European Business Caught up with Ceo Sam Kidd (pictured) of cloud-based software platform LawVu designed for in-house legal teams .We discussed many things on his ever expanding global company from the challenges of being a start up to expanding their operations globally..
LawVu s a leading legal technology platform designed to streamline workflows, document management, and collaboration within in-house legal teams. Focused on providing an intuitive, integrated solution for legal operations, It aslo enables legal professionals to manage contracts, communications, and data securely, ensuring compliance and improving productivity.
Esentially this cloud-based platform facilitates not only collaboration both within legal departments but across wider business units, leveraging powerful integrations with major tools like Microsoft Office and third-party research platforms.
LawVu is based in Wellington but has offices in Auckland, Christchurch; and Queenstown They are also spread out through the US with offices in the UK also.
European Business Magazine (EBM) – When was LawVu’s first inception? Was it around 2015 ?
Sam Kidd (SK) -Actually Earlier. Legal is generally not a startup-friendly space; it prioritizes security and stability over the “move fast and break things” mentality. Legal teams want assurance that you’ll be around for the long haul, emphasizing thoroughness over speed.
We spent about three years developing our product with few customers, focusing heavily on security compliance and building a robust framework. This approach allowed us to enter markets beyond New Zealand and work with large corporations, who value the reliability and rigor we’ve established
EBM-What ways does LawVu integrate with or support legal research platforms to streamline the research process for legal professionals?
SK– This is part of our “ecosystem play”—focused on integrating with various third-party applications. Whether we build the integration or it’s developed by others, users can connect their existing research platforms and other tools through our power platform, bringing everything seamlessly together.
EBM-How does Lawvu’s platform facilitate client collaboration and what features are included to enhance client interactions?
SK-The genesis of LawVu came from my personal experience as someone without a legal background. I found myself wondering how to effectively communicate with lawyers and overcome the intimidation factor when sending legal instructions.
This led us to focus on two key problems: First, how could we template legal processes? And second, how could we share legal knowledge throughout an organization? We recognized that while some employees regularly interact with legal teams, others rarely do, so we needed to create standardized workflows and forms. For example, if someone needed an NDA, they could follow a clear template rather than starting from scratch.
At its core, LawVu’s value proposition is about helping businesses move faster by streamlining their interaction with legal teams. We’ve built a business portal that enables anyone to properly instruct legal teams through guided templates and processes. The end result might be a finished product they can use directly, or it could be a streamlined way to provide all the necessary information to the legal team.
Looking ahead, we’re expanding our capabilities with a mobile app for contract approvals. We’re also exploring integration opportunities with Microsoft Copilot, which we believe will become a crucial gateway to enterprise tools – whether for sales, calendar management, or legal services. Microsoft is making significant investments in Copilot, and we’re collaborating closely with them to explore potential integrations.
EBM You mentioned your background, what were you doing prior to LawVu?
SK– I was with a company in the online project management space. So it was a setup helping companies and departments streamline workflow. I was workflow-based. Some of the people were legal and I got to experience working with lawyers for the first time. It used to be so painful, they couldn’t give me any transparency or even timelines.
Then one thing led to another, I got introduced to my cofounder who had been working in a law firm and trying to do a similar approach as me.
We got talking to folks, then one thing led to another, we started talking with some in-house legal users and looked at their processes and tools. So we helped them and they started talking with other companies. Then we looked offshore into the US and everyone was the same. These massive organisations were operating with no technology.
And so we are hoping over the next few years that that that will become worldwide. And if you don’t have a LawVu-shaped product, you’re going to look like you’re not operating efficiently. It’s one of those professions, and especially with technology, it’s very archaic.
EBM -Artificial intelligence and machine learning-How does LawVu look at integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance legal operations and decision-making processes?
SK- AI is a hot topic, but we see it as one part of a broader tech stack that helps solve users’ daily challenges—mainly, quick information access. In-house lawyers, for instance, often need to retrieve past work, but legal teams are both major data collectors and “incinerators,” storing vast amounts of information that’s hard to navigate.
We think about the life of a lawyer in-house. Then a question comes in like how do they actually access that information? Like a lot of our clients, they just have what they consume, and they store a whole lot of information.
I quite often joke about the legal teams being some of the largest collectors of data. So in an organisation, they’re probably the largest incinerator as well. And so how do we help them? That’s really what LawVu’s been about: how do you help people store things in a structured manner and then allow them to access that information quickly and easily.
And that’s really where the power of AI comes into it as a kind of strength.LawVu’s mission is to help teams store information in a structured way and access it efficiently. Here, AI shines by allowing users to ask natural language questions and find relevant data faster than with standard search tools. Whether it’s locating a clause or finding work by a specific colleague, AI helps reclaim time by removing repetitive, time-consuming tasks and improving productivity.
EBM-Moving on to the cloud-based side of things, what are the key advantages of law using cloud-based solutions for legal departments? And how do they ensure data security and accessibility?
SK-This was a major challenge early on, but Microsoft helped normalize cloud use and security standards with Office 365, making cloud deployments low-touch for IT teams. Since we’re fully Azure-based, most of our client organizations have already ensured Azure aligns with their security requirements, allowing for quick, cost-effective decisions without the significant capital expenses of on-premise setups. The cloud’s maturity and robust compliance programs now give companies confidence in securely storing even their most sensitive data on the platform.
EBM- How does LawVu support legal teams in maintaining ethics and compliance through its software solutions? And what specific features are designed for this purpose?
SK-Well, that’s quite a hard one. It sort of depends on where we are. For a lot of them, the compliance is just the process. It’s storing the documents and making sure you have a record of everything, whether it’s key notifications and dates, that kind of pop up for folks.
