LegalKart is an India-based technology platform that helps lawyers manage their legal practices. The firm uses artificial intelligence to connect qualified clients to lawyers — thereby helping lawyers build and grow their practices
In this interview with Asia Law Portal, LegalKart Founder and CEO – Dr. Arvind Singhatiya explains why he founded LegalKart, why it’s received significant recent venture capital funding, and the firm’s goals for the future.
LegalKart is reported to be growing quickly amid a recent round of funding from angel investors. What accounts for this popularity among legal consumers, lawyers and investors?
LegalKart was formed with the objective of providing a credible platform where clients and lawyers can interact. The incredible support our app has received from lawyers across the nation led us to achieve funding within 3 months of its launch. Post-funding, LegalKart’s reach grew more than 200% and is now available in 300+ cities with more than 3500 Lawyers & growing every day. Ease of use, vernacular interface and on-demand availability of Lawyers are some of the biggest reasons for it.
Legalkart’s Client-App (available on Play store & App Store) lets clients explain their concerns in their own language with a 30 second voice note – thus enabling individuals to connect with qualified professional lawyers anywhere in India. This Voice note will then be heard/read by all the lawyers available on the app and they can accept & reach out to the client in real time. Individuals who have active legal cases can also ask their lawyers to use the LegalKart app to share real-time case updates & documents with them — hence there is transparency in all client-attorney communications. Lawyers can raise invoices and clients can pay on LegalKart which help lawyers manage their finances. Legalkart Apps are using Artificial Intelligence to help individuals identify & connect with appropriate lawyers & help lawyers manage their legal practice in all the courts in India.
What led you to found and lead LegalKart?
Every challenge that we face is a hidden opportunity. In my 12 years of professional experience with various corporations, I experienced serious challenges due to the unavailability of legal professionals in different parts of the country and sometimes at international destinations, too. That feeling when you can see that the problem is obvious but there is no solution available inspired me to explore possible solutions. I am not a lawyer but have always managed lawyers and clients hence; I was able to visualize the challenge as a third party and identify the key bottlenecks with the help of my founding partner and CTO Partha Sen — using appropriate technology solutions. The only objective we had in our minds was to create an access to a reliable legal professional on demand and this led to the concept of LegalKart.
What legal services does LegalKart offer consumers? And what legal specialisms do the lawyers utilizing the platform focus on?
LegaKart is not a legal service provider nor does it solicit any kind of legal service — but it is a technology platform that facilitates legal service providers through its technology to manage their legal practice.
LegalKart uses artificial intelligence to connect qualified clients to the lawyers helping them to build and grow their practice. A first of its kind in India wherein a lawyer can manage cases, clients, teams and finances in one place. A majority lawyers on LegalKart are using its unique features like voice notes, live case updates, lawyers collaborative network, client connect and one click financial management. Lawyers on LegalKart are providing all kind of legal support and services to the LegalKart user clients including case support, legal advice, documentation etc.
There are an increasing number of online sources of legal assistance. What makes LegalKart unique?
In India more than 95% of the legal sector is unorganized and out of 15 Lakh registered legal professionals only 3-4% are using any kind of technology. With this backdrop all the current available legal assistance technologies are focused on the 4% of the current tech users in all metro cities.
LegalKart is focusing on the rest of the 95% untapped legal professionals & building technology solutions to cater to them & bring them to mainstream technology usage. Easy to use interface, availability of all legal forums, vernacular language integration & local client connect are some of the striking features which are making LegalKart unique. With its reach in more than 300 cities, LegalKart has made inroads in the entire tier I, II & III cities.
What are LegalKart’s goals for the near term, medium term and long term?
We at LegalKart would like to metamorphise into a self-sustaining legal-tech ecosystem where in a few years LegalKart will be synonymous with access to reliable lawyers. In the short to medium term we are pushing technology awareness & sensitization among all the independent practicing lawyers & investing our time & money in creating access to reliable legal professional for the masses. We aim to be present in more than 1500 cities with more than 25,000 lawyers on our platform within the next two years.
Do you have any plans to expand beyond India’s market? If so, where?
We have ambitious plans and are looking at Europe & South East Asia in the short to medium term to expand our technology reach and to cater to a global audience.
