The Lawyer's Escape Pod

Dorna Moini leaves BigLaw to build a legal tech start-up

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Dorna Moini is the CEO and founder of Gavel (formerly Documate), an easy-to-use platform for building client-facing legal apps. Prior to starting the company, Dorna was a litigator at Sidley Austin. There, in her pro bono practice, she worked with legal aid organizations to build a web application for domestic violence survivors to complete and file their paperwork, which led to the idea for Documate - to enable other attorneys to do the same in any area of law.

Dorna is on the Legal Services Corporation Emerging Leaders Council and a member of LAFLA's Advisory Board. She was named an ABA Legal Rebel and is on the Fastcase 50 list. 

In this conversation, we discussed:

  • Dorna’s initial interest in the law was human rights issues
  • She ended up in BigLaw and actually enjoyed it!
  • Dorna did a lot of pro bono work with domestic violence victims, which prompted her to develop a platform to make legal services more accessible to them; and that evolved to Documate
  • Getting to the point where she couldn’t run the business and work at the law full-time
  • Her firm offered for her to go part-time, but she decided she wanted to focus completely on her business
  • Dorna felt comfortable taking a leap knowing she could always go back to practice
  • She experienced a huge learning curve, but found it easy to self-educate with all the resources available 
  • Getting comfortable with what other people think of you making the jump from law to entrepreneurship 
  • The fear of regret was larger than the fear of failure
  • The importance of building a team that deeply believes in the core mission
  • You don’t need to go to business school to start a successful business
  • Working hard feels different when your heart is fully in it

    • Connect with Megan!

    Daydreams to Designs Private Podcast: https://bit.ly/daydreamstodesigns

    Employee to Entrepreneur Quiz: https://bit.ly/employeetoentrepreneurtype

    Schedule a Catalyst Call: https://megansmiley.com/schedule-a-call

    Website: https://www.megansmiley.com/

    ~

    Connect with Dorna!

    Gavel’s Website: https://www.gavel.io/

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    The Lawyer's Escape PodBy Megan Smiley
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