Monica Goyal

2Hi, Pulat. Thank you for having me on your show. So Yeah, I mean where do I start? I think, I think we're going to be talking a little bit about my journey, but just at a high level, right now I'm Director of Legal Innovation at Caravel Law. But before that I'm, I'm also a lawyer. I had my own practice and I had developed a company called My Legal Briefcase that was recently acquired by Caravel Law. I had also started a company called Aluvion, and you know, that I had exited about 3 years ago, that continues to still be operating. And before that, I was an engineer, so I worked for several years in the tech industry.

3I have an undergrad degree at Waterloo and a master's degree at Stanford, and so I'm quite steeped in tech as well.

5Well, it's actually a question that I get quite often, and I remember when I first graduated from law school, I was— there was very few of us. I mean, you have a computer science background, so, you know, we have, I think, some similar thinking about this, but there was very— and there still is— there's very few people who have, in general, the tech background and the legal background. That's a very, I think, unique skill set in general. And so I guess the question is like, why would I leave tech? I mean, you know, tech is cool. You know, it's always been cool, right? It's got that, you know, kind of, you know, mystique or whatever to it.

6And, you know, when we think about the top 50 companies, you know, we think of Apple, Facebook. So, you know, but for me, the reason I went into law, which is very different than the reason I started my legal briefcase in Aluvion, but the reason I went into law was that you know, I didn't love what I was doing. So I was an engineer, I was a programmer, you could say. I was designing very at a very low-level silicon chips. So I was a what they call an ASIC designer. And which is, you know, in engineering, you know, in that kind of area, that's a very, you know, competitive field. It's hard to kind of get into.

7So I was good at at the engineering part of it, but I just didn't love it. It wasn't like I came to work and I was like, oh yes, I'm working. It was like, yes, I'm going to the office and I'm here again. But so I, I kind of have always had in my life that you follow— I've always followed my passion, or I've always kind of followed what at that moment was really interesting to me. So You know, even engineering. I didn't start off in engineering when I went to university. I started off in math. So I was really good at math when I was in, you know, high school. And so, and when you're in high school and I was 17, like, what do you do, right?

8And so, you know, I'm Asian, so my choices were kind of limited. You know, I kind of really had an interest in like fashion and art and stuff and history. And my dad's like, nope. You know, that doesn't make money. You got to be a doctor, or you got to be an engineer, you got to be an accountant. You know, those are the approved subjects, right? So so yeah, so I ended up in Waterloo in their math department. And when I was at Waterloo you know, it was in this very niche subject area. And some of the advice that I got from some of the professors is that, you know, you know, it was very niche.

9And so I thought, okay, well, what else could I do? And I remember going into the basement of the University of Waterloo engineering building. And at that time, all the jobs, like the co-op, they have this co-op program at Waterloo. And the co-op board, it was like just this lopsided board where almost all the jobs were computer science, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and then there was this corner where they had like the other jobs. It was like, you know, very slim pickings, you know, for the other jobs. And so I thought, you know, if I'm going to do something, I should do something in this area. And I was good in math, and, and, you know, that was a path that I could, I could take.

10So then I ended up in electrical engineering, which is very much like applied math. And yeah, and I thought that was, you know, was a good kind of move for me. It was opened up a lot of opportunities. I got to participate in the co-op program and when I graduated, it was in a really hot market. So imagine you're back in the late '90s, it was, you know, the first tech boom. It was just crazy, and we were young graduates, and I remember a lot of us getting very good jobs, you know, the, you know, these young people, we were like sought after, right? And at that time, you know, tech was still, you know, there wasn't a lot of people who were going into tech.

11It was still kind of like, you know, earlier days. And so I graduated and I found myself at a startup, and I've, you know, I worked for 4 or 5 years in the industry before I, I went to Stanford and before I went to law school. So, you know, I worked at startups and I worked in, you know, bigger kind of tech companies. But so I gave it a chance, but it wasn't my passion. So at the end of the day That's what kind of led me to law.

13That's correct, yeah.

15at Stanford, yeah, at Stanford University,

17No.

19Well, So I, even in undergrad, I had taken some courses in law and I had been interested. I'm a pretty avid reader, even from a very young age, always been kind of interested in legal issues. I even in high school took a law course, but like, you know, that wasn't a path. That wasn't one of the paths that I told you. And so, You know, yeah, you're right. I would say that the extracurricular activities that you mentioned, that was part of a process of discovery. So I knew that I wasn't, you know, this wasn't what made me passionate. Like engineering didn't make me, you know, kind of get up in the morning and it wasn't what drove me.

