This entrepreneur is disrupting legal services space by democratising it

Arvind Singhatiya's firm, LegalKart, today connects 150,000 individual and business customers across 20,000 pin codes in 900 cities and districts to a community of 10,000 lawyers

Arvind Singhatiya is the typical entrepreneur who chucked up a pretty cushy career as a legal advisor at companies such as Essel Group, Ola Cabs, and Metro Cash-and-Carry, to start LegalKart in 2019, an enterprise with a mission to democratise legal services in much the same way as Practo has done in the health care space.

The 40-year-old with a Masters in Business Law from a leading Indian law school and honours in Sanskrit literature says his LegalKart app today connects 150,000 individuals and businesses to a community of 10,000-odd lawyers across 20,000 pin codes in 900 cities and districts.

"At LegalKart, we aim to democratise legal access and make it convenient and affordable without compromising on quality. We visualise a future in which LegalKart will be a destination technology platform for anything legal for individuals and lawyers in India," Singhatiya says. 

But the going wasn't easy initially. Singhatiya says legal technology penetration in India is much lower than in the US and Europe, with less than two per cent lawyers using technology and 0.1 per cent taking online legal support. "India is currently at the bottom of the legal tech tally of global players. The corona pandemic catalysed the growth of technology adoption across the globe and the legal sector was the biggest beneficiary of it," he asserts.

"Acquiring the first customers was a work of art, not logical science. We had neither a sheet of data to pull from, nor existing well defined segments from where we could have done very target marketing. We tested different methods to 'see what sticks'. We reached out to our network of known lawyers and friends pitched the product to them and shared the pilot app with them," says Singhatiya. 

Phone calls, chats, google forms and mails were his initial tools to identify demand. That helped him get his first few App users. 

How the model works:

LegalKart's value proposition consists of three verticals--legal advice, documentation and Lawyer SaaS (Lawyer Practice Management). "We are niche in advice and documentation and differ significantly from our competition like Rocketlawyer.com, Clio.com and LegalZoom.com in terms of products and delivery of services," Singhatiya says. 

Legal advice: One can consult three lawyers in a 15-minute slot for a fee of Rs 600. Based on the advice received, the customer can choose a lawyer from the three if he wishes, to represent him in court or offer other services. Singhatiya claims Legalkart does about 50,000 minutes a month currently, up from 2,000 hours in April 2021.

He adds that LegalKart’s advice is a self learning algorithm that learns from customer feedback. "It will always connect you with the best available lawyer based on your requirements 24x7, 365 days. Thre is no human intervention for these smart matched consultations, which are completely automated. In the last financial year we sold more than 250,000 minutes and growth is significantly faster than we expected," Singhatiya says. 

One can even consult in any of 10 Indian languages available on the app. 

Documentation: This, claims Singhatiya, is a rapidly growing segment, with over 100,000 pages delivered so far. He adds that it is a very affordable and convenient way to get any document drafted or reviewed. He says his firm charges Rs 100 per page for drafting and Rs 70 per page for review.

Documentation is simple and affordable on LegalKart, he adds. With a turnaround time of 48 hours, one can get a high quality document of any kind drafted, along with legal advice on using it appropriately. "We have a unique review product that helps users walk through complex legal documents before they make any decision on it with the help of an expert. This happens within just four hours, saving a huge amount of time and money for the customers," says Singhatiya.

Lawyer Saas: This is a subscription-based SaaS under which any Lawyer can register by uploading his bar Council ID. LegalKart’s Lawyer SaaS help professionals manage their practice and access enquiries from all over India. "With more than 10,000 registered lawyers, Lawyer SaaS is one of the most sort after Lawyer software in India," Singhatiya claims. 

"Consumer feedback is critical for all deliveries happening on our platform. All the lawyers can see their star rating in their app and always strive to deliver their best to retain their higher ratings. We have rare instances of refunds, and these are mostly due to the technical errors where a customer is not able to avail services," says Singhatiya. 

Lawyers are evaluated by the algorithm which maps customer feedback on multiple attributes of service delivery such as understanding of the subject matter, articulation and quality of service delivery, he adds. 

