While a lawyer at Greenberg Traurig in Chicago, Collin Williams watched a client spend six years, and $1.2 million in legal fees, to resolve a dispute with a partner, only to see that case settle for $30,000.
It was a colossal waste of time and money, Williams recalled, and became the impetus of his mission to create a simpler and more streamlined tech-forward solution to resolve business disputes.
That solution is New Era ADR, a software startup that officially launched last month that allows arbitrations and mediations to take place completely virtually—no courtroom hearings, expensive travel costs and years of litigation. In fact, the startup says it's designed to resolve business disputes in 100 days or less.
The startup is led by a team of legal veterans who have experience in the tech sector. Williams was the former general counsel at Reverb, CEO Rich Lee was the general counsel at Civis Analytcs, head of growth Shane Mulrooney was the VP of legal at Home Chef, and head of operations Michelle Tyler was the director of compliance and legal operations at Civis.
New Era ADR is launching with $1.6 million in funding from a handful of notable investors, including Reverb founder David Kalt, Chicago entrepreneur Pete Kadens, and Trunk Club co-founder Kevin Price, along with VC firms Motivate Venture Capital and Alumni Venture Group.
New Era ADR's plan is ambitious: to help companies and law firms completely rethink the way disputes are settled, allowing the process to be done entirely online.
"We’re providing a complete alternative to court," Williams said.
If a company wants to do an arbitration or mediation online today, it requires Zoom meetings, countless emails back and forth to schedule meetings and send confidential documents, and a clunky payment process that requires a wire or a check in the mail. With New Era ADR, companies have one platform where they can upload documents, schedule meetings, and present their case before a neutral party—all while receiving a legally-binding decision in less than 100 days using a flat-fee pricing model.
It provides a major cost savings to the parties involved, Lee explained, as you're no longer paying for attorney travel fees and other costs that can accrue over a years-long legal battle.
"Why are we flying litigators in town from New York and San Francisco for one hour meetings in Chicago—and paying for their time on the flight and paying for hotels," Lee said. "This should all just be done virtually."
It's a business model that makes sense in a world of Covid-19 distancing and remote work, but the startup's founders were iterating on the idea for New Era ADR long before the coronavirus, Williams said, and at the beginning they worried if people would be willing to take a traditionally in-person practice completely online with new technology. The pandemic ended up providing the perfect opportunity to launch the startup, not only because of our increased willingness to conduct work online, but also the enormous courtroom backlog that Covid caused.
The use case for Nee Era ADR certainly makes sense for businesses, but the startup said it's also a benefit to law firms, who are able to provide an improved client experience and handle a higher volume of cases, Williams said.
New Era ADR launched last month with around 10 clients, but more importantly the startup has gotten its language written into dispute resolution clauses in nearly 700 contracts, which will provide a pipeline of potential clients to the startup down the road, Lee said. Traditionally those clauses indicate where parties will go to settle a dispute, like the Courts of Cook County, for example. Now, those contracts are being rewritten to say disputes will be settled using New Era ADR.
"They’re changing their legal agreements to write us in," Lee said. "It does show a level trust."
