Legal product competition

Recognizing the best new ideas for online legal advice or information products.

About

The Automated Legal Products Competition is an annual contest to recognize the best new legal product ideas and help turn them into a reality. All you need to compete is a compelling idea; you don't need to have a working product (we'll help with that).

2022

Exact date TBD. Stay informed by subscribing to our newsletter.

2021

On August 24, 5 finalists pitched their legal product ideas. Watch their pitch:

  • NDA Instacheck by Digitize Legal

    Only a subset of NDAs have material issues, but days are lost and hundreds or thousands of dollars are spent each month because most companies decide that a lawyer must open a Word document or PDF and read every provision closely. Some business people just take the risk and sign NDAs without legal review due to the time and cost of legal review. NDA InstaCheck uses AI and an expert Silicon Valley startup lawyer's negotiation playbook to identify issues in third-party NDA templates or redlines to a customer NDA template. It empowers business people to sign low risk NDAs without legal review and to escalate NDAs with material issues to an attorney.

  • 🏆 "TurboTax" for free citizenship by ImmigrationHelp.org

    There are 9 million American immigrants who are eligible to become citizens, but each year only 10% apply. A big part of the reason is that few immigrants can afford to pay a lawyer an average fee of $1,300 to prepare their forms. ImmigrationHelp.org's Citizenship Application app will help immigrants safely apply for citizenship, for free. The app will also give immigrants an option to have their application reviewed by a lawyer for an affordable price.

  • Estate planning product-service hybrid by Legacy Studio

    There is a reason that law school textbooks are full of cases about homemade wills: ambiguities and contradictions abound when estate planning is done without expert counsel. An automated legal document is only as good as the data entered into the form, and the fully automated products do not provide sufficient explanation or guidance. Legacy Studio's software will include both bite-size written explanations and engaging videos which answer all of the questions routinely asked in client consultations. Additionally, clients will meet with a licensed, expert attorney to sign their documents at an “implementation meeting”. This meeting provides users the peace of mind that their estate plan is in perfect order.

  • Pact Plan by Sibus Law Group

    From 2010 to 2019 in California, there were an average of 390,000 family law filings per year. Of those, approximately 10% required parenting plans. PaCT Plan™ enables parents to create simple enforceable parenting plans for a one-time fee of $49, instead of the typical $6,000 attorneys charge. Each parent receives their own Quick Reference Guide that shows exact dates and times for every holiday, break, and special day through the child’s senior year of high school. That makes it easier for parents, schools, child care providers, law enforcement, attorneys, judges, family court and child support services, and anyone else who relies on the parenting plan to follow it, enforce it, and resolve conflicts.

  • Free app for special needs trust by Wright Elder Law

    This app will determine if a Wisconsinite needs a special needs trust, assemble the required documents, and refer them to a qualified attorney to complete the legal service. The average public user will save $35,570 of their own money. Attorneys will get a high-quality, ready-to-go lead for a profitable legal service and a pre-assembled Wispact application, along with supporting documents like checklists, releases of information, and court petitions, when necessary. The app itself will be free to users, and most users will be able to apply for a grant program that often reimburses up to $2,000 of the legal fees involved in creating a Wispact trust.

Details

Contestants pitch their legal product business plan to a panel of judges for an opportunity to win a prize valued at over $10,000, including:

  • $5,000 cash prize

  • 20 hours of tutoring on how to build your legal product with Afterpattern

  • One-year Enterprise subscription to the Afterpattern platform

Legal product ideas are judged on the following criteria:

  • Idea: There are three key attributes to a good idea: (1) business model: what value does your product create for your business?; (2) impact: what value does it create for end-users?; and (3) competitive advantage: what unfair advantage does your team have in building this specific idea?

  • Build plan: The best legal products are the ones you can actually build. What is your plan for going from idea to launch? How feasible is that plan?

  • Go-to-market: What is your plan for bringing your legal product to market? What are your marketing channels (e.g. SEO, paid ads, word-of-mouth, etc) and what tactics will you employ to take advantage of these channels? Are there any viral mechanics built into your product?

The contest is open to all current law students, law firms, and companies based in the United States. You do not need to be an Afterpattern customer to apply. Read the full contest rules and eligibility requirements.