You Have the Legal Expertise and the Product Vision. You Need a Technical Co-Founder Who Understands Both Worlds.

Very. Alastair takes on 2-3 co-founder partnerships per year. Most applications do not progress past initial review. This is not a service you purchase. It is a partnership you earn. The selectivity is what makes it valuable. When Alastair puts his name on your cap table, it signals to investors, clients, and hires that the technology is serious.

That is fine if the idea is genuinely novel and you have deep domain expertise. Early-stage is where a technical co-founder adds the most value. But you need to be committed full-time or have a clear transition plan. "I want to keep my partnership and see how this goes" is not the answer Alastair is looking for. The best legal tech companies are built by lawyers who are willing to bet on themselves.

Be honest about your commitment level. Part-time founders rarely build successful startups. If you are not ready to go all-in within 6-12 months, the advisory tier is a better fit. The equity-only and hybrid arrangements are for founders who are prepared to make this their primary focus. There is no judgment either way. But clarity upfront saves everyone time and heartache.

It depends entirely on the product. Common choices for legal tech: Next.js or SvelteKit frontend, Python/FastAPI or Node.js backend, PostgreSQL with vector extensions for AI features, deployed on AWS or GCP with SOC 2 compliance architecture from day one. But the stack is always driven by product requirements, not personal preferences. If your product needs real-time processing, the stack looks different than if it needs batch document analysis. That is why you need a CTO, not a developer who defaults to whatever they used last.

Alastair's contribution is technical, not financial. He contributes CTO-level work valued at $300K-500K+ annually. If you need capital, he can introduce you to legal tech investors in his network, but he does not write checks. His value is in building the product, hiring the team, and making your company technically credible enough to raise from people who do write checks.

No, and you should not quit until the product has market validation. Most of our co-founder partnerships start while the attorney-founder maintains their practice. We handle all technical development, architecture decisions, and engineering management. You contribute domain expertise, client relationships, and market knowledge on a part-time basis until the product reaches product-market fit. At that point, you make an informed decision about transitioning, with revenue data and customer traction, not a leap of faith. Two of our current co-founder partners still maintain active practices alongside their legal tech companies.

Legal tech has more regulatory landmines than any other vertical. UPL (unauthorized practice of law) exposure varies by state and can kill a product overnight. Attorney-client privilege must be preserved in any data processing pipeline. ABA Model Rules 1.6 (confidentiality), 5.3 (supervisory responsibilities for non-lawyer assistants), and 7.2 (advertising) all create design constraints that generic dev shops do not understand. We architect for compliance from day one: data residency, encryption, audit trails, privilege preservation, and bar-compliant marketing. One of our competitors' portfolio companies received a UPL cease-and-desist 6 months post-launch because they did not architect around state bar boundaries. That company spent $400K on legal defense and had to rebuild their entire platform.

Every arrangement is unique, but typical structures range from 15-30% equity for a technical co-founder depending on the stage, your traction, and the scope of the technical build. We use standard 4-year vesting with a 1-year cliff, identical to what Y Combinator and top VCs expect. The equity reflects the $300K-500K annual value of a full-time CTO plus the strategic advantage of a technical co-founder who understands legal domain constraints. We do not charge fees. Our return is entirely equity-based, which means our incentives are perfectly aligned with yours. If the company does not succeed, we earn nothing.