Most lawyers aren’t founders. Most founders aren’t lawyers.
That gap? It shows.

I’ve spent most of my career in law firms, drafting and negotiating contracts, solving high-stakes problems, and operating in a system that prizes precision, control, and context. So when I started building WhatsLaw, an AI-powered law firm designed to actually help businesses, I thought the hard part would be the tech.

It turns out, the hard part is everything we lawyers have been trained to do.

Legal training is a double-edged sword

Lawyers are taught to work in structured environments: hierarchies, precedents, black-and-white outcomes. We draft with risk in mind. We review with skepticism. We don't “move fast and break things”, we slow down and fix things.

So stepping into the startup world means re-learning how to think. Or rather, unlearning just enough of the rigidness to make space for building something better. Something more flexible, more intuitive, more... human.

It’s not that lawyers are resistant to change, we just don’t trust solutions that don’t fit how we actually work.

The frustrating truth about most legal AI

Every few weeks, I test a new legal AI tool. Sometimes they’re impressive on the surface. But almost every time, I walk away frustrated.

These tools often try to be “too smart.” They generate clauses without understanding the client. They rewrite documents without preserving the structure you’ve built. They feel more like an overconfident trainee than a trusted peer.

The irony? Legal AI doesn’t need to replace lawyers. It needs to understand us.

What we’re really building at WhatsLaw

Some weekends, I reread old contracts I’ve written just to spot patterns.
Sometimes, I wish I could just clone my brain so our AI would “get it.”
But every Monday, I return with more conviction that we’re on the right path.

At WhatsLaw, we’re not building “legal tech” for the sake of it.
We’re building legal tech with legal thinking baked in, where context, control, and clarity come first.

It’s not about showing off AI.

To other lawyer-founders (or anyone thinking about making the jump)

If you’re a lawyer-turned-builder, or a founder in legaltech, you’ve probably felt this tension too: how do you take what you know from law and translate it into a product people actually use?

My advice? Start with the pain, not the tech. Talk to your past self. What used to frustrate you? What slowed you down? What made you say, “Why hasn’t someone built this yet?”

Then start building it.

We don’t need more legal tech.
We need better legal thinking in tech.

If you’re working on something in this space, or just curious about how legal workflows are evolving, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out or follow along.

We’re just getting started.