20And I knew that I had some other interests. And so, you know, volunteering and in these organizations, it was, first it was good, it was good for the community, but it was also like, you know, kind of a process of discovery for myself. And yeah, and it was the, at Stanford, that's when I kind of decided to apply and go to law school, 'cause I took another law course there. And like you said, I volunteered with Amnesty, but, you know, just before we started this, we were talking about the 2000s. So, you know, just imagine the environment in California in 2004. So, you know, it was after, or I mean, I went to Stanford and it was 2001.

21So in 2001, we just, you know, it was just in the kind of cloud or the, you know, shadow of 9/11. And that's when I started at Stanford. And Stanford, you know, being in California, it's not as activist as Berkeley, but it's quite activist. And so, you know, there's a number of student groups that are, you know, quite vocal about, you know, protesting government and stuff like that. So there was a pretty vibrant kind of community around that. And then before, just before Bush was elected, I remember Clinton kind of going around the world and you know, talking about, you know, injustice and talking about genocide because there had been, you know, specific things that had happened, and, and that really resonated with me.

22So I think, you know, kind of, you know, that climate, being in California then being at Stanford, I think that those were things that kind of led me into law.

24No, it wasn't at all what I thought it was gonna be. And it was, you know, but it wasn't bad. It wasn't that I disliked it. I loved my subjects. I loved, you know, I loved contracts. Like, I loved all of the, all of the courses that we took. But it was just very different. I thought you know, my kind of vision of the law was very much a human rights and criminal kind of, you know, focus. And then when I got into law school, I realized that there was so much more. And but when you— I, I'm a graduate from University of Toronto, and I, I think a number of law students can probably, or lawyers can probably appreciate this.

25When I was at University of Toronto And I didn't have the guidance that some, some people might have, like in terms of mentors. Maybe there's family members, maybe there's somebody that they knew. I didn't really have that, so you know, my peers were kind of some of, some of my advisors or some of my kind of you know, counselors, you would say. And at University of Toronto, the, the real kind of push for most of the students is to follow that, you know, OCI-based straight path. That's what you do. Like, you know, you got to find articles and you go through the OCIs and you get your job. And and so, you know, that I ended up finding myself going through that path like everybody else.

27Yeah, so I graduated and got called to the bar in 2009, so I articled basically during the great financial crisis, right? And the large firms were impacted. They were disproportionately impacted because a lot of their clients were big multinational clients. And so like many students who graduated during that time, I found myself not being hired back. It was a, you know, that was tough because that was a really tough time. But I was, you know, it wasn't that you didn't, there was an opportunity there. I could have like, I could have interviewed and found another position, but that was actually in some ways a blessing because it forced me out of that path.

28Imagine it hadn't been 2008, it had been any other year, I probably would have continued to work at Gowling's. I would probably still be at Gowling's. That probably would have been what happened, Life, you know, happens sometimes and you find yourself at, at this moment and you're like, well, what do I do? And so, you know, one of the things that I found working in the law firm is that is that it was really geared towards people who were younger, like who graduated university, like undergrad, and then went to law school and they were in their 20s and you know, most likely not married, definitely didn't have kids, and they were ready to work, you know?

29But I was different. I had worked a whole other career before going into law, and I had a child. And so I was, you know, it was, you know, they assumed that you have a certain level of maturity and you have a certain level of knowledge, and I felt like I was bringing a lot more to the table that wasn't being utilized. Recognized or appreciated. And so I said, well, I'm not going to go back into that environment. I know what that environment looks like. That's not for me. And so, and at that time, I remember thinking that the law firms, there was just this gap in terms of process, in terms of technology.

30And I remember they had all the technology. It wasn't a matter of, them having the technology is just a matter of using it, and I saw a lot of opportunity in that, especially coming from, you know, working in California and working at these really, you know, top kind of tech companies. You know, the mindset, the engineering mindset and the law mindset is very different.

32I think you're right. And I would say there's a few other things I would say as well is that, you know, to your, to, you know, I agree with what you said about engineers. I would say to even, you know, emphasize it even more is that we're always looking to, instead of like doing something 10 times in a very efficient way, we'll find a way to automate it so we don't have to do it. So it's a way of thinking about your environment in a way that's like very like problem-solving and very kind of, you know, thinking about the future, you know, thinking about how you could do something and then the rewards in the future.

