Legal.io

Legal.io is a technology platform that provides infrastructure for legal organizations and legal networks. Legal.io (formerly known as LawGives) offers efficient, effective software that connects clients to lawyers, legal knowledge, and services. Recently, Legal.io has begun offering legal infrastructure for Legal Referral Networks nationwide, including networks organized as legal incubators. Early-stage participants include the Community Justice Center of Long Island and Justice Bridge.

LawGives was originally launched in 2012, in conjunction with Mozilla, as an online Q and A forum for legal questions. In 2015, after entering out of a "beta" phase, LawGives officially spun off it's technological platform under the company name "Legal.io."

History

Legal.io / LawGives was founded in Stanford, California in 2011 by Stanford Law School LLM students Tony Lai and Pieter Gunst, former lawyers for Herbert Smith and DLA Piper respectively. The Two had the idea while working on an LLM project during their time at Stanford Law School. They said a strong believe in the access to justice mission and a shocking look at the growing justice gap led to their increased interest in the legal technology space.

Legal.io / LawGives has been touted as one of the best emerging companies in the legal technology space. In 2015, COO Pieter Gunst was named as one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Law & Policy, and one of the Best New California Legal Services of 2015 by The Recorder.

Access to Justice

The company's focus on the access to justice mission fell in line with similar concerns from other organizations. In 2014, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law published a study exposing that some states have fewer than 1 civil legal aid lawyer per 10,000 residents who rank as poor under federal standards, nearly one quarter of states have no rule to allow court clerks to help people without legal help, and nearly half of state judicial web sites have no information in languages other than English.

Lisa Kaufman, of the Columbia Law School's Human Rights Clinic has stated:

"In the United States, millions of people are forced to go it alone when they're facing a crisis," Kaufman says. "It's a human rights crisis, and the United States is really losing ground with the rest of the world."