Agreeable claims it makes the process of getting a contracting out agreement easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Photo / 123rf
Founded in 2019 by former Solicitor-General, Michael Heron KC, Agreeable has taken the traditional legal model of hourly rates, unknown expenses and long visits to a law office and flipped it on its head. Duncan Bridgeman asks Heron and Agreeable general manager Will Eddowes how the business is tracking.
What is Agreeable?
Will: Agreeable is an online legal service, making the process of getting a contracting out agreement much easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Using Agreeable, the parties draft an agreement with our app, get help from our team to sharpen it up, and then get a lawyer each from our nationwide panel for online advice and certification. Couples or ex-partners can use our service together from the start, right up until we provide the lawyers for the required separate advice. Our process usually saves a couple over $1000 and weeks compared to the current norm, which is where the couple splits off to separate lawyers from the start, who do all the talking, and things can get inflamed, drawn out, and far too expensive.
What motivated you to start the company?
Mike: For many people, accessing high-quality, good-value legal services is challenging. Early on we noticed that was particularly so where relationship property matters were involved. The hourly-rate model and the complex, slow court system, meant costs were too high for most ordinary Kiwis. I wanted to get people a fair, efficient and quality legal service in relationship property, particularly where they were agreed or near so.
What’s your key target market?
Will: Anyone that needs or wants to contract out, where both parties are on the same page, amicable, and know what they want to include. These situations are not well served by the current norm, so it makes a lot of sense for one place [Agreeable] to help the parties together for as long as the legal process allows. Our target market is really those who benefit the most from using our process: those without highly complex asset pools, who have done a bit of research themselves and want to get everything sorted in a fast, pragmatic, cost-effective manner.
How do you manage privacy?
Will: We have a clear privacy policy that is available to anyone at the bottom of our website. We handle sensitive information for people, so our small team of operations staff are well-trained and contractually obliged to adhere to a high standard of confidentiality.
How have your different backgrounds helped set strategy?
Will: Mike has an infectious energy for access to justice and improving legal services for Kiwis, particularly using technology and innovation. He looks to cut out the nonsense and isn’t afraid to think differently. To me, these are both cause and effect of his background as Solicitor-General and King’s Counsel. My background is in digital consulting combined with a law degree. It put me on fertile ground to grow the skill set that Agreeable needs, which is really to make decisions that help to expand and improve our digital legal service. At the end of the day, we’re both just enthusiastic about disrupting an area that is overdue for it.
What have you learned since starting the business?
Mike: Starting a digital business is really hard and takes a lot longer than you think. We’ve learned so many lessons, many are common to start-ups generally but some are specific to the legal world. A couple of those include that many lawyers are quite wedded to the status quo; and that lawyers understandably are reluctant to take risks (they are paid to avoid them).
How big is your team and how have you funded the business?
Will: The Agreeable team is essentially six. Alongside Mike and I, we have three very sharp law students who help with operations part-time: Ella Schenkel, Henry Fitzgerald and Helen Yu. Then, we have our in-house triage consultant, Shayne Milne, an ex-practising lawyer who talks to the couples and streamlines the process with her expertise. Outside of that six, we’ve got a panel of 15 great lawyers around the country, from a range of firms, allowing us to assign a lawyer each to both parties at fixed fees. The panel is full of pragmatic, forward-thinking lawyers who really believe in the difference that Agreeable offers to Kiwis. We’ve also had several developers help us with building and maintaining our online platform.
Mike: We have bootstrapped the business up to now. When needed, I’ve put in some modest capital assistance. We are now close to break-even, with revenue up nearly 100 per cent this year and profitability up nearly 50 per cent on the previous year.
How do you come up with price points for the services?
Will: The cost of drafting the initial agreement is $450, which includes our online questionnaire to generate the document, and then any help to amend it. Our research found that drafting the ”non-Agreeable” way is often twice the price and painstakingly slow, so we’ve balanced affordability with covering our costs.
For the legal advice and certification, we agree on a fixed quote with each lawyer and add them to create one total fixed fee for the couple. Our process has done much of the work for the lawyers beforehand, which is where we save people on time and cost. Most people agree that the “non-Agreeable” way is far too slow and expensive for straightforward, amicable situations, and the feedback that we get on pricing, from both lawyers and clients, is always encouraging.
How do you plan to grow the business?
Will: We’re currently working on a mediation service as a better alternative for parties that are still negotiating or in disagreement. This idea has had great feedback from many in the family law space. We’re also considering opening up a service in Australia. With Agreeable being a digital service, we think it’s achievable if we find the right Aussie lawyers to partner with.
We’d also like to partner with a bank or several banks. There are many situations where a bank will require a certified agreement before providing or changing a mortgage, and at the moment they just send their clients off to get sorted, which is a bit of a roadblock. We think the banks would be doing themselves and their clients a real favour to mention Agreeable as an option.
What’s the biggest challenge to achieve growth?
Will: We’re going up against an established status quo, so convincing Kiwis to try a different way is its own challenge. For us, it’s really about how we give information to people, and how we explain the difference in our process. Legal information is relatively “gatekept” by lawyers, and that can be a good thing, but for couples in the stressful situation of sorting out relationship property, sometimes they just want someone to help them in an accurate but accessible way. We’re always working to get that balance just right.
Where do you see the business in five years?
Will: We’re aiming to be the go-to place for getting these agreements in New Zealand. Mike and I talk about making our service a “no-brainer” compared to the alternative. In the same way that, for most people, Uber became a no-brainer over taxi companies on both price and convenience, we think we should be that for what is a growing area of law. We’re well-placed to stay on the leading edge of technology when it comes to legal services, such as involving AI in helping people figure out what services to consider. It doesn’t have to be legal advice, but it can point people in the right direction: accurate, free, and available 24/7.
What advice do you have for others looking to disrupt an industry?
Will: Firstly, figure out which norms of that industry are the way they are because they have to be, and which norms are just “because that’s what we’ve always done”. The second category will be full of things that can be improved. Secondly, talk to people inside the industry that are passionate about improving it. Some of the most rewarding and insightful conversations that we’ve had about Agreeable have been with the lawyers on our panel. On one hand, they’ve benefitted from the old approach for many years, but on the other hand, they’re enthusiastic and honest about how things can be improved.
Duncan Bridgeman is managing editor of NZME Business, including the Business Herald and BusinessDesk.
The Government has committed funding to the sector in an effort to support future plans.