33Whereas I think with law, first of all, it can be very immediate because somebody comes to you, they have a problem, and then they want a solution and they want that solution right now. And so it's addressing people as you go and it's, looking at the past to predict the future. So instead of being future-looking, it's it's like kind of, you know, looking at the historical stuff. It's not really, it's not really looking to the future.

35Well, when I started in— at that time, there was very little in legal tech, especially in Toronto. There was very very little in terms of like online SaaS-based or types of delivery of legal services. You know, it's still there's been a huge boom, but it's still not at the same place as other industries. Like if we think about fintech, or, you know, what's happening in retail, what's happening in what's happened to publishing, you know. So You know, in my mind, it's coming. You know, it's happening slower, but it's coming. And when we get to a certain impetus, like once we get to a certain point, the acceleration will happen even rapidly.

36So, but my point is, is that at that time, even doing anything was just, was kind of like, whoa, what are you doing? You know, it was kind of looked at cautiously and, oh yeah, that's something different. So, I think that it, you know, it led to thinking about, you know, hey, we could start to think about doing this, you know, kind of online stuff. But yeah, I, you know, one of the things— I don't know if you ever participated, but one of the things that we did, or I did, was involved in was something called Law Tech Camp, and it was—

38it.

40And so it was a bringing together of people who were like-minded, who were thinking about law and technology, because I just really, really felt alone at that time. And so I remember Noah Weisberg, who has started Kira, has been really successful, but I remember him and his partner and being there and giving this, like, you know, set, you know, discussion about how do you, how do you do this legal tech thing. And so, you know, that was innovative too. So there was, I think, just to kind of being there at the beginning was just a way to show people that, you know, there's, there's other things that we could be doing.

42It is a law firm. Yes.

44So the impetus behind Aluvion was some of the learnings from my legal briefcase. And so what I found when I was working on My Legal Briefcase was that there was a number of people who were coming to the site and that My Legal Briefcase, it just didn't fit for them for whatever reason. And but they needed legal services and they didn't— they couldn't afford to pay as much. And surprisingly, there's a large number of people who fit that category. It's not just you know, people under a certain kind of income level. It's the middle class. And there's been, as you, as you probably know, there has been a lot of discussion even with the judiciary about how legal services are not accessible to the middle class.

45So what I found was that a number of professionals, a number of business owners not being able to afford legal services. So Aluvion was, let's take technology and let us redesign or think about the processes and deliver those legal services in a different way. And so, for example, incorporations, you know, what a lot of that is like kind of precedence, you know, it's, You know what you did last time, you change up the documents and then you give it to the next person. Well, why can't you use document automation to do that?

47Yes. Yeah. And at that time, there wasn't a lot that was available, right? So actually now there's we're in this interesting time because There's a lot of new technology that's available in the market, and you— and as a law firm, you can look at that and you can really think about how you could maybe redesign how you're doing certain processes and stuff. But at that time there wasn't— there wasn't, you know, the number of companies out there, the number of solutions that were available there— it was much less. I remember, Pulat, I remember when you were starting out, you asked me, you know, what should I use for practice management software?

48And I told you I'm using Clio. And so you looked at that, and I remember, I think you used Clio. But Clio is a nice example because That was really easy to use. I've used that for years now. They've developed a whole ecosystem. They have document automation, they have intake forms. So that wasn't available, you know, when we started, right?

50I remember too.

52Well, I've known Joe and Robson for a very long time. I've met, I've met, I met them like maybe around the time I met you. And so we, so I started having conversations with with Joe, maybe it's been a year. So it takes time, these things. But, you know, the discussions where we want to kind of do some different stuff around technology, which, you know, what I love about, what I've always loved about what they're doing is that they've also been very innovative, right? Much more, you know, if I think about some, somebody in the legal field in Toronto and in Canada. Like, I really, you know, they're, they're kind of like an example to me.

53And they leveraged, when they first started, they leveraged all these cloud-based technologies that a lot of lawyers were scared to use because they were maybe they were reluctant to adopt, or maybe they were afraid of the cloud, whatever it was. But they leveraged those cloud-based technologies to like develop this you know, working from home and cutting out the overhead model and then passing those savings on to their clients. And and did very well with that model. So now you fast forward and it's like 2020 and we're in COVID and everybody

55from home.

57But but we're working from home not because, you know, we want to all the time or forced into this position, but it's accelerated. We're in this moment right now in law, in this very interesting moment. Like, a year ago, if you told me that we would be doing e-filing for our court cases, I would have said no, you know, get out of here, that's not gonna happen, right? We have that, like, in such a short period of time. So we're doing Zoom hearings, lots of interesting changes have occurred in the last 6 months. So we're in this moment, and I think that moment is changes things, changes things for the industry.

