Robert Ambrogi Blog
Case Status, a company whose product aims to improve the client experience by automating lawyer-client communications and case updates, has received venture capital funding from the Alabama Futures Fund. The amount of funding was not disclosed.
Case Status allows lawyers to provide clients with real-time visibility into the status of their matter from their mobile devices. The platform also helps lawyers grow their firms by making it easy to obtain reviews and referrals from current clients.
Founded in 2017, Case Status last year participated in the TechStars Atlanta accelerator program, backed by Cox Enterprises. According to the investors, Case Status is currently being used by 27 firms for more than 10,000 cases.
Lauren Sturdivant
Lauren Sturdivant, cofounder and CEO of Case Status, is a former personal injury attorney who says her mission is to improve the lives of lawyers and their clients across the world.
“Throughout my years of practicing law, I witnessed the disconnect that exists between lawyers and their clients,” Sturdivant says. Lawyers are busy and fail to keep their clients up-to-date, while their clients are often going through difficult times and do not fully understand the process.
After witnessing this disconnect for years, Sturdivant says, it became her mission to develop a solution that would allow lawyers to provide an easy way to communicate quickly and more effectively.
As a woman in legal and tech, two male-dominated industries, Sturdivant tells me she is also on a mission to let women know “that they can accomplish any goal, be a strong leader, and a great mom, all while following their purpose/mission of changing the world (or an industry) for the better.”
How it Works
Case Status analogizes its app to the Domino’s pizza tracker that lets you follow the progress of your order. Each practice area is broken into stages of progress, or roadmaps. Case Status provides templated roadmaps, but lawyers can configure them to suit their own practices.
When the lawyer completes a stage of a matter, the client receives a notice through the app. At any time, the client can check the app to see the stage of the case. Even when no activity is occurring in a case, Case Status can be configured to send out automated updates telling the client that nothing is currently happening in the case.
If a lawyer needs something from the client, such as a document, the lawyer can request it through the app and mark the case as being on hold. The client will be notified that the case will not move forward until the document is provided.
The app includes an encrypted messaging platform through which the attorney and client can exchange messages, documents and other files. Case Status maintains an audit trail of all messaging and can save it back into an integrated practice management application such as Clio or AbacusNext.
As each stage of a matter is completed, the client is asked to provide feedback on a scale of 1-10 of how likely the client is to refer the attorney. By the end of a matter, this feedback lets the attorney know which clients are likely to give positive outside reviews, and the attorney can use the app to request that the client provide a review on Google.
If a client does not want to install the app, Case Status provides the option of sending all messages through standard text messaging.
Relocating Headquarters
Case Status has offices in Atlanta, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., but will soon relocate to Birmingham, Al., in connection with its investment from Alabama Futures Fund. The relocation is part of AFF’s initiative to address the state’s lack of funding for early-stage startups by investing in Alabama companies, as well as businesses that will relocate their operations to the state.
AFF’s investors include former Auburn and NBA basketball star Charles Barkley, Protective Life Insurance Company, HOAR Construction, Raymond J. Harbert, G. Ruffner Page Jr., and Benny M. LaRussa Jr.
“We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with Case Status,” Mickey Millsap, a partner at Redhawk Advisory, which serves as the investment manager for the AFF, said in a statement. “Through their intuitive and sophisticated platform, Case Status solves one of the most important problems facing high case volume litigation attorneys: client communication and client satisfaction.”