Singhatiya claims the star ratings achieve two purposes. The first is to keep lawyers on their toes as the bad rating would mean less business, in much  the same way as it does in the area of hospitality and medical services. The second is to allow the platform to blacklist professionals with a bad track record.

The technology:

The 15-member strong tech research and development team in Kolkata is led by Partha Sen, Chief Technology Officer of the company. Singhatiya says the LegalKart software is proprietary, and is based on advanced technology with the backend on AWS servers, which are among the safest in the world to protect the system and scale it to the next level. Considerable development has already been achieved in artificial intelligence and machine learning modules to build smart documentation products that will cut drafting and reviewing time manifols, saving time and cost.

Customers can currrently choose to consult a lawyer over a video call or audio call. We have a consumer mobile app for this facility, Legalkart Consumer, which can be downloaded from App Store and Play Store. 

Financial performance:

Singhatiya claims his enterprise logged in an ARR of about Rs two crore for the 12-month period ended December 31, 2021. LegalKart has broken even operationally and hopes to achieve financial break even by December 2022.

Says Singhatiya: "LegalKart’s platform is gaining traction due to its innovative tech-enabled, affordable and neutral legal advice which is available 24x7. With a strong 25 per cent month-on-month growth we hope to double our customer based every quarter. Based on customer requirements, we create product offerings like instant legal advice; document reviewed, property due diligence and startup compliances." 

Funding:

LegalKart has raised about Rs 7.5 crore so far, of which Rs 3.5 crore seed came in October 2019 from Pranay Jivrajaka, former CEO of Ola Foods and currently CEO, Allo Healthcare; Pallav Singh, CEO, Numen Health Care, and a host of other angels.

The firm also raised pre-Series A funding of Rs 4 crore this January, from Mumbai Angels, ShitAlt Capital, AEVITAS Capital and IIM Udaipur Incubation Center.

Says Nandini Mansinghka, Co-Founder & CEO, Mumbai Angels: “Legal-tech in India is a late bloomer, but a rapidly growing sector, optimising legal processes and operations for businesses with unique solutions... LegalKart has been instrumental in bringing about an efficient legal-tech system. We're confident that the freshly infused capital will allow them to scale and reach greater heights.”

Future plans

Singhatiya says LegalKart seeks to metamorphose into a self-sustaining legal-tech ecosystem. "Just as today taxi means Ola, a few years down the line LegalKart will mean reliable lawyer--that is our vision. We are pushing tech awareness and sensitisation among all independent practicing lawyers, and are investing time and money to build access to a reliable ecosystem of legal professionals for the masses. We aim to be present in over 1,500 cities with more than 25,000 lawyers on our platform in the next few years."

"Our goal is to provide convenient access to any legal support at affordable prices. In the next 3-5 years, we'd like to build a strong ecosystem of legal support services wherein users and service providers can interact seamlessly across geographical boundaries. We'd like to become the Amazon of legal. Going public is too early to think about at this time," Singhatiya says. 

Covid impact

Singhatiya says the pandemic provided a crucial push to consumers and lawyers to adopt technology. "While the growth was catalysed by coronavirus, it is now permanent and now we are seeing ourselves walking shoulder-to-shoulder with mainstream businesses that can scale to become the next big business opportunity globally. Our revenues during the pandemic period surged 115 per cent. All the product lines were growing unhindered during the 2021 lockdown," he adds. 

LegalKart and real estate due diligence

Singhatiya explains that in any property investment, legal verification is the most critical aspect. "At LegalKart we have standard priced products such as the Property Report, which is a detailed due-diligence assessment of any property in India. We also offer sale agreement-related reviews, drafting services and property registration. During the process of buying and registering a property, verification is the first step before you decide to move ahead with the purchase." 

Sighatiya sats most buyers spend months--first asking for and trying to procure the humongous load of documents, and then spending more time, effort and money in trying to check them for authenticity. "With LegalKart’s Property Verification service, you can get all the documents checked quickly, easily and conveniently from the comfort of your home. Expert lawyers spend time to draft impeccable property documents and provide on ground support for registration of any property."

He says these services are quite popular with NRIs, many of whom show keen interest in Indian real estate, but are either not that familiar with local laws or do not have the wherewithal to do due diligence long distance.