OpenLaw是一家致力于革新在线法律服务对接方式的初创公司，其创始人Andrew Guzman希望让寻找律师变得像叫车一样便捷。该公司利用人工智能技术，将客户的需求与经过筛选的律师精准匹配，旨在降低律师的营销成本，并为客户提供更高效、经济的法律服务。OpenLaw通过其平台，客户可以提交法律问题，AI算法会筛选出经验最相关的律师，并允许律师提交方案。客户在比较后即可直接在平台内完成合同签署。目前，OpenLaw已在佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州吸引了超过130位律师入驻，并获得了350万美元的种子轮融资，计划将业务扩展至纽约、加州和亚利桑那州等新市场。尽管“法律服务的Uber”模式面临竞争和挑战，OpenLaw通过聚焦真实生活中的法律问题和创新的AI预警系统，试图在市场中脱颖而出。

💡 OpenLaw通过AI技术优化律师与客户的匹配效率，旨在简化传统法律服务对接流程，让客户能更便捷地找到合适的律师。平台利用AI算法分析客户提交的法律问题，并从数据库中筛选出经验最匹配的律师，从而提高匹配的精准度和速度。

💰 该平台为律师提供了降低营销成本的解决方案，通过直接对接客户，减少了律师在广告和推广上的投入，使其能更专注于法律专业工作。对客户而言，OpenLaw声称可帮助节省高达70%的法律费用。

🚀 OpenLaw获得了350万美元的种子轮融资，计划用于拓展新市场，包括纽约、加州和亚利桑那州。目前已在佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州吸引了超过130名律师加入，并有300名律师在等候名单中，主要服务于民事诉讼、家庭法和刑事辩护等高需求领域。

🚨 OpenLaw的一个创新之处在于其“早期预警系统”，利用AI技术监测公开数据，识别那些可能面临法律诉讼但尚未意识到或收到正式通知的个人，并及时告知他们选择，帮助他们主动应对潜在的法律风险。

OpenLaw founder Andrew Guzman thinks hiring a lawyer should be as easy as hailing an Uber.The company aims to rewire how people find lawyers online, and it raised fresh capital to do so.OpenLaw pitches itself to lawyers as a way to cut down on costly marketing.

Plenty of people find lawyers the same way they search for late-night Pad Thai: they Google it.

But the attorneys who pop up first, thanks to sponsored links or highway billboards, are often booked solid or charge premium rates, says Andrew Guzman, a former operator at a small law firm turned startup founder.

Now he's trying a different approach. His new startup, OpenLaw, uses artificial intelligence to match people with vetted lawyers online. The company has raised $3.5 million in funding to fuel expansion.

Here's how it works: A client submits a brief description of their legal issue on OpenLaw's site. The company's algorithms sift through its database of pre-screened attorneys and surface those with the most relevant experience.

OpenLaw shares case details with those lawyers who respond with proposals. Then, the client can compare options and pick one. The lawyer sends over a contract, and the client signs — all without leaving OpenLaw's site.

The legal industry is dominated by small and solo practices, leaving most lawyers to juggle actual legal work with the grind of running a business. OpenLaw pitches itself as a fix: by connecting lawyers directly with clients, the platform could cut down on marketing costs and free up time for the stuff they actually went to law school to do. That's the idea, anyway.

Guzman says OpenLaw has onboarded more than 130 lawyers across Florida and Texas, with another 300 on a waitlist. So far, the platform is geared toward high-volume practice areas like civil litigation, family law, and criminal defense.

Investors are buying in. OpenLaw's seed round was led by Flint Capital and Slauson & Co., with participation from Zach Posner's The LegalTech Fund, Mindful Venture Capital, Jenny Fielding's Everywhere Ventures, Gaingels, and others. The valuation was undisclosed.

Guzman says the fresh funding will be used to gas up new markets, including New York, California, and Arizona.

The "Uber for legal services" pitch is nothing new, and it's a category that's seen more flameouts than follow-through. UpCounsel, a marketplace for business lawyers, was once VC-backed and buzzy. But after getting hit with a flurry of lawsuits and struggling to scale, it announced plans to shut down in 2020, only to be rescued by a holding company. Another player, ContractsCounsel, has been around for years with a similar model, but remains relatively small and under-the-radar.

What's actually new here? Guzman thinks it's two things. The platform aims to help people facing "real-life" legal issues. You're getting divorced. Your credit card company is suing you to collect a debt. The other marketplaces, Guzman says, focus more on business transactions like incorporating a company or filing a trademark application.

In addition, OpenLaw is betting that its use of AI will give it an edge. Guzman says the company trawls public data to identify people who are being sued — often before those individuals even realize it.

"We have a very innovative early warning system where we let people know that they are being sued," he said. "We want them to know that they have options."

The first page of the company's online intake form asks, "Did you receive a notice from us?" Guzman declined to explain exactly how the system works, saying he didn't want to tip off competitors.

Whether OpenLaw's model proves durable remains an open question. But if the platform can deliver for lawyers and clients, it might just earn a place beyond the Google search bar.

Have a tip? Contact the reporter via email at mrussell@businessinsider.com or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.