We’ve created a network of vetted lawyers through a rigorous interview and curation process

Priori Legal is the easiest place for small businesses to find and work with the best lawyers. Priori is a curated online marketplace that connects high-growth startups and SMBs with a network of vetted lawyers at their most competitive rates. Our platform both simplifies the process of finding, hiring, paying for and working with legal counsel.

Basha Frost Rubin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Priori Legal.Basha speaks and writes extensively on how technology and innovation is changing – and this will affect – the legal industry. Her writing has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, TechCrunch, VentureBeat Women 2.0 and Under30CEO. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Yale College, and is a member of the New York Bar.

BusinessInterviews.com:  Can you expand on how Priori is transforming how small businesses interact with lawyers?

Basha:  Absolutely. At Priori, we facilitate small businesses working with the very best lawyers at the most competitive rates in the easiest possible way.

We’ve created a network of vetted lawyers through a rigorous interview and curation process. We select the top of the top–about 20% of the lawyers who apply to participate. And in order to remain in the network, lawyers must maintain a 95% approval rating from Priori clients.

When a business comes to Priori, they describe their legal need, and we quickly handpick up to 5 lawyers from our pre-vetted network who can help. Clients can then compare profiles and pricing information (which includes an exclusive Priori discount and often come in flat fee structures) before scheduling complimentary half-hour consultations with their preferred lawyers.

Once an entrepreneur hires a lawyer, Priori transforms into the back office to make invoicing transparent and billing automated.

At every step of the process, we make hiring and working with lawyers more transparent, efficient and cost-effective.

BusinessInterviews.com: How did you come up with the idea for Priori?  Can you talk about the process from first having the idea to then taking it to market?

Basha: In law school, I saw that businesses (and individuals) used lawyers inefficiently and often only after there’s a problem. I set about trying to build a business that would make the market for legal services more transparent and easy to access — and thus, the idea for Priori was born.

My cofounder Mirra Levitt and I interviewed hundreds of lawyers and small businesses about the pain points they experience — and designed Priori to ameliorate as many as possible. Our in-depth research allowed us to roll out a product that added immediate value.

BusinessInterviews.com: What’s been the most useful advice that you’ve received during your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Basha: Founding a startup is an adventure, and it’s so useful to have fellow entrepreneurs on a similar journey to ask for advice and support. The best advice I’ve received is to cultivate those relationships early and often.

BusinessInterviews.com:  What are some of the most common reasons that small businesses end up needing legal counsel that they didn’t anticipate?

Basha: It varies — which is exactly why we encourage businesses to develop a relationship with a trusted lawyer early on.  A lawyer helps you plan strategically to make sure you identify and mitigate risks — whether intellectual property, corporate governance related or employee based, to name a few. With a lawyer on your team early, you will often save a great deal of time and money in the long run.

BusinessInterviews.com:  Congratulations on your expansion.  Can you share how you got Priori up and running in California last fall?

Basha:  Thanks! Expanding from New York to California in Fall 2014 was very exciting. Because we’re a two-sided market, we needed to make sure we had a broad and deep supply of excellent lawyers in California before we were able to launch. Once we had built that out, we started rolling out our services to the California business community, and it’s been a great reception so far. We’re planning on launching in more states in 2015 based on our success in California. So far, we’ve expanded the reach of our services to New Jersey, Connecticut, and Texas–and can’t wait to roll out more.