Vartanian launched LawVo to deal with the legal industry's 'two fundamental problems'
Lena Vartanian’s experience wrestling work-life balance from a demanding career led her to want to bring the gig economy to the legal profession.
After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2012, she practised mainly insurance defence for a few years at Dolden Wallace Folick LLP in Vancouver before launching her own firm on the personal injury side called Vartanian Law Firm.
At this point, she was already a mother of two. She began law school with a one-year-old and had her second in year two.
“Every day was a challenge. But I told myself I was just going take it one day at a time. Basically, while my friends were out partying and doing all these things, I was running back and forth between classes and spending time with my children.”
Vartanian did not choose to start a family at that time despite being in law school but because of it. She had heard about how difficult it was to establish yourself in the profession, build a client network, and stay on the partner track, and she did not want to add a couple of mat leaves on top of it.
“I was so terrified at that thought… As I started practising, I realized how difficult it actually is to maintain a career and to also have a life – to have children and do everything else.”
In her first few years, while she hit her billable targets, marketed, and managed client relations, “every day was a struggle,” says Vartanian.
“I thought that there really has to be a better way to help lawyers maintain a successful career, and also to be successful as parents, to have time with their children and their families, and to do everything they want to do.”
Almost half of all adult Canadians – 11.4 million people – will experience at least one “everyday legal problem” over a given three-year period, according to a report from the Government of Canada called “Shifting the Paradigm: Exploring Opportunities for Community Justice Help.” But surveys cited in the report found that only around 19 percent of people with such legal problems seek formal legal advice, and only seven percent end up engaging courts or tribunals.
But for those who do get a lawyer, the experience is generally positive. Seventy-nine percent of people who got the assistance of a lawyer found it “somewhat or very helpful,” said the report.
Vartanian blames this access-to-justice gap on the lack of transparency, accessibility, and findability. “Technology is a great equalizer,” and AI and other digital tools help lawyers work more efficiently and can cultivate a more flexible work environment, she says.
Vartanian recently co-founded the legal app LawVo, a platform that matches lawyers and clients in a virtual marketplace with fixed fee quotes produced by their proprietary pricing algorithm. For lawyers, the service also offers automated document drafting and review and virtual office tools such as communication, billing, invoicing, calendaring, file management, client identification and verification. Vartanian is the CEO of the company.
Her business is aimed at what she says are legal services’ “two fundamental problems”: most people who need them do not obtain them, and the struggle among lawyers to maintain a work-life balance often leads them to leave the profession.
“What LawVo is essentially doing is bringing the gig economy to the legal profession and providing lawyers with all the tools they need to start their own virtual practice,” she says.
