Growing up, Brett’s idea of fun was turning his creativity into business ideas. A born entrepreneur, business school was the natural choice after high school, but he wasn’t sure where it would take him — the idea of being an accountant or finance professional never felt quite right. His dad suggested he pursue his law degree.
Five days after his 22nd birthday, with a semester left in his business degree, Brett’s father passed away. It was sudden and it rocked him. Having lost someone so important to him at such a young age, Brett decided to take his late father’s advice and pursue studies in law.
Brett was unlike most of his law school peers in a few ways. His entrepreneurial knack led him to run a franchise painting business throughout his 1L year to help cover costs and, frankly, because he loved running a business. He was not invested in the recruitment process as other first-year students, and took his first summer off to travel Southeast Asia. Fortunately, his good grades landed him several interviews for articles in second year. Unable to differentiate between firms, Brett decided to follow a close friend to work at a national law firm.
Although many might be skeptical about basing career choices on your friends, this decision proved to be a wise choice for Brett and eventually for the future of Canadian legal services as well.
Working with friends during his year of articling was a saving grace. His year of articling, like many, was intense; having a tight-knit group to grind in the trenches made his experience much more bearable. In fact, many of the friends he made during that year became some of the best friendships he’s ever had. They’d been through (legal) war together, and they survived together.
After articling, Brett continued with the firm for a few years to work in their banking group. Although he brought in a lot of work and was successful, Brett’s entrepreneurial side struggled with the traditional law firm’s refusal or, perhaps, inability to innovate. His eagerness to share ideas and improve current processes led his colleagues to label him “Mr. Idea Guy”.
In most businesses this would be seen as a major compliment. Unfortunately for Brett, that was not the case in the traditional big law sphere.
Brett wanted to use his skills to increase productivity. His firm, however, wanted to keep things the way they were done before. Being risk averse is not a bad quality, but it prevented Brett from growing and being passionate about his job.
He found that his work lacked creativity and came to the realization that he did not aspire to achieve the same career as any of the senior partners at his firm. One day, a senior lawyer came into Brett’s office fuming and told Brett something that gave him the clarity he needed. He said: “Brett, keep coming up with ideas, but keep them to yourself.” This was the moment Brett knew his time in big law was over — for good.
Cue: Goodlawyer.
Brett had been scheming Goodlawyer since first year law school. He bought the domain, goodlawyer.ca, in contracts class in his first week (more details on the name to follow) without much of an idea as to what Goodlawyer would even entail. The seeds of Goodlawyer continued to grow in 2L when he wrote a paper on multidisciplinary practices and access to justice.
Through his research, Brett discovered that 77% of legal needs in North America go unmet, largely because accessing lawyers is simply too costly for most individuals and small businesses to afford. At the same time, the legal profession (certainly in those early law school days) gave off the impression that there were not enough jobs out there.
So he asked himself: how could there be too many lawyers, yet so few legal needs being met?
The name turned up serendipitously. During one of his routine visits to his local coffee shop, he told the owner Mo that he was going to be attending law school. Mo was generally a very cheerful, light-hearted man, but at the prospect of Brett becoming a lawyer one day, he got very, unusually serious. He looked at Brett and said very simply, “Be a good lawyer. Be a good lawyer.” And that was what Brett set out to be.
It wasn’t until much later, over four years into his legal career that Brett had the courage to leave the big firm and pursue that original mission — to be a “good lawyer” just as Mo had said. He left the firm, joined forces with a developer and a designer (now CTO and CPO, respectively) and started building Goodlawyer off the kitchen table. Soon after, they were able to raise $250,000 in initial capital to support themselves, and Brett and his co-founders were off to the races.
After a couple pivots and iterations along the way, Goodlawyer found product-market fit as the go-to platform that “connects entrepreneurs across Canada with a network of business-minded lawyers ready to help [users] faster and more affordably than ever.” Through his experience Brett understood the drawbacks (and bad incentives) built into the traditional partnership model that drove inefficiency and failed to foster innovation. He knew in the long run that traditional firms couldn’t compete with a company like Goodlawyer if they were able to build a solution that took care of the business (firm-like) operations so lawyers could focus on their craft.
The first year after launching was difficult. The company had offered too many services, and the young co-founders had bitten off more than they could chew. But the three co-founders (Brett, Parker Smith and Tom Alvarez) persevered, and relaunched Goodlawyer with a new mindset and a narrowed scope. Then came COVID-19… and Goodlawyer took off. In the span of 18 months, Goodlawyer went from a three-man show at Brett’s kitchen table to a legitimate company with 25 employees, an office and over 100 lawyers spanning across every Canadian province. According to Brett, they’re just getting started.
So what is Goodlawyer and how does it work for lawyers?
Goodlawyer provides lawyers with all the “business of law” stuff like marketing, administration, pricing, and customer support, so lawyers can focus on what they’re good at. The Goodlawyer community also provides a safe place for Canadian solo lawyers and boutique firms to belong, connect, and share knowledge with like-minded professionals who see a brighter future ahead.
Some may assume that this business model is less profitable than the traditional law firm. A shift in perspective is all that is required to see how valuable Goodlawyer’s cost model is. When lawyers don’t bill hours, they also don’t have to waste time tracking their hours.
In fact, a handful of Good Lawyers will make $100,000 in their first 12 months on the platform!
Brett’s message is that lawyers don’t need to settle for the obvious path presented. If you’re thinking of taking a risk to do something less traditional, focus on the upside. There is safety and security in the status quo, but when you allow yourself to imagine different possibilities, opportunities present themselves.
You can also connect with Brett on LinkedIn here.
You can also connect with Brett on LinkedIn here.