Law Subscribed (159) Productizing (Quasi) Legal Services + Subscriptions with Zac Garthe of Copernicus Law and Sigil
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Here are the top 5 takeaways from this episode:
1. From Chemist to IP Attorney to Legal Tech Founder. Zac’s journey: scientist → Georgetown Law → top 10 global firm → in-house general counsel at a consumer brand → law firm partner → founded Sigil (legal tech) while maintaining Copernicus Law. His diverse experience across big law, in-house, and entrepreneurship gives him unique insight into legal service delivery problems.
2. Sigil Solves E-Commerce Fraud at 1/10th the Cost. Zac built Sigil after manually helping brands remove fraudulent sellers on Amazon/Walmart through cease and desist letters. By working directly with Amazon and Walmart’s in-house teams as a beta tester, he developed a tech solution that costs less than a tenth of traditional legal services while delivering faster results through automation.
3. In-House Experience Revealed Billable Hour Pain Points. As general counsel, Zac experienced every permutation of billable hours from the client side—managing budgets that routinely went 20-50% over, tracking invoices closely, and dealing with misaligned incentives. This firsthand frustration informed both his tech company’s pricing model and his law firm’s upcoming shift to subscriptions.
4. Law Firms Can’t Scale Tech Solutions. Zac learned that traditional law firm structures (ethical rules preventing non-attorney equity, inability to take investors, compensation restrictions) make it impossible to build scalable technology solutions. Separating Sigil from Copernicus Law allows proper funding, hiring engineers, and achieving the speed/scale needed to solve problems beyond manual legal work.
5. Transitioning Copernicus Law to Subscriptions. After this conversation, Zac committed to offering subscription-based services at his law firm. His partner handles day-to-day operations while he focuses on Sigil, but both recognize that subscriptions align better with client needs and reduce the anxiety of tracking every 0.1 hour increment.
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