#StartupsEverywhere profile: Sonja Ebron, Co-Founder and CEO, Courtroom5
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Helping People Navigate the Civil Court System
Courtroom5 is a Durham-based startup that provides automated legal support to people representing themselves in civil court. We recently spoke with the Co-Founder and CEO, Sonja Ebron, to learn more about her background, the company’s use of artificial intelligence, and what policymakers can do to address funding disparities.
What in your background made you interested in launching Courtroom5?
Debra Slone, my Co-Founder, and I fell into this work as a result of our life experiences. We’re both former college professors. We didn’t have the means to hire lawyers with huge hourly rates. So when we were sued, we represented ourselves. Everyone has a right to do that, but if your opponent is a corporation represented by a lawyer, there is a terrible mismatch.
In a civil case, there are hundreds of decisions to make and tasks to perform. If you don’t know what to do and when to do it, you’re screwed. That’s what happened to us at first. Eventually, we understood the system well enough to stand up to a lawyer. But we both have PhDs. You shouldn’t need a PhD to represent yourself in court.
On several occasions, while sitting in a courtroom waiting for our case to be called, we watched as hundreds of people were effectively denied the right to be heard because they did not know how to navigate the different procedures. It seemed unfair. Compelled to do something about it, we started a blog and shared our experiences online. People expressed a willingness to pay for how-to information expressed in layman’s terms, and Courtroom5 was born.
Can you tell us more about Courtroom5 and how you’re helping to democratize the civil court system?
Courtroom5 offers tools and training to help people navigate a complex civil case. We’ve had to study the user experience of people in court without a lawyer. Ultimately, we developed a platform that tracks progress in a case using artificial intelligence. Our AI points users to relevant information and tools to help them reach the next step in their case.
We created document templates, a claims analysis tool, and offered searchable access to a database of six million U.S. appellate cases. We developed video-based training to help people find appropriate legal authorities and understand what’s important at each step of a case. These resources give our users a bird's-eye view of their case at each stage.
As a #justicetech company, we work in a regulated environment. There are laws in every state against the unlicensed practice of law, and we are committed to staying within the good graces of regulators. Our application can’t explicitly tell a user: “Here’s your situation and this is what you should do.” That’s legal advice, and we’re not allowed to give legal advice. But we can help users decide—based on the stage of their case—what they should be learning. And we can offer training that helps them make better decisions.
Over the past year, systemic inequities—including racial injustice—have led to global protests and calls for change. How have these critical issues impacted Courtroom5’s work, particularly when it comes to helping underrepresented people navigate the civil court system?
The murder of George Floyd last year was one of those pivotal events that highlights the systemic injustices in our society. As African American women, Debra and I are intimately familiar with these longstanding issues. Part of what compelled us to create Courtroom5 was the fact that those facing inequities in court are disproportionately Black and Brown and women. We’ve tried to speak to some of the outrages we witnessed and make people aware that courts are available to address them. Most people don’t know how to file lawsuits against police departments and individuals who harass them. Even if they lose in court, lawsuits can highlight wrongful behaviors and persuade wrongdoers to change.
Underrepresented founders often face additional barriers when it comes to launching a startup. What do you think the startup community and policymakers can do to better support Black and Brown entrepreneurs?
It comes down to access to capital and networks. Some of my startup peers can ask relatives for $50,000 or $100,000 for their startups, but that’s out of the question for most Black and Brown founders. Due to historic wrongs, the net worth of the typical white family is 10-20 times the net worth of the typical Black family. Policymakers should redress those wrongs because we can’t expect Black entrepreneurs to compete on equal terms with that type of wealth gap.
Debra and I bootstrapped Courtroom5 until last year. We don't come from wealth, but we borrowed $1,000 here and there from friends and family. Those investments were significant sacrifices for our friends and family, who believed in us and our mission.
We worked to bridge the funding gap with pitch competitions and other forms of non-dilutive capital. A grant from NC IDEA, a foundation that holds a twice-a-year pitch competition, was extremely helpful. We also won a pitch competition at Google’s Black Founders Exchange, and we received an award from Google’s Black Founders Fund last year. This support helped us win a coveted spot in a Techstars accelerator and earn institutional funding from an investor, Precursor Ventures.
There’s a tremendous need for entrepreneurial training geared to Black and Brown founders. Policymakers and organizations must do a better job highlighting diverse stories so people can see Black entrepreneurs struggling and surviving and competing. Crunchbase has begun to track diverse investments, and policymakers can leverage that knowledge to provide tax incentives for diverse distribution of capital. Opportunity Zones should also receive more funding in order to direct more resources to Black and Brown founders.
How has the coronavirus pandemic affected Courtroom5’s work, and how are you responding to the ongoing outbreak with your services? Are there any steps that you believe policymakers should take at this time to support affected startups?
Financial difficulties often land people in court without a lawyer, so Courtroom5 is the kind of business that grows in a tough economy. We endured the same challenges as other businesses early in the pandemic. But as it continued, we began to see increases in visits to our website and the number of people who needed our product.
What is your goal for Courtroom5 moving forward?
Long-term, we will continue easing the experience of being in court without a lawyer. There is much work needed to grow our resources and improve the technology that delivers those resources.
We expect to see increased debt collection, foreclosures, bankruptcies, and other economic consequences of the pandemic over the next few years. Most of those impacted by this crisis will lack legal representation, and we plan to make Courtroom5 available to give them a fair hearing in court.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email edward@engine.is.
