Updated May 18.  Meet Kevin Gillespie, 33, is the CEO of Text A Lawyer, which was incorporated in May, 2017. He is working toward a launch in later 2018. Gillespie is based in Portland, Ore. Citizenships: U.S.A.

 

SOCIAL STUDIES
Website:
www.textalawyerinc.com
Twitter: @KevinSGillespie
Linkedin.
Facebook:
@textalawyerinc

 

Education: Western State Colorado University, Gunnison, Colorado: 2012 Bachelor’s of Art in Business Administration, Entrepreneurship emphasis. Vermont Law School, South Royalton, Vermont, 2016. Juris Doctor, General Practice Program Certificate.

Past significant jobs: United States Army, discharged honorably in 2008. Learned valuable leadership. Savoy Investment Management, 2011-2017. Worked my way up from compliance consultant to vice president of the corporation.

 

When did you decide to create Text A Lawyer? My idea spawned from the Vermont Law Center For Legal Innovation. I have my a Juris Doctor degree, but I have been too busy with Text A Lawyer to take the bar exam. Maybe someday I’ll take the bar, but I’m more comfortable as a business person.

Is this your first startup? No, and it won’t be my last. I have a baker’s dozen of good ideas ready to fund and develop, including one more in the legal tech realm.

Past endeavors include:

• Cold Pizza, San Francisco, Calif. 2012-2013. It was a 501(c)(3) non-profit feeding the homeless of S.F. It was a no-cash idea: I issued tax-deductible receipts to restaurants for leftover food (pizza) that I would refrigerate overnight. In the morning I passed out Cold Pizza to people at the end of a very long soup kitchen line.
• Chill Tours, Crested Butte, Colo. 2011-2012.

This “Segway Tour Business” was my first attempt at starting my own business and it failed.

What problems do your startup solve?

Attorney’s Perspective: Other e-lawyer services are running into problems with the “Rules of Professional Conduct” (legal ethics rules.) My platform is designed to be ethically compliant from the ground up. It removes the need for a legal assistant to discuss the case with the client first. We make instant connections to lawyers for specific legal advice.

Consumer’s Perspective: Lawyers are too expensive for consumers. Our pay-per-question pricing model lets clients hire a lawyer for $20 which includes a brief chat. Follow up questions are $9. Clients choose when to end the conversation (and stop paying.)

It’s tough to choose a lawyer. Our system removes the choice because customers are always connected to the highest rated lawyer available. All clients rate their lawyer from 1-5 stars at the end of the conversation. This rating is kept internal; the clients never see the rating. This prevent legal ethics problems with a lawyer referral service, which we are not.

Also, good lawyers get questions faster while low-rated ones quickly find they have trouble connecting to clients and quit using the app.

Is the service currently on the market? Not yet. I’m planning a 2018 launch but it all depends on securing funding from a qualified investor at this point. My apps are 99% complete and should be ready for launch by the end of February.

Do you have any patents?  Provisional Patent Pending.

 

What inspired you to pursue this startup? The Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School should get credit for the initial inspiration. I created the idea as part of a project assignment for Professor Jeannette Eicks’ Hacktivist/e-discovery course in 2015 as a 2L. Eicks (right) is co-director of the Center for Legal Innovation and Research Professor of Law. As of March 2018 she is also Text A Lawyer’s Chief Business Strategist. She created the conditions-for-life that spawned both Text A Lawyer and my other legal tech idea and has been helpful ever since. She is the reason my decision to attend law school was a good one.

I also interned as a public defender in Colorado (my last semester of law school). My experience dealing with the poorest Americans made me want to move forward with Text A Lawyer. I’m insisting this idea be marketed specifically to those who currently can’t afford a lawyer, as well as those who are intimidated enough by the legal processes to the point they go unserviced.

What is your biggest challenge re: the startup? I haven’t run into too many obstacles I cannot overcome. However, dealing with an app developer and other techies has been a challenge. There’s a substantial learning curve that goes along with being a non-techie entering the legal tech industry with a pair of mobile/tablet apps as the business concept.

 

Do you have funding yet?  I’m self funded up to this point. My apps are programmed and ready to launch. I need to raise capital to fund a large marketing campaign to create a critical mass of lawyer, and clients, for my business to succeed.  

 

 

What have you learned that you wish you knew five years ago? Accept myself for who I am find a way to use my strengths and manage my weaknesses, and I’ll be happy.

Who most influenced you? My dad, George Robert Gillespie. We were so much alike in so many ways and made different from our birth years (1933, 1985.) Dad always understood how my thinking worked and was able to give me some really good advice growing up. 

Your two most important mentors? In addition to Jeannette Eicks, Cathie Elliott, The Clarke Agency, Gunnsion Colo. She was my main professor at Western State for my entrepreneurship training. I didn’t know at the time, but I learned everything I needed to know about starting a successful business from her, from business plan to due diligence. A fantastic woman!

What book changed your life (or at least influenced you). The Winner, David Baldacci. I read it when I was 13 and was fascinated about how this guy has all this information set up so he could, alone, figure something out that nobody else could (the lottery)

What are you afraid of? Death and taxes. Also snakes. But seriously, death. I like Aubrey de Grey’s theory that the first 1,000 year old is alive today. It’s a fascinating idea that medical technology advances can outpace the aging process. I reject the idea I have to face death sometime this century.

What are you most proud of? I’m a 100% better person than I was ten years ago.

What would be your dream career if you were not a lawyer and entrepreneur? Emergency medical doctor. (I’m fast at everything and think well on my feet.) I’m also working on a political book. A run-for-office guide for a future POTUS, complete with unique policies to solve our biggest problems. (Many satisfy both conservative and liberal ideals.)

 

What does your workspace look like? (Borrowed from Sam Gosling.) Three desks with crap everywhere. It looks like a tornado went through here, but I’ll know if you move my pen three inches. Multiple MacBook Pro computers, multiple Samsung and Apple tables, old cell phones for app tenting, and always a fresh bottle of flavored Polar seltzer water (Blueberry Lemonade.) Plus a few Amazon boxes torn open because I order something every few days.

 

 

 

What’s your favorite vacation destination?  I’ve traveled to 44 countries and territories, but Kauai wins as my favorite.  I almost moved there instead of Oregon. I’d like to be buried at sea there alongside my dad in Hanalei Bay.

Favorite musician? Currently Parov Stelar. It’s the electro-swing genre. Beautiful pairing of old school swing music and electronic dance music (I’m a dancer.)

Favorite food: Spicy ethnic food of all types.

Favorite quote: “Happiness is the best revenge.”

What’s your mantra? Late to bed. Early to rise. Work like hell, and advertise. (Borrowed from a larger-than-life furniture entrepreneur from my hometown Houston, Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale).

Aside from family members, who would you want sitting next to you if you got stuck for three hours on the tarmac in a 737? Alive: Elon Musk. Deceased: Kublai Khan, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Julius Caesar, Bruce Lee, Mahatma Gandhi.

 

Compiled by Monica Bay, a CodeX Fellow and a freelance journalist. She is a member of the California bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Images:
• Courtesy of Gillespie:  Photo by Robert Benson (San Diego)
• Courtesy of Eicks: Photo by Beltrami Studios.
• Other photos (including cover photo): Clipart.com