For US companies, a lot comes down to the law firms that they engage with. And so keeping a record of what law firms they use, what partners are doing, what the work is, and then how you’re recording that inside the platform, as well.
So again, a lot of it is how you store that data and how you report on it. It’s really how you’re going to deal with it —the ethics and compliance side of things. To the organisation, whether it’s mitigating risk, whether it’s helping to speed up contracts, whether it’s providing the right support.
EBM-Can you explain how LawVu’s platform automates workflow management for legal teams and the impact this has on productivity and efficiency?
SK– So workflow efficiency really comes in a number of different guises. Over 70% of respondents in one study we ran said they are wasting time on manual tasks and its effecting their ability to do strategic work. This includes reviewing low value contracts, managing reporting in spreadsheets, chasing approvals and contracts in email, low risk contract reviews…The first place we start is taking the heavy lifting from the corporate legal teams and kind of pushing some of that onto the business. So just the way they fill in forms and they’ve got a business portal that allows them to either send work through into legal or maybe they can create a contract and there’d be a whole workflow process they’ll go through.
What it does it allows the client to actually generate the first pass of the contract utilising some of those tools, whether it’s AI or whether it’s not. For tasks like NDAs, legal teams can set up workflows with specific gates and rules, allowing processes to move forward autonomously and saving significant time. This helps the business operate faster and enhances engagement by positioning legal as an enabler, not a blocker.
Additionally, productivity tools in LawVu seamlessly integrate with Microsoft, feeding data directly from sources like Outlook. For example, AI-driven invoice extraction handles heavy administrative work, reclaiming hours for teams. By cutting down on admin tasks, we provide a notable ROI, streamlining workflows and giving teams more time back in their day.
EBM- How does LawVu handle the document management automation? And what benefits does this bring to the law firms and corporate legal departments?
SK-We focus exclusively on in-house legal teams, primarily around document automation. For many companies, we become the central repository for storing contracts, emails, and related files, with workflows integrated directly through Outlook. This integration with Microsoft Suite creates a seamless, unified workspace tied to each user’s login.
Early on, we had insightful discussions about needs that often go overlooked, like when lawyers are on holiday. Previously, they were tethered to their phones, but with LawVu, anyone on the team can easily access documents, files, and emails, fostering true collaboration. While other departments, like marketing or sales, have long had shared systems, legal has traditionally been siloed, making information difficult to access.
With a single repository, legal teams can now store, access, share, and report on information efficiently—allowing them to move faster and be more productive, even with limited time and resources. This is a straightforward but transformative change that simplifies global operations.
The shift to remote work during COVID highlighted the need for technology and streamlined processes that many legal teams previously lacked. Lawyers are known for their “get it done” mindset, often solving problems through hard work rather than rethinking processes. COVID, however, exposed this gap and helped open the door for workflow management solutions like ours. Many legal tech options focus on specific tasks, like contract management, but we aim to address the broader need for cohesive workflows across legal teams.
How does LawVu ensure the protection of sensitive legal information on its platform?
SK- It’s just maintaining a strong compliance program. And there’re a lot of independent accreditations that we have. In the early days when there were only a few of us, we had to deal with that sort of stuff and it’s been backed in from the company from day one. Which normally you don’t do because it’s expensive, it’s time-consuming, and it’s hard to do. But it’s part of LegalVu’s DNA because for every client that we deal with the data that they have is just so important — it’s paramount.
The amount of times we get praise, good emails and reports from people saying thagt we love your security pack etc etc. It was so clear. And I think that’s just hats off to the security team and kind of what they’ve built there and how they deal with that.
So, it’s not a very cool topic, but it’s something that’s just incredibly important to have in place. So we’ve tried to make the boring as dull and straightforward as possible.
Do you have people come to you or do you have business development managers that would say, for example, go to the company who are a $1 million company?
Well, we’ve got quite a strong marketing team, and so a lot is through Google Ads, through LinkedIn, through Outreach, through conferences. But yes, you’re always looking at ways to bring more people into the funnel.
EBM- What are your current plans to expand LawVu?
SK- We need enough team members to meet our goals and grow with our customer base, particularly in expanding markets like the UK, where we’ve added staff this year and plan to bring on more for implementation. The same applies to the US as our client base increases. Since we provide a high-touch service, some accounts require significant attention, which limits how many each team member can manage. On the engineering side, demand is even higher—no company ever has enough engineers. Balancing resources is key, but we could likely hire another 100 engineers to maintain growth.
EBM-Where are your biggest markets? And where are you looking to expand into most?
SK-Primarily, our growth is in the US, UK, and Australia. While we don’t actively sell in New Zealand, we do gain clients organically. The US and UK are our fastest-growing markets, with a strong customer base in Australia as well, where we initially launched.
We’re expanding our teams and plan to add more staff in the UK, US, and Australia over the next 12 to 18 months.
EBM-Are there any specific goals LawVu has set out for the next five years?
SK– It’s impossible not to think of Salesforce or think of HubSpot marketing. Or with HR, how do we become that predominant platform? The process that has been the focus is actually helping people think about that and looking at how we enable legal teams to give them back more time and help them be more efficient and effective in their jobs. And just remove the administrative burden and the stuff that they don’t need to do. I think that that’s really our focus, and there’s just so much of that to do.
And so many companies that still need our help and we’re still really early on in that adoption curve. We’re still kinda dealing with the early adopters.
For me, it’s like, how do we educate higher up the chain? Because it’s not really the in-house lawyers, but rather how do we educate c-suite?
