Too many attorneys nonetheless see their worth as tied to time. Extra hours. Extra stress. Extra inefficiency. What if we stopped treating authorized experience like a faucet and began treating it like an asset? Dorna Moini, CEO of Gavel, makes the case that scalable authorized merchandise are usually not simply the way forward for observe; they’re the important thing to sustainability, profitability, and goal. For those who’re nonetheless billing hour by hour, you’re leaving affect and revenue on the desk.
Watch the complete “Notes to My (Authorized) Self” episode with Dorna right here:
The Lawyer Who Constructed Her Method Out Of The Billable Hour
Dorna didn’t got down to disrupt legislation. She began with a home violence case. “I noticed how a lot of the early section of these circumstances was rules-based and repetitive,” she mentioned. “I needed one thing like TurboTax, however for home violence.”
So she constructed it. That prototype advanced into Gavel, a no-code automation suite that lets attorneys remodel authorized companies into modular instruments: issues that run whilst you sleep, that serve individuals at scale, and that ship consistency with much less guide elevate.
Her turning level was deeply private. One shopper, a home violence survivor, was “above the revenue threshold for authorized support however couldn’t afford personal counsel.” She was left to navigate trauma and the authorized system alone. That, Dorna mentioned, “was the second I noticed this isn’t only a poverty challenge. It’s a middle-class justice disaster too.”
From Repetition To Income: Why Authorized Merchandise Scale
Authorized information compounds. So why don’t authorized enterprise fashions?
Conventional observe assumes one shopper, one case, one end result. Scalable authorized merchandise flip that. They bundle experience as soon as and promote it time and again. This isn’t concept. It’s occurring in Arkansas, the place household lawyer Brandon Haubert constructed and launched ArkansasLawNow.com to serve the state’s 3 million residents with correct, rules-based custody and divorce instruments.
Biglaw wouldn’t contact it. Too small. Too native. However for the households who want it, it’s the distinction between truthful entry and whole overwhelm. And for Brandon? It’s a second income stream, a branding platform, and a strategy to serve shoppers who in any other case would fall by way of the cracks.
“These instruments don’t change attorneys,” Dorna defined. “They free attorneys to spend time the place it issues on technique, empathy, and judgment.”
Why The Proper Workflows Make Flat Charges Work
Flat charges are solely worthwhile when supply is environment friendly. Most aren’t. That’s why some attorneys nonetheless resist them. However automation modifications that math. When consumption, doc technology, and fundamental steerage are rules-based and repeatable, a flat-fee mannequin stops being a danger. It turns into a strategic edge.
Dorna’s crew has seen companies construct instruments that automate divorce packets, eviction responses, and industrial lease evaluations. One lawyer used Gavel to construct a dynamic SOW generator for in-house groups. These are usually not one-off initiatives. They’re monetizable belongings.
“You may scale with out burning out,” she mentioned. “You construct as soon as. You then earn usually.”
Productization Isn’t Tech. It’s a Technique.
The commonest objection Dorna hears: “However I’m not technical.”
Her reply: You don’t must be.
Gavel is a no-code platform. You outline the logic. The platform handles the remainder. You already know the if-then guidelines. You employ them in each consumption assembly and redline session. The one shift is codifying that judgment into reusable pathways.
Guidelines-based automation is finest for structured logic and compliance-heavy workflows. Generative AI helps when creativity or redlining nuance is required. The neatest attorneys use each, strategically, inside outlined boundaries.
This mirrors the contract world we navigate at TermScout. Our licensed contracts, standardized clause libraries, and transparency layers operate the identical means. Authorized turns into infrastructure when it’s structured. And construction scales.
Construct Like A Lawyer, Not A Startup
You don’t want to go away legislation to construct.
You don’t want to boost capital.
You don’t want a dev crew.
What you want is a shift in mindset. One which sees repeat questions as design prompts. One which treats each well-worn playbook as a chance for systematization. One which stops tying worth to time and begins tying it to repeatable perception.
As Dorna put it: “Know-how gained’t change attorneys. However attorneys who use know-how will change those that don’t.”
The economics of legislation are altering. The builders are already profitable. Your transfer.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, the place she builds authorized programs that make contracts quicker to know, simpler to function, and extra reliable in actual enterprise circumstances. Her work focuses on how authorized guidelines allocate energy, handle danger, and form selections below uncertainty. A serial CEO and former Normal Counsel, Olga beforehand led a authorized know-how firm by way of acquisition by LexisNexis. She teaches at Berkeley Regulation and is a Fellow at CodeX, the Stanford Heart for Authorized Informatics. She has authored a number of books on authorized innovation and know-how, delivered six TEDx talks, and her insights frequently seem in Forbes, Bloomberg Regulation, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Above the Regulation. Throughout her work, she treats legislation as infrastructure, one thing that needs to be dependable, legible, and deliberately designed for the way organizations really function.
