Are PE and AI Taking Over PI? + Episode 44 with LawPro.ai’s Josh Schmerling
Hear from a founder who's building an AI product while running a successful firm
Paul Graham famously wrote that the best way to come up with a startup idea is to solve your own problems. That’s exactly what LawPro.ai co-founder Josh Schmerling and his brother Jeremy did.
Hey there, I’m Zach Abramowitz and I am Legally Disrupted here with your boiling hot cup of Sunday disruption.
Josh is a personal injury attorney who started his own firm with a partner right out of law school. Over the years, his firm became massively successful, even cementing a unique niche as the go-to dog bite lawyers in the state of Maryland. But as the firm grew, they hit a major bottleneck: reading and analyzing unstructured medical records was slowing down their ability to take on more cases.
When ChatGPT launched, Josh and his brother Jeremy realized large language models could completely change the game. They built LawPro.ai, which has now been serving personal injury firms for about two and a half years. It’s also had a profound impact on his firm Zirkin & Schmerling Naturally, I had to bring him on for 🎙️Episode 44 of Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted.
The results speak for themselves: prepping for an expert deposition used to take Josh hours, but with his own product, it now takes him just 15 to 20 minutes. Because AI handles the drudgery of document review, paralegals and case managers have more time to actually speak with clients, resulting in happier clients, more repeat business, and increased referrals. We also discussed the results of a massive new study LawPro.ai conducted with Morgan & Morgan, which found that 92% of personal injury law firms are now using some form of AI.
Finally, we got into a major trend that many law firm owners are trying to ignore: Private Equity is coming to the legal space. Josh shares his mental model for why firms need to implement AI now to improve their EBITDA, making them capable of either competing against PE-backed behemoths or becoming highly attractive buyout targets themselves.
So grab a hot beverage, and treat yourself to a dose of Sunday disruption by watching the embedded YouTube link or find Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted on Apple and Spotify.
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