The Future of Legal Tech - South Summit
A finalist at South Summit’s 2023’s start-up competition, Avinash Tripathi - self-described as a “Lawyer by training, entrepreneur by choice” - is looking to revolutionise the way the profession operates. He shared with us his thoughts on the importance of a common language, good communication and people skills.
Background …
As one of the largest start-up events in the world, South Summit brings together entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policymakers to showcase the latest developments in the world of entrepreneurship and technology. We were honoured to be a part of South Summit Madrid 2023, spending 3 days among inspiring leaders in the field of tech, attending fascinating talks and listening to pitches from the start-up competition finalists. We were very excited to speak to finalist Avinash Tripathi, after his fascinating pitch about the future of technology in the legal profession. In his engaging pitch, Avinash highlighted how the introduction of Artificial Intelligence can revolutionise the way the profession operates and we wanted to find out more!
About Avinash…
After graduating with a BBA in Intellectual Property, Corporate and Services law, Avinash continued his passion for entrepreneurship, where he founded 3 start-ups in ed tech, social networking and e-commerce. He continued this alongside an impressive legal career - running an education institution and working closely with law firms to understand what they look for.
Tell us about how your start-up began?
We started amto.ai last November 2022, I used to teach Indian law students and lawyers about how to be employment ready. The Indian education system is not doing a great job in teaching the practical skills needed. I was liaising with law firms to understand what they’re looking for in a fresh hire. I was amazed by how easy it was to train the AI, and how easy it was to get the results needed, so that inspired us to launch. The idea is simple, we are not trying to replace lawyers - we are trying to maximise their productivity - “AI won’t replace lawyers, lawyers using AI will replace lawyers not using AI.” What we’re trying to do is focus on one function and one jurisdiction at a time. We are a global company from day 1, based in the US and India.
What are the main challenges that your start-up is looking to address?
A lot of the time, I feel like the legal profession works on inefficiencies. The legal profession works on things that are very mundane and inefficient, that kind of thing can be automated well with AI (Artificial Intelligence). This is particularly true for the processes that don’t require strategic thinking and nuances. The majority of legal professionals are not able to find work-life balance, a reason for launching this is that it can help legal professionals get back to their lives and their families. The more I continue, the more inefficiencies I see and the more opportunities I see to help. For example, I’ve dealt with Foreign Direct Investment and with litigation, but am new to Mergers & Acquisitions. I’ve realised that there is huge potential in M&A also - I think 40-50% of it can be completed using AI! You can tell the technology to draft any kind of contract, it will do that. Whatever users explain to a human, the system can generate all the same things.
Is this concept scaleable and appliable to other sectors? For example. accounting?
Yes. It is all about understanding the pain points, having a vision and having a tech team behind to support. Many times, the solution has been worse than the original problem - have seen that happening in legal tech solutions. Don’t adopt solutions for the sake of it, they have to create a real difference.
You mentioned English-speaking nations are the first target, how has having English as a common language helped the business to expand?
It has helped immensely, language is a big barrier. I’m really happy that you guys are in the picture and doing a great job at understanding the challenges and helping firms to better communicate. If you don’t understand the language, it is very hard to have any kind of business relationship. Communication has been key to everything we’re doing - it has created the opportunities. English has been crucial to reach a wider market. So far, wherever I’ve travelled, English has been the dominant language of that region. I’d never experienced it to that extent. When I came to Spain, most people understood English but not perfectly, I’ve realised the importance of speaking a common language.
Have you encountered any challenges in communication?
Of course! We have faced some barriers. Recently, I was at a meeting in Phoenix, US, I speak English fluently and naturally the meeting took place in English. But I found that they couldn’t understand my accent! It made it more challenging to communicate, and I found myself having to adapt my accent slightly so that we could work together. It had never occurred to me that two people speaking the same language would experience such issues with accents! Good communication in business is vital - you can have the best product, but if the sales pitch doesn’t work and you can’t communicate - then you will not be successful.
That sounds challenging! Have you experienced any other issues with accents?
Yes. Actually, the UK specifically can be a hard market. Most of the world is used to hearing American accents - we watch American TV, listen to music, but we are not always used to hearing regional UK accents. For example, accents from Liverpool and Scotland can be more challenging for me to understand. But the UK is home to over 200 law firms and over 160,000 solicitors, so this is an important market!
So about insights and communication to solve issues. What have been your most useful conversations at South Summit?
It has been an amazing experience and opportunity to meet a lot of people. Really grateful for the insight. We really want to launch a global company, made in India but serving the whole world. The main reason for this is that it has been easy to recruit English speaking lawyers in India, the language has made a big difference. We are focusing on the English-speaking market, primarily the North American market. We have taken this courageous decision, only time will tell whether this is courageous or stupid!
We were inspired by Avinash’s energy and plans to transform the industry, and look forward to following what happens next!