Meet the Mentors: Toby McCrindle

With applications for our LawtechUK mentoring programme open monthly, we've spoken to some of our industry mentors about their best startup advice – and thoughts on the future of lawtech.

Toby McCrindle is a finance lawyer by trade, having spent years working for a big law firm, and cutting-edge defence technology company in both London and the Middle East. His experience is certainly distinct, having worked on exciting new technologies in the defence space.?Toby?then moved into the world of startups, before taking up his current role as Chief Legal Officer for lawtech company SeedLegals. With a?varied background in a range of tech sectors, but with a consistent focus on legal aspects throughout,?Toby?is perfectly suited to mentor new lawtech founders on their business journey.?

Q: Tell us a little bit about the mentoring process. Is it something you’ve done in the past?

A:?It’s something I’ve done before, and??I find it hugely rewarding. Talking with my mentees is always the best part of my day. And, when they make a success of their business or goals, it’s honestly the most rewarding thing in the world. Both my mentees this year have smashed it –?the process is by far the best thing about my role.?

Q: You’ve already completed one full mentoring process with a LawtechUK mentee. Could you explain their business idea, and how you were able to support them?

A:?They were a dream to work with because they had a great idea. They came to me very early stage –?so pre-revenue. It wasn’t really a company yet, more an idea – but they had proof of concept. It is effectively a tool that uses natural language processing and AI to provide virtual assistants for lawyers in private practice. Essentially it is an operating system that combines different bits of the legal tech stack into one.?

Unusually, my mentee was thinking too small. I pushed him to consider a much wider market, than even law firms. He was a joy to work with.?

Q: Are there any trends or developments in the lawtech space that you’re particularly excited by at the moment?

A:?I’m reluctant to mention AI because that’s what everyone’s going to talk about, but it is exciting. I think what’s been really interesting is the speed at which the use cases for AI are developed in lawtech. The possibilities are endless, but the ones that are coming to the market are really exciting; they’ve been validated and are ready to generate revenue.?

And it's not just at the big end of the market with larger law firms spending a million dollars a year on a system; it's even at the very small end – with legal tech tools looking to help save smaller firms up to 40% in internal time and so drastically boost efficiency.?

Lawyers and entrepreneurs in this space are moving faster than ever and looking at ways for these systems to become interoperable. If law firms or in-house teams buy lots of tech, but different bits of the stack don’t speak to each other, then you end up with this horrible clunky system. People thinking about how to achieve interoperability is really important.

Q: Do you have any top advice you’d give to budding lawtech entrepreneurs or people in the startup space??

A:?Focus relentlessly on your end user and focus relentlessly on solving problems for them.?

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