It is especially true of the professions that it takes an insider’s know-how to identify where innovation can be applied to maximum effect. And so it is that a former M&A lawyer is applying data, algorithms and new working habits to change the way we buy legal services.
Lexoo a digital market for legal services founded by Daniel van Binsbergen, brings lawyers with big-firm experience and expertise to the service of midsize companies at speed and at a significant discount.
Mr van Binsbergen recognises that more lawyers no longer want to become partners in big firms because “the hours and the politics put them off. I had a shortlist of great lawyers who wanted to practise law but in a different environment”. Critically, this environment could be miles from big cities and the high cost structures of larger firms. It might even be the kitchen table.
This insight in mind, he quit his job and started a business that took advantage of such changing preferences. At the heart of Lexoo are two semi-automated layers: the brief and the lawyer. The company identifies what experience and skills are required of each electronically-submitted brief and invites four matching lawyers to quote a fixed price within 24 hours.
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Detailed tagging of each job and each lawyer by the system enables an algorithm to pick the appropriate lawyers. This is then checked by a person. The more jobs the company processes the more accurate the algorithm becomes. Lexoo charges a 10 per cent commission on each job.
The original aim, Mr van Binsbergen says, “was disrupting larger midsize firms with a large cost structure doing small and midsize work. But we are finding that larger companies approach us”.
