Before I built SOOT, I spent a year working at a law firm. It was my first real look at how law works, and what struck me most was how much happens behind the scenes that nobody sees, least of all the client.

A client sees one step: a letter goes out, a date is set. But getting from A to B is never that simple. It's A1.1, A1.2, A1.3 and many more before you reach B: documents requested and chased, forms checked, deadlines counted, fees recorded, files moved. Every client deserves to be a priority, and every client is also one of many open matters. I watched attorneys spend hours chasing documents and explaining delays, when they could have been doing the legal work.

I kept asking myself the same thing: how can I make this better?

So I started building Excel spreadsheets to track the work, and taught myself Excel from the ground up along the way. I learned quickly that changing how a firm works is its own challenge. People need time and training, habits are strong, and a spreadsheet is easy to change by accident.

That taught me the lesson SOOT is built on: a good system needs rules that hold. An app gives you structure, with rules that can't be bypassed or written over. Ever since those first spreadsheets, I wanted to build that app. So I did.

I listened to the people around me. I heard a director lose hours hunting for documents because the accountant's invoice had been queried. So in SOOT, a fee keeps its proof, and an invoice goes out with everything behind it. I saw the same tasks repeated every day, so SOOT lays them out, counts the deadlines and tells you when something needs following up.

I wanted one place for everything a firm needs to run, instead of a separate subscription for every part of the practice. An owner should be able to see every part of the firm from their phone or computer, check what's overdue, and feel confident that the app will tell them what needs attention. Clients benefit too: their emails and documents are filed against the right matter, so less gets lost in translation.

AI is changing how firms work, and I use it myself. That's exactly why SOOT's rules live in the database, where no person and no AI can override them. Your matters, your money and your firm stay protected.

I'm one person who listens closely and builds for needs firms often haven't put into words yet. If that sounds like what your firm needs, I'd love to show you SOOT.

Lea, founder of SOOT