that say yes to every firm's workflow end up with code full of firm-specific cases. We build a configuration model to replace them.
A Firm Says Our AI Got a Clause Wrong. How Do We Show What Happened and Stop It Recurring?
When a law firm says your AI misread a clause, you need evidence and a fix. We build source citations, confidence flags and an evaluation set.
We Improved a Model and a Firm Complained the Results Changed. How Should We Ship Changes?
Law firms validate a legal tech product's outputs, then an update changes them without warning. We build version pinning, change notes and per-firm switch-over.
The Managing Partner Wants to Know What Our Product Delivered This Year. What Do We Show?
Legal tech contracts come up for review and the managing partner asks what the product delivered. We build matter-level reporting by practice group.
Firms Will Not Put Real Client Documents Into a Trial. How Do We Let Them Test Properly?
Law firms will not load real client matters into a legal tech trial. We build trial sandboxes with realistic synthetic matters and the firm's own precedents.
Our Product Times Out on Big Court Bundles and Scanned Files. How Do We Handle Them?
Legal tech products fail on large scanned bundles and disclosure sets that time out mid-upload. We build queued processing, OCR, chunking and progress tracking.
Our Product Went Down During a Firm's Busy Day. How Should We Handle Incidents From Now On?
Legal tech outages turn into trust problems when law firm IT hears nothing for hours. We build monitoring, a status page, incident updates and written reports.
A Firm Is Leaving and Wants Proof We Have Deleted Their Data. Can We Give It?
Law firms leaving a legal tech product want their data returned and proof of deletion. We build per-firm export, full deletion and a deletion record.
Our Support Team Needs to See the Problem. How Do They Do It Without Seeing Client Documents?
Legal tech support staff often need to see what a fee earner sees, but not privileged content. We build consented, time-limited, logged support access.
Our AI Keeps Drafting From Old Precedents. How Do Knowledge Lawyers Control What It Uses?
Legal tech AI drafts from outdated or unapproved precedents when knowledge lawyers have no control. We build curated sources, approval states and retirement.