We put together what we thought was just an educational project, but it evolved to become a full fledged case management platform. That’s what you see on our website today.
–Sonja Ebron, Co-founder and CEO, Courtroom5
When Courtroom5’s Co-founder and CEO, Sonja Ebron, recently interviewed with LegalTechLIVE’s Nick Rishwain, she didn’t hold back about her support of those dealing with the civil litigation system without a lawyer. Sonja has an engineering background, and she has founded two previous startups. But she learned civil litigation the hard way, by self-representation. Her commitment to helping non-lawyers perform better in court is apparent throughout the interview. Below are highlights.
Nick: What are the most common cases that you get?
Sonja: Foreclosures, debt collection, probate, and family cases. There’s a surprising number of personal injury claims, workplace, and unlawful termination issues. That sort of thing. It’s across the board.
Nick: And tell us about the onboarding for a user. Let’s say I’ve got a foreclosure case that I’m looking to fight.
Sonja: We don’t do any custom work. It’s all automated. You tell the system about the type of case you have, the case number, your judge, where it’s located, who the other parties are. Our chatbot then walks you through a quick survey of our tools. There’s a place where you maintain your records and a place where you access dozens of document templates you might need throughout your case. You’ll see how to do a search on a simplified user interface with the power of LexisNexis or Westlaw.
You can store evidence, manage tasks, and calculate expenses and damages. In the community, you can talk to other people experiencing situations like yours. Depending on what’s happening in your case, our artificial intelligence engine can point you to the most relevant resources on our platform.
Nick: If you had to choose what you needed right now, is it funding for marketing? Is it funding for staff? What is your primary concern at the moment?
Sonja: It’s all of the above for real. I think at this moment though I’d have to give a slight edge to marketing. Our technology is fairly solid. So we are not concerned about handling an influx. Right now, it’s just important to get the word out that we exist.
The interview premiered on LegalTechLIVE Tuesday, April 7th (2020).
Here’s the full episode of Sonja’s interview with Nick Rishwain:
