Our freelance lawyer got pulled away so we were left with a big gap in capability that needed to be filled urgently.
When we first met Fraser Hopper, VP of Ops, in early 2022 they were well on their way to becoming big success. Their platform was getting rave reviews. The team was invested. Achieving more growth and raising Series B was on the horizon.
But as a rapidly scaling entrepreneurial company they knew big challenges lay ahead of them. Fraser joined the company when it was just 10 people, it was now closer to 80. One of the most urgent problems that landed on Fraser’s plate was dealing with mounting contract reviews. Specifically, their sales agreements.
The lack of a legal resource was spilling over into sales, Fraser explained: “The last thing we wanted to tell the sales team is that deals were going to take longer to close, so we knew these agreements needed to be reviewed quickly… obviously as a startup growth and revenue are the main focus, so something had to change.”
Wanting to stay lean, Chattermill had no in-house legal team but the prospect of paying law firm rates wasn’t viable either. “Lexoo came in with competitive fixed-fees. It made the financial case against using a law firm pretty straightforward.”
If you were supporting sales, you had to be responsive so that level of support was vital for us.
Similar to a law firm, Lexoo has an in-house team of lawyers, but the similarities end there. Lexoo is insanely focussed on getting deals signed, and as a result we work much more closely with your commercial teams just like an in-house lawyer would do.
The experience is like having a full fledged in-house legal team, but without the cost and hassle of a full time hire. We also develop technology to ensure we’re super efficient and can charge competitive fixed-fees.
When it came to hiring a freelancer, Fraser gave this advice to others faced with a similar problem:
“Freelancers are great and it worked well for us, but I’d highlight to anyone looking at this option to factor-in their availability. What we really wanted was a responsive, “always-on” legal resource to be there for our sales team, but without the overhead of a full time employee. Lexoo was able to deliver that.”
What Fraser needed was a responsive, go-to resource that could take on their sales agreements and get on with work without too much oversight. “We’re a startup so we want to give people responsibility for solving challenges that come with that.”
This is the gap Lexoo fills better than anyone else in the legal tech / services market – here’s how we helped Chattermill.
Get help in days: it took just 1 week to sign terms, create a playbook and review Chattermill’s first sales agreement. “We signed terms and a week later could email the contracts directly to Lexoo – it felt easy.”
Commercial: our lawyers aligned with Chattermill’s risk appetite and focused on the big commercial drivers that ultimately drove deals. We never “overlawyered” their agreements and caused protracted negotiations or delays.
Playbook: using LexPlay, our playbook builder software, Chattermill was able to develop a tailored contract ‘checklist’ that captured their most important positions. This enabled us to work independently without having to frequently escalate.
Subscription plan: to keep things simple, Chattermill paid a single fixed-fee every quarter for all their sales agreements.
More deals closed, recognised revenue faster.
Chattermill needed a legal resource that could step-in quickly when their freelancer moved on. We were able to provide support in just a few days using a simple fixed-fee model.
Using our playbook builder software, LexPlay, our team created a detailed playbook that can empower non-lawyers with the guidance they need to their sales agreements independently, or train up their first legal hire when needed.
Lexoo builds and hosts your contract playbook in LexPlay so we could collaborate there plus it meant we were growing a knowledge base for how we negotiate our agreements.
A great alternative to law firms and freelancers. If you need support reviewing contracts, speak to them.
