Scaling Europe
00:09:14 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:09:14] S0: Oh, that's really interesting. Dominic, you've been in the legal sector for such a long time, both kind of before your political career and then in politics and justice department. What do you what do you think about it, the legal sector, that makes it so ripe for disruption in the age of AI in a way that actually some professional services aren't seeing this? Like, accountancy probably is not quite there yet, but we are seeing a lot of amazing use cases where people are using AI to help with legal matters. Like, why do you think the legal sector is so ripe for disruption?
00:09:44 · Dominic Raab
[00:09:44] S2: I think there's two fundamental reasons, and it's changing and evolving all the time, and some of the AI models will definitely make law firms more efficient. Again, we're we're looking at a slightly different paradigm shift. But why is it right for reform? Partly because as a sector, it is very producer interest oriented. If you look at the structure, the lockstep partnership structure, I know that it's evolved, and and The US firms coming in in the nineties made a big change. But still, it's quite a a sector that's governed around the producer interest. I think still. I think you you you look at the billable hours. I mean, when I first joined and did my articles in a law firm, you would bill the client on five minute chunks of time, and lots of things follow from that, sentence structures follow from that. We've switched this round. Everything is about empowering the consumer to devise and execute their strategy. Yes. There's a bridge to the trusted lawyer at the right moment, but it's about the results and the impact that the system and the model the IndexLaw will use for them. And I think it's that combination. You can also see... I mean, when when I was a training solicitor in the late nineties, '98 to 2000, you could see also that the combination of legal executives, first, second year qualified solicitors, trainee solicitors, paralegals, that whole chunks of due diligence work was done by them. I I think there's gonna be less of that in the future, and that's because AI can do a lot of those things. What you're left with is still that design, that need, that premium level, support. So what we've got is we think the fusion of the efficiencies of AI with the human touch and the expertise that that that in truth, at the end, only a lawyer can provide. And I think that's why law is particularly susceptible to this paradigm shift. By the way, I also think accountancy will end up there. But but it's an interesting time in all of these professional services and that space.
00:11:50 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:11:50] S0: Amazing. Can you talk a bit about the... Perhaps The UK or England and Wales itself? Right? It feels that there's a particularly interesting regulatory framework in The UK. I think I saw that they... There's been approval for, like, an AI native law firm. It feels like The UK's regulatory framework for the legal sector makes what you're building particularly well suited. Can you touch on that a bit?
00:12:13 · Dominic Raab
[00:12:13] S2: Well, I I... You know, I've obviously been involved both as a practitioner back in the day and also as a chancellor. The the the one thing I would say is that the regulatory regime will respond quite slowly, and, again, it will reflect the producer interests. So I think it is amenable to reform. I think reform will happen, and the regulatory system will adapt, but we come back to this quintessential point. We are focused on the consumer of legal services, and probably the regulatory system previously and hereto has still been relentlessly focused on the producer interests. Now I'm not saying they don't matter. I still feel very deeply proud to have come up through the profession, have a lot of contacts within it, but this paradigm shift is is is important. We are we are putting the consumer in the driving seat, and we would expect, I'm very confident, the regulatory system will adapt, will be malleable to that, particularly if you can keep the liability and responsibility of a trusted, lawyer at the, again, at the higher end of the process. And and, ultimately, what what consumers want, and I think the public trust issue is important, and the integrity of what we do is very important. What people want to know that it's a trusted system, so having best in class, error rates. So, everyone makes mistakes. Computers, AI will make mistakes, individuals obviously make mistakes, but narrowing down that to the very lowest level possible, I think that's something we embrace. And also then having the lawyer at the end of that to make sure you've got the integrity of the system. Again, you get to that place where we think, IndexLaw will be at the vanguard of a consumer experience that is more responsible, regulatory friend... Regulator friendly, but just delivers a a change in the mindset and the outlook of the way you approach legal services. And I think it'll be very difficult to hold that back. We we hope to be leading the the charge.
00:14:16 · Sebastian Johnson, Dominic Raab
[00:14:16] S0: And can we talk specifically about the role? So you've been named founding adviser. What are the kind of things that you're gonna be advising on, working on, and what are the things that you're not gonna be looking at? [00:14:26] S2: Well, look. We're feeling our way a little bit. It's an exciting time. We see month by month the the the concept and the index all going from strength to strength. There are institutional, legal, policy, and commercial issues. I think being a a handrail, a sounding board on those issues. I think what what I've certainly enjoyed, and and Quddus can give his own perspective, is thinking also about the medium term strategy. In in answer to a lot of the questions that you've put to us, we've been gaming out how does that work. So a sounding board on issues as they arise, contributing to the strategy, And, ultimately, to make this effective in the way that the the vision that Quddus has set out, we need good partnerships. We need good partnerships with investors, with clients, with larger businesses, and with the legal sector. And so, hopefully, it can contribute and add value to the partnerships that IndexLaw builds. [00:15:21] S0: And could you touch on perhaps, like, how this relationship came about? You know? Like, it's... You know, you're fairly early on in your career. You've been heads down building. You've had all this stuff going on with your family. How did kind of Dominic come into the picture? And then how did the the the role, the real role sort of materialize?
00:15:39 · Quddus Pativada
[00:15:39] S1: Yeah. No. No. I mean, I think to to both echo what Dominic said and to answer some of the questions that you had, I think my biggest concern when I first started, you know, thinking about Index and, you know, the idea of AI native legal services was the credibility and trust aspect. You know, I can sort of envision what a really great client experience looks like, but would I have the first clue on how to get regulated or would I have the first clue on am I allowed to call myself a law firm versus not? How do I think a lawyer? I think that's sort of missing domain expertise. I sort of saw it almost as a barrier to building the company itself where, you know, I had sort of understanding the tech and the AI aspect itself and building the agents around this sort of space, but actually understanding the space deeply and having someone to, you know, guide us through that. That was what we initially were looking for. And then when we came across Dominic through mutual, you know, I I thought it was just gonna be like a really great press announcement. Right? I can announce that Dominic joined the team, you know, probably got some inbound off of it. It's been, you know, months now since we started working together and we hadn't announced it so far because the thing that surprised me the most was most of the value was actually internal. So, you know, we meet on a on a periodic basis. I share thoughts and product updates whenever they go. We we had them, you know, get Dominic's sort of ideas on our go to market. And then the last few months have been sort of a roller coaster. I mean, we're gonna be announcing a lot more, and we work with, you know, government entity. We have live paying clients that we do real services all the way from basic contract review to company setup and new countries are expanding to. So we are working across the spectrum and I think Dominic's played a really helpful role on balancing that move fast and break things, startup sort of ideology with how do you actually build the next big law firm or the next Latham or the next day. And I think that that's sort of one of the things that he's been incredibly helpful with, helping us think through that but then also charting out the path itself. We have an idea of where we wanna be and what the space will look like fifteen, twenty years from now.