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Legal AI products have diverged: those designed to sell to BigLaw innovation committees, and those designed for end users. In BigLaw, there is no incentive to reduce billable hours with AI hidden behind the curtain. AI needs to be a PR play: show clients that the firm is innovative and not falling behind. Legal AI is so visible because every firm has been clamoring to make AI press releases for 2 years. This is the “evolutionary pressure” that drove companies like Harvey and Legora to simultaneously launch “Client Portals”—a way for law firm clients to log in and see the “innovation” first hand. We launched a client portal years ago, before our AI product, due to similar pressures. Clients hated it. They wanted to engage with their lawyers where they already work: email, Slack and Teams. After that experience, we committed to focusing Spellbook on the end users, the lawyers who would use us day-to-day to get work done. For many of our customers, there is no sales meeting or presentation. There is a 25 minute test drive. We focus less on top-down sales through committees, and more on bottom-up sales through delighted users. It’s a slower path. We prove value to users one by one rather than relying on selling top-down licenses across firms. But we think this subjects our product to better evolutionary pressure. With patience, we’ve grown to 4,000 in-house legal teams and law firm customers since 2022—more than Harvey and Legora combined, and we’ll soon cross $100m ARR. 4,000 customers who use us purely for the delight and utility of our product, who are rapidly expanding usage. This also forged an incredible fit with in-house legal teams, who need AI for the pure utility. AI buyers in every vertical should consider: “Should we buy AI designed to sell to the innovation committee, or to end users?” These approaches result in very different product DNA.
scottastevenson ↗