Dave:
Hey everyone, Dave here. Today, I’m speaking with Taher Hassonjee, the CEO and founder of DocDraft, a company that provides automated legal document and drafting solutions. His work focuses on leveraging technology to streamline and simplify the legal document creation process, reducing the time and cost for businesses and individuals. Taher, how are you doing today?
Taher:
Great, Dave. Thanks so much for having me on. Glad to be here.
Dave:
Yeah, it’s a pleasure. It’s an interesting solution. It feels kind of disruptive in the legal space.
Taher:
I sure hope so.
Dave:
Well, that’s the goal, right? As I was researching your background, I noticed that prior to this, you were leading business development at an RV marketplace. So, relatively unrelated field, if I’m not mistaken. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into DocDraft.
Taher:
Yeah. So, before DocDraft, as you mentioned, I was the head of business development and corporate development at a company called RV Share. What we did at RV Share was simple to understand but a little harder to execute—we were basically an Airbnb for RVs. We helped individuals from all walks of life, all parts of the globe, rent RVs from other individuals and drive them around the country.
I was there for about three years and was lucky to be there during a really good run for the company. By the time I left, we were about the 20th largest private marketplace in the world. We had recently raised $100 million from KKR. So, I was lucky to be there during a steep growth curve for the company.
But yeah, obviously a very different field, but I think there are a lot of similarities and parallels, ironically, in what we do here at DocDraft. Fast forward to what we do at DocDraft, we help people draft complex legal documents in just a few minutes. We do that through a combination of our software and the ability to easily have an attorney review the document and provide feedback and guidance.
That’s our business in a nutshell. The similarities really lie in a few areas. First, we’re a marketplace at DocDraft as well, so there’s some carryover there. But the core components are around servicing the consumer and making things easier for them. For example, in the case of RV Share, it was really challenging to figure out how to rent an RV. Similarly, with DocDraft, it’s complicated to draft legal documents on your own, yet 75% of people in civil matters are self-representing. They’re navigating this process without any attorney support.
Making it easy for attorneys to jump in and support them is one of the exciting things about the DocDraft platform. Lastly, in RV Share, when you bought an RV, you often made a big financial mistake because the utilization rate was quite low. RV Share enabled RV owners to make back money through the marketplace. While it’s different in the legal field, there’s a similar dynamic. There are about 1.3 million lawyers in America, and of those, 850,000 don’t work at top firms. Many of them are looking to engage with more clients, and DocDraft makes it easier for them to do so by aggregating that work and allowing them to engage on legal matters without worrying about client acquisition or business development.
Dave:
Very cool. On that last point, I could see someone saying your platform is somewhat of a threat to the legal space by democratizing complex legal documentation. But, as you mentioned, it’s also a tool that can aid lawyers in getting clients or simplifying the document creation process. How do lawyers perceive DocDraft when you present it to them?
Taher:
Most lawyers love what we do because we really play in the middle, which is an unaddressed market today. If you think about the legal services industry as a whole, it’s a big industry—about $350 billion—but we actually think it’s dramatically undersized. Today, people engage with the legal system in one of two ways: either they go at it on their own, using online templates or pulling things from the internet, which 75% of people do, or they engage with a law firm and let them run the process, which accounts for about 25%.
The real opportunity lies in the middle: helping the 75% who are trying to go at it alone by giving them better tools and connecting them with attorneys. Not the large firms, but mom-and-pop or independent practitioners. We’re growing the legal services industry by bringing more do-it-yourselfers into the fold and helping them engage with attorneys on specific matters. So, through DocDraft, the ability for lawyers to earn income has actually gone up.
A good analogy is the effect of Uber on the taxi industry. There might be short-term conflict, but long-term, more people are making money driving cars thanks to Uber.
Dave:
It’s grown the market. And one of the things that’s critical to mention here is that the pricing is just $10 a month. For anything related to legal services, that’s ridiculously affordable. Why did you choose that price point, especially when people are used to paying hundreds of dollars per hour? And why a SaaS subscription model instead of a pay-per-document model like Notarize?
Taher:
Great question. We actually started out selling à la carte, like Notarize, where you paid a flat fee for each document. But we noticed that legal needs are both nonlinear and frequent—they also compound. For example, if you’re starting a company, you don’t just need articles of incorporation; you need a range of documents. We didn’t want to nickel and dime our customers for every additional document. That’s one of the issues people often face with legal services in general.
With a monthly subscription, we can support clients in a more holistic way and help them connect with attorneys as needed. For example, during the company formation process, there might be some documents where attorney review is crucial, and others where a template suffices. We want to empower clients more fundamentally, and the subscription model made sense for that.
The subscription also allows us to keep investing in our product and build a long-term relationship with our customers, helping them collaborate on documents, get them signed, and manage the entire process more seamlessly.
Dave:
Love it. You mentioned that legal needs often stem from life events that require additional documents down the line, like starting a business. If I’m not mistaken, your background isn’t in law, so did you have any reservations about entering this space or any challenges in understanding the legal landscape?
Taher:
Well, I grew up in a family of lawyers—my grandfather, mom, uncle, and brother are all lawyers. So, I’ve been surrounded by it my whole life. In particular, my mom has run a solo firm for most of my life in the Philly suburbs, so I’ve seen firsthand the challenges attorneys face, like client acquisition and fulfillment. That experience really informed the creation of DocDraft, which helps both attorneys and customers like me who might be starting a business.
Dave:
Very cool. What’s next for the platform? Any upcoming product announcements or features?
Taher:
We’re always looking for ways to better support our customers and structure the process for attorneys. In the next few months, we’ll be adding features like e-signatures, collaboration on documents, document storage, and recommendations for additional legal documents. We also want to make it easier for clients to get attorneys involved in specific questions or parts of a document, rather than the entire thing. These are the kinds of product releases we have coming up.
Dave:
Nice. Over the two years you’ve been running DocDraft, have there been any surprises or challenges you didn’t expect as a startup founder?
Taher:
Yeah, there are always challenges when starting a company. For us, the biggest one was that we didn’t originally start out selling to consumers. Our initial focus was on selling to firms and helping them draft documents faster. We were caught up in long procurement cycles with larger firms, but as we tested the product with smaller law firms, we saw an overwhelming response from non-lawyers looking for legal help. That was the lightbulb moment, and we pivoted to focus on that market.
Dave:
Interesting pivot. Taher, for people who want to get in touch or learn more about DocDraft, where should they go?
Taher:
You can follow me on Twitter, check out our website at DocDraft.ai, or message me on LinkedIn. I’m the only person in the world with my name, so I’m easy to find.
Dave:
Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. Appreciate it.
Taher:
Thanks so much.