One of the biggest challenges for businesses, whether small or big, and even for private individuals is having access to legal counsel, especially someone that is best for them. LegalKart will close that gap,” says Dr Arvind Singhatiya, founder-CEO of the company. Founded in December 2018 by Singhatiya, LegalKart is India’s first practice management mobile app for legal professionals, as well as the people and businesses that require their services.
“For 14 years of my professional life, I was working in various roles that had to do with legal compliances and was dealing with lawyers for different businesses. For instance, I helped Ola set up their legal team as well as their public policy,” says Singhatiya, elaborating, “I realised that the legal profession’s tech penetration in India is minimal. Among the lowest.”
Singhatiya wanted to firstly bring lawyers on to a common digital platform, and then, secondly, make them and their services accessible to people as well as businesses. This is why LegalKart has two variations: one for lawyers, and the other for potential clients looking for legal representation. “It’s like WhatsApp: when everyone is on it, it becomes easy to communicate and exchange information, because you know the other person is also on it,” explains Singhatiya, adding that given India’s population is serviced by around 10 lakh lawyers, there’s a very real need to expedite interactions between counsel and those seeking it.
It is for this reason, that the professionals’ LegalKart helps lawyers in assigning tasks, synchronising calendars and also providing advanced features like financial management, client management, documentation, and team management. LegalKart also facilitates collaboration with other legal professionals at the same time. Meanwhile, LegalKart Clients helps individuals or businesses looking for a lawyer to access a database of lawyers and get pointed towards those that would serve them best.
“It’s so important to get the right lawyer for any kind of legal case, as it can have all kinds of impact on people as well as organisations, and we help guide you to the lawyers best suited for your needs,” says Singhatiya. In the 15 months of its operations, LegalKart now has a roster of around 5,000 lawyers from 500 different cities across India, while LegalKart clients sees 8,000 downloads a month at present.
“Among corporate clients, we provide services to ZoomCar, Swiggy, and Ola Cabs, among others. On the individual’s side, we see requests for everything from family property disputes to divorce and harassment cases,” says Singhatiya, who hopes to have 30,000 lawyers on board LegalKart by next year, in order to service the growing number of people in need of legal savvy.