Shreya Sharma, Founder of Rest the Case, Addresses the Lack of Digitalization in India's Legal Market with a One-Stop Platform for All Legal Needs

StartupTalky presents Recap'22. This is a series of interviews in which we conduct in-depth discussions with founders & industry leaders to understand their growth in 2022 and their predictions for the future.

A legal service marketplace is a platform that connects clients with lawyers or legal professionals. The marketplace offers a variety of legal services, such as document review, contract drafting, and dispute resolution, among others. Clients can choose the legal professional they want to work with based on factors such as experience, ratings, and cost. The platform typically handles payment and manages the transaction between the client and the legal professional, making it easier and more convenient for both parties to find and work with each other.

Despite having so many legal aggregators quality of information is missing. Also, other standards like knowledge with analysis and judgments under one stop were dreams for the legal fraternity in India.

To solve this problem, Shreya Sharma launched REST THE CASE . The legal-tech market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 25% during the forecast period 2021-2026, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence.

For this Interview, we invited Shreya Sharma founder of REST THE CASE, and we talked about the growth, challenges, insights, and future opportunities in the Legal industry.

StartupTalky: Shreya, what service does REST THE CASE provide? What was the motivation/ vision with which you started?

Shreya: We are a legal aggregator platform that connects lawyers and clients. Our main service is bridging the gap between clients and lawyers. Apart from this we also have legal information and legal drafts which one can access on our website.

The legal market in India was missing digitalization and there weren't platforms that offered all things related to the law under one roof. The main motivation was to provide one place for all kinds of legal services to enhance people’s access to legal services.

StartupTalky: What new features have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your product?

Shreya: We have an ERP-based case management system for our registered lawyers which helps them efficiently keep records of their clients saving time and cost. When speaking about USPs, we are a platform that has everything law related under one roof. One doesn't need to go to any other platform for different services.
Alternatively, we are also catering to a plethora of interested parties be it lawyers,
clients, law students, or even someone wanting to gain knowledge about our laws.

StartupTalky: How has the legal-tech industry changed in recent years and how has your company adapted to these changes?

Shreya: As in all industries technology’s role in law has increased tremendously. Being a legal tech company our entire business model revolves around tech in law. Apart from this AI and Mediation are two spaces that a growing and we are currently working on bringing them onto our platforms.

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StartupTalky: How do you stay up-to-date on the latest trends and developments in the legal industry?

Shreya: There are multiple ways of doing this, one of the most helpful way is to stay in touch and network with your peers in the industry. Reading and keeping a tab on what other similar companies are doing also helps. Additionally, we also keep having events like Panel Discussions and Interviews with industry experts which helps us also know the new developments.

StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the company's growth and performance?

Shreya: Metrics and numbers are an important part of any business and we place a lot of importance on them as they can be a great indicator of how the business is
performing. Some of the indicators we focus on are: Revenue, the Number of
Lawyers Registered with us, How many Clients approach us, Our social media
reach, etc.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges your company faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?

Shreya: Legal matters are very personal and very confidential. Gaining the trust of people to use our services was one of our biggest challenges. To overcome this we have ensured that all the lawyers on our website go through a verification process. Not just this but everything on the website is end-to-end encrypted.

StartupTalky: Trust among all the stakeholders is very important for a marketplace. How do you ensure it?

Shreya: As mentioned above we have a verification process for our registered lawyers. Apart from this, our team has constant communication with lawyers and clients to make sure all queries and concerns are addressed.

StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack which you pulled off.

Shreya: We have very active social media and with that, we try to make people aware of the current legal happenings in the country.

StartupTalky: Keeping up with supply and demand is important. How do you keep both in order?

Shreya: For us, the supply and demand would be in the form of lawyers and clients. We try to make sure that we are constantly expanding our lawyer base all over the country to make sure that we can provide legal services to almost everyone and not just in major cities.

StartupTalky: What are the important tools and software you use to run your business smoothly?

We use a multitude of tools for running our business like SEO tools, tools for running our Ads, social media optimization tools, etc.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen between India and the world?

Shreya: There is a lot of scope for growth for our company. With new and more advanced technologies coming we will constantly be updating our platform and incorporating the same to make it most advantageous for our users.

StartupTalky: What lessons did your team learn in the past year and how will these inform your plans and strategies?

Shreya: We have learned how dynamic our environment is and hence all our plans and strategies are going to be such that they support any kind of macro or micro factors affecting us.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, service offering, and team base in the future?

Shreya: We are working towards incorporating AI-based technology on our platform. Additionally, we also want to add a mediation portal to our platform as it is one of the most sought-after ADR mechanisms.

StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with another marketplace company founder?

Shreya: The most important thing is to believe in oneself and their ideas. Having a team who can support you in that idea is key to your company's success.

We thank Shreya Sharma for spending her valuable time and sharing her learnings with all of us.

You can read other Recap'22 Interviews here.