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Legal tech traditionally moves slowly, but the AI revolution is accelerating change. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Responsiv founder Jordan Domash shared insights on building and selling AI-powered legal tools to a notoriously risk-averse market.

Building legal tech requires deep workflow understanding rather than just technical expertise. “The market in general talks about legal as one problem. In reality its several major categories and even within those categories there are very specific workflows,” Jordan explains. “Discovery is one major problem, contracting is another category, diligence transactions is another.”

This insight shaped Responsiv’s focused approach: targeting in-house counsel rather than law firms. While established players like Westlaw and LexisNexis serve as comprehensive libraries for law firms, Jordan identified that in-house teams needed something different. “Our early users are folks that use west law or LexisNexis early in their career… now they’re on a small team, they’re in a senior role, and they dread having to go back into a platform like that.”

The go-to-market strategy deliberately started small. Responsiv began with design partners from Jordan’s network in legal technology, then let word-of-mouth drive growth. “Most of the new customers that we’ve signed in the past month or two have come from referrals from existing customers,” he notes. “We haven’t done any marketing. We just had our first salesperson start this week.”

This organic growth stems from solving a specific pain point: in-house counsel often call outside lawyers for basic legal information, spending thousands unnecessarily. “They don’t have the basic information to make a decision on a legal topic,” Jordan explains. “So they pick up the phone, call outside counsel, spend $1,000, $2,000, because there isn’t really an alternative.”

The AI component adds complexity to the sales process. While AI has been present in legal tech for a decade, selling AI-powered tools to lawyers requires careful navigation of their concerns. “There’s incredible interest and it’s really easy to get a attorney to take a demo of what we’re building. But at the same time there’s a natural concern for folks that aren’t really close to the underlying tech.”

These concerns center on two main issues: hallucination risk and data privacy. Lawyers worry about “making a wrong decision based on the information that the AI potentially hallucinated” and whether they can “share potentially confidential and privileged and private information.”

Responsiv’s early traction has focused on two key customer segments: regulated industries with complex legal needs and high-growth tech companies facing new challenges daily. This targeting helped them grow despite keeping their product behind a waitlist. As Jordan notes, “We have a bunch of paying customers happily using the product, but we haven’t really turned on our go to market motion yet.”

The challenge now is differentiation from traditional legal research. “When you tell an attorney, oh, you’re building a legal research tool, they think Westlaw, they think about one of the platforms that’s been around for a long time that’s really targeting those big law firms and not something far silk lawyer that we’re building today.”

For founders entering legal tech, Jordan emphasizes the importance of deep workflow understanding over pure technical capability. “I don’t know if they have a appreciation for the complexity of some of these really narrow workflows. And it takes a long time to get up to speed on what you really need to deliver around the product to actually be used by a legal team or an attorney.”

Actionable
Takeaways

Leverage Diverse Experiences for Innovation:

Jordan's journey from consulting to a significant tenure at a leading legal tech firm and then founding Responsiv highlights the value of drawing on diverse experiences to identify gaps and opportunities in the market. Founders should seek exposure across different roles and industries to fuel innovative thinking.

Understand and Address Niche Market Needs:

Responsiv’s focus on solving specific problems for in-house attorneys underscores the importance of deeply understanding the unique challenges of your target market. Founders should conduct thorough research to pinpoint precise pain points and tailor their solutions accordingly.

Prioritize User-Friendly Solutions in Complex Industries:

The legal industry's traditional reliance on cumbersome research tools like Westlaw and LexisNexis reveals an opportunity for more user-friendly, technology-driven solutions. Founders in complex sectors should focus on simplifying processes for their users, enhancing accessibility, and improving efficiency.

Build with Scalability and Adaptability in Mind:

Responsiv’s strategy to cater to in-house legal teams across various industries and company sizes demonstrates the need for scalable and adaptable solutions. Founders should design products that can grow with their customers’ evolving needs and accommodate a broad user base.

Emphasize Thought Leadership and Education:

Jordan’s plans for thought leadership in legal tech highlight the importance of educating the market about new technologies and methodologies. Founders should invest in content and initiatives that position their company as a knowledgeable authority, helping to build trust and foster adoption among target customers.

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