I spoke with Javed Qadrud-Din, co-founder and CTO of General Legal - the AI-native law firm backed by Y Combinator, built to serve growth-stage companies.
Javed has been coding since the age of nine. He went to Harvard, detoured into law at Fenwick & West, then decided he’d rather build things than advise on them. He got deep into deep learning in 2014, built what’s been described as the first semantic search system in legal at CaseText - before GPT existed - and was part of the team behind a multi-million exit to Thomson Reuters in 2023.
Now at General Legal, Javed is rebuilding how legal services are delivered: flat fees, and a three-hour turnaround time.
We discussed:
→ Javed’s extraordinary background and how General Legal came about
→ The difference between being AI-native and being AI-powered
→ What the economics of flat-fee legal services look like under pressure, and whether $500 per contract goes down as AI improves.
→ Why founders using free ChatGPT to draft contracts are “yoloing it”.
→ His vision for what the legal industry looks like in 2030 - and what lawyers should be doing today to prepare.
I hope you enjoy!
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