59That's correct. Yeah.

61I would say so, yes.

63Yes, it is that virtual, like they call, they call virtual in-house or fractional GC model. But there's also So yeah, there's placement for in-house departments as well. But yes, you're correct. This is the similar type model. Yeah.

66Right. And that's an interesting question and interesting point you made about a company because it is a law firm, but it is very much set up like a company in that there's a CEO and there's salespeople and there's marketing people, which not all law firms have this kind of structure. And even if they do have this structure, it's not always— there's, there's sometimes this consensus, like, you know, decision-making by consensus, which is which you don't find in Caravel. The second thing, going back to your previous question about why Caravel Law, like why did I join them? One of the things, reasons that I was attracted to that is that Joe and Robson have always been very entrepreneurial.

67And that is, like you said before, I'm entrepreneurial as well. And so part of joining them is this mindset. You know, this kind of like you know, feeling like-minded people, working with people who are like-minded. Now, it's a very different mindset to be entrepreneurial than not to be entrepreneurial, and it's, and it's really hard to describe to people what that means, but it's this, you know, you talked about risk-taking, but it's this willingness to try new things. So You know, you know, you asked me for examples of what we're doing. If I give you examples, it might not sound like we're doing anything very different than other law firms, but the difference, the main difference, is that we're starting from a different place.

68We're starting from people who are entrepreneurial, and even the lawyers who work with us, they join us because they want to have a different lifestyle. They want to have, or they, they kind of agree that things have to change. So it's it's working with a different set of people, and I think this is, this is what's going to really kind of distinguish us in terms of moving forward, or even up until now, is this entrepreneurial mindset. So moving forward with projects that we have, for example, some of the projects we've, we've starting to work on this solution, a startup solution package that will have a combination of lawyer advice as well as technology.

69Okay, you can say, yeah, there's other companies who are doing the same thing, but the real difference is that it doesn't get used. Like, there are places where— and I gave you the example of back to when I articled where, you know, you have this firm, it has all the technology, but it's just the process is not embedded, it's not being used, it's not, you know, people don't walk the walk. And so, so I think that's what's really different here.

72Well, I'm not sure that I fully understand the product playbook. But, you know, when I think about a company, I think, you know, very much inspired by technology. And in technology companies, what I think they do really good job about, like, I mean, you know, they might be famous for, let's say, you know, Google is famous for its search engine, but internally they're very good about innovating in every single way. So it's not just about, innovation in terms of, oh, we're going to improve the search engine. It's, you know, innovation in terms of how are we doing work. You know, they have this whole dogfooding, for example you know, idea at Google.

73You know, what you build, you know, eat what you build kind of thing. So, you know, that kind of mindset I think is what is important, is always looking at every little thing that you do and thinking about how you could do it differently and how you could do it better. So for example, we have some, a person whose role is called— it's called the client happiness. So she's just supporting clients and making sure that they're happy. That's her role. So how many law firms have person who's in charge of client happiness. We ask our clients to give us feedback. So after they finish— we finish— lawyer finishes job they fill out this very brief survey.

74And so we track that. So we have like an NPS score. So how, how many law firms have an NPS score? These are all things that are borrowed from that, you know, we're talking about like tech and successful, you know, companies, you know. So instead of looking at What are other law firms doing? What are other successful companies doing? Right. How do we keep moving the envelope forward?

77I think there's two reasons. One is tradition. Let's go back to the beginning of our conversation. You know, the engineering mindset, the lawyer mindset, you know, and the lawyer mindset working from the point of tradition. And when you graduate from law school and you article you're be— you're still kind of learning through that apprentice-style model and you're basically told this is how things go. You're usually— your ideas and, and thoughts aren't really, you know, solicited and asked for, and you're kind of told, hey, this is how we do things. You follow that path, that's what, that's what you do. So I think that's has hampered kind of innovation in this space.

78And the second is I take issue with what you say. I think there actually is quite a bit of innovation. So when Cognition first started, they were the only ones, but now we can see that there's CEO Law, there's Conduit, there is Axiom, there is McCarthy's has has their own service. So I think there is actually some adoption and change that we're seeing, not as much as maybe you would see in another industry, but yes, I think there is change.

80Yeah, thank you, Pulat. Thank you for having me on your show. I really appreciate it.