Excerpt from The Plug:
As a young girl, Sonja Ebron, a North Carolina native, remembers watching the development of Research Triangle Park and the growth of the local tech scene, and wanting to be a part of the ecosystem. With a PhD in electrical engineering, Ebron spent some time in academia, but she continued to feel a pull towards entrepreneurship.
She co-founded Courtroom5 in 2017 with Debra Slone as a way for people to have the tools to represent themselves in civil cases without a lawyer. “We both had experiences where we were having to fight a lawyer in court without the benefit of a lawyer on our side,” Ebron said. “It was very difficult even for us, fairly educated folks, to navigate the very arcane procedures of a civil claim.”
Courtroom5 is one of the companies that has found success in the economic downturn, as more users have searched for information on topics like foreclosure, bankruptcy, and debt collection — all of the difficult issues that have come up for countless Americans navigating the impacts of the pandemic. Utilizing the resources it gained from participating in the Google for Startups Black Founder Exchange, as well as local organizations like NC Idea and The Council for Entrepreneurial Development, Courtroom5 was ready to meet its customer’s needs head-on. As a member of American Underground, a tech hub with Google for Startups, Ebron and her team have been able to participate in virtual panels that include pandemic-related topics such as PPP loans and mental health management.
— Jewel Wicker, The Plug
