In conversation with the founders of
LawSolva, an open platform for everyone to discuss and enquire about their “legal queries”. A team of a LLB graduate and two techies, LawSolva is a legal – tech startup wherein the founding team, Amandeep Kakkar, Paras Vij and Abhay Panwar fit into their roles perfectly.
Developing a platform for the people who are stuck in a legal soup and also the ones who are seeking advice for their personal or professional requirements, the founders interact with Shikha Abrol of BW Disrupt sharing how they are trying to act as a bridge between the ignorance of legal knowledge among the laymen. Sharing about the hesitance of people in connecting with a lawyer and the geographical and time constraints present in the legal system, let’s explore more about their entrepreneurial journey and their platform LawSolva:
How did this idea of starting Lawsolva strike? After graduating as a computer engineer in 2012, Amandeep Kakkar started pursuing L.L.B from Panjab University. During his internship in 2013 at High court, Chandigarh the engineer within couldn’t ignore the roof-touching piles of paperwork. In the coming days he realized that the only medium the client had to reach the lawyer was through references viz., lawyers, friends or relatives in court. A vital need of a digital platform to make the lawyer directly accessible to the client was felt .There had to be an ecosystem where hassle-free legal solutions could be provided and received. The internship was over but the idea stuck. He discussed this thought with, Paras Vij, a full time techie, during a weekend visit to Chandigarh. Initial brainstorming sessions led to the completion of the founding team. Abhay Panwar, who is techie too, an old pal from engineering college, was roped into the team. Further discussions led to the refinement of the platform which widened the scope of idea. It took us Almost 3 months to reach a valid Business Plan and strategy.
We are very keen on understanding the background of the founding team. Coming from such a diverse backgrounds, how did an idea like this interest you?We are all engineers at heart and nothing beats the kick we get in solving real life problems. After a lot of research, we figured that the problems in the legal domain need to be addressed through technology. We have blended our legal knowledge and technical expertise to build LawSolva. We keep apprising our knowledge with our day to day experiences.
What are your key focus areas and what is the kind of traction that you have been able to generate?Right now Lawsolva is in its first cycle of Services. In the first cycle we have targeted Online and Offline Appointments along with Legal Platform where people can put their legal queries and get answers by Legal Experts registered on our platform. We have got a very promising response with over 700 lawyers from 45+ cities across India. On an average we receive 10 queries everyday by users through offline and online mode.
While your journey as a mediator between connecting individuals, companies and lawyers, what are the skills that you have learnt with time which you could not have learnt otherwise?The biggest thing that we have learned during this journey is Time and Resource Management. With Abhay and Paras still pursuing their Master’s it was a big challenge to manage everything. Paras used to operate from Patiala while Abhay and Aman were in Chandigarh so the team was distributed. When it’s your product it’s like your child you always feel proud about it and always try to nurture it in a way that it becomes better with time. Interacting with people and telling about our idea has been one of the proud things for the members as well as challenging.
How would you compare a law startup scenario with other startups?The Indian users do extensive goods ordering through eCommerce portals, but availing of online legal services is still in the initial stage. The conventional way to reach to a lawyer has always been through personal references. Also the need of legal advice is not as recurring as compared to hiring taxis or ordering food. Online legal ecosystem as of now is a flourishing concept in the Indian routine.
There is hesitation in a section of society to connect with a lawyer. However a person should always be vigilant about his legal safety. People are getting more aware by the day about their legal rights and they sure understand the importance of a good legal counsel. With 17 lakh people filing cases in Indian courts every month and 3.3 crore cases are pending in the courts. This takes the total cost incurred by litigants to a whopping 30,000 crores INR. With approximately 15 lakh lawyers in India and large number of litigants the scope of advancing in this domain is enormous.
It’s been almost a year now! How difficult was the first year and what has changed from the time of inception to now. If you could share about how did you manage your funding then and how it is done now?First year was a very challenging time. With a distributed team we used to sit down every weekend to plan out every strategy for next week. Now team has finally united and we are glad to be incubated by PEC University Incubator, Chandigarh. In the first year we have been able to achieve our milestones from technology as well as operations perspective. With only 3 people working currently there has been a lot of tasks with each person holding multiple roles.
We have been bootstrapping as of now we make well thought conclusions before taking any step which has helped us stay frugal till now.
Are you looking at providing some work opportunities as well? If yes, what will they be like?Yes we are looking to increase our team. We are looking to hire people with different expertise. Opportunities that people can expect will be in Sales, Marketing, Operations, Legal and Technology.
What is your vision for LawSolva for the next five years? What is the next phase that you are looking at? In the next 5 years we will be looking forward to increase our client base and area reach. Many new services will be added to the eco-system.
As per you, what are the key things that you feel will be required to keep the growth sustained?In today’s scenario people look for quality services at affordable prices. We will continue to launch new services on the platform. Along with that, we are flexible to cater the demands of the users.
We have always tried to put innovation in whatever we do be it launching one of its Profile Strength Algorithm for proving ratings to Lawyers or Making Appointment Scheduling System, we always try to enrich our users with services that help them in getting right solution easily.
What have been your takeaways as an entrepreneur and what would be your message to all the young entrepreneurs out there?As entrepreneurs we got to taste different flavors of life. We get to handle multiple roles at the same time which are not limited to our resume. Most importantly you have something that you can call your own and every day you wake up to nurture it to become better.
As Raghuram Rajan quotes “You are rarely happy simply because you are successful, but you are much more likely to be successful if you are happy, doing work you enjoy” .Following your passion is the best thing one can do. If you want to become an entrepreneur, be passionate about whatever you do.
