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Megan Smiley interviews recovering lawyers, career advisors, and other professionals for advice and inspiration on transitioning out of law practice.
Dorna Moini leaves BigLaw to build a legal tech start-up
The Lawyer's Escape Pod
49 minutes 35 seconds
2 years ago
Dorna Moini leaves BigLaw to build a legal tech start-up
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/
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Connect with Dorna!
Gavel’s Website: https://www.gavel.io/
The Lawyer's Escape Pod
Megan Smiley interviews recovering lawyers, career advisors, and other professionals for advice and inspiration on transitioning out of law practice.