Hans Guntren

Kevin Daisey (00:34)
What's up everyone? We are recording Hans. Welcome to the show.

Hans Guntren (00:38)
All Kevin, thanks so much. Happy to be here.

Kevin Daisey (00:41)
Yeah, I'm happy to have you on here. You have an interesting background and you do some pretty cool stuff for law firms. So we'll be digging in some talk about AI today. If you've never heard AI, then please turn off the podcast now. Hot topic, hot topic. But Hans is going to share some deeper stuff and some cool stuff that he's doing. And we'll get into that in just a second.

I've been looking to ask my, my guest, right off the bat, what's, what's something you know, law firm owners that are listening right now, you know, what's some things that they should be thinking about right now with their business and as it relates to AI in general.

Hans Guntren (01:18)
Yeah, absolutely. AI creates a tremendous opportunity to modernize your practice. This whole venture that I'm involved in really stems out of my own personal experience. Having gone through a divorce years ago, I couldn't get over the fact that it was a very manual process. for that reason, it was kind of tough. It was long drawn out.

I felt a little inefficient, especially with respect to transmitting all the information back and forth, the documents, the history of my family and bank accounts, assets, debts, you name it. Just, it was very tedious. you know, that added on top of the fact that you're going through a divorce, it's just a lot. So I think the opportunity here for law firms is to offer a better experience, a more modern experience that

that their clients are accustomed to having in their day to day. And that's what we're looking to build.

Kevin Daisey (02:13)
That's awesome, man. The show's all about improving, improving your business, improving your process, improving your marketing, improving your intake, your sales, the lives of your team members, employees, the lives of yourself and your family. So that's what we're all about. So that's a perfect segue. And me and Hans, I always meet with my guests prior to recording and just talk and shoot the shit a little bit.

And when he told me the story about his divorce and what he went through and really the, the under, you know, the, I just thought about it for myself because I'm married and we have lots of things and accounts and he just started telling me all the things that he had to do manually to upload all this stuff and enter the stuff. I was like, holy crap, you know, that sounds just terrible. And, you know, he was, you know, he was responsible to do that. And.

You know, and so as he talks more about what his system does and what his company does, it really kind of brings everything together. Wow. Okay. That's, that would be super helpful if I was going through that, that kind of experience. so, we'll dig into that in a second. So, so tell us maybe a little bit of your background as a professional and kind of like what, other than your experience in divorce, like how you got to where you're at and where you're located and all that good stuff.

Hans Guntren (03:30)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I'm, I'm in Menlo Park, California, which is right in heart of Silicon Valley. been here now for about 25 years. My entire career has been spent working on, technology ventures and startups, of every form. I would say the focus of my career has been on modernizing industries that are sort of historically behind the technology curve. I worked in aerospace.

energy, manufacturing, oil and gas, department of defense, finance, healthcare, you name it. it's really, it's been an education in going into these industries and looking at what they do and seeing opportunities to, leverage the latest in tech and help them become more efficient, more effective, more profitable. and quite frankly, make their lives easier too on top of it all.

Kevin Daisey (04:16)
That's super cool. I I there's no better place to be than Silicon Valley. The last 25 years, I'm sure you've seen a lot of cool stuff. They met a lot of interesting people.

Hans Guntren (04:25)
Yeah, it's been a wild ride. know, the world's changed so much in that time and it's only accelerating, you know, these days with AI. It's been an amazing experience.

Kevin Daisey (04:35)
Well, tell us your company so people can take a look and look you up and tell us what you're about and how it helps firms at this present. I know you have some, know, future kind of developments as well, but tell us more about your actual company.

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Hans Guntren (06:04)
Yeah, yeah, you bet. So about a year ago, I started a company called deliberately.ai and we're building a platform for the personal law industry, but we're focused initially on family law, mostly stemming out of my own experience in family law years ago with my divorce. And the platform really is focused on client intelligence. That's the term that we've coined.

for this work and it is focused on collecting, consuming, aggregating, organizing all of the facts and information related to a particular client's legal matter. In the case of family law, typically a divorce. And as we were talking about a moment ago, in today's world, most of that information gets sent back and forth via email, maybe Dropbox if you have that, but there's not.

typically a centralized system that's collecting all that information for you and organizing it and making it available to you in real time. you know, one of the things we do right out of the box is we start providing real time case summaries for attorneys. So when we talk to our attorneys, they tell us, hey, we've got so many cases going on. It's hard for us to even remember.

the details of a particular case. And when we go to meet a client, often it takes 15 or 20 minutes to dig into our inbox, pull up documents, try to remember where the case is at. Maybe whether the client even has children or not or what their names are. we can feel like we're current and give the customer a sense that we're engaged and actively following the case, even though it's awfully hard for...

for attorneys to do that across so many cases. Sorry, go ahead.

Kevin Daisey (07:43)
Yeah.

I said, yeah, for sure. I to remember all these clients, if you have like 200 cases that they have kids, what the kids' names are and where are the status, I mean, that's a lot of information to hold in your head.

Hans Guntren (07:55)
It is

crazy, right? any one of those cases could have many dozens to hundreds of documents worth of information. trying to keep track of all that in your inbox, it's nearly impossible. It's really a heavy load for attorneys. for that reason, there's a lot of burnout and also some client dissatisfaction, a lot of churn and things that make attorney lives even more difficult.

Kevin Daisey (08:16)
Yeah, so in a new experience yourself, obviously you're able to go back to that experience and say, okay, what were the frustrations you had and what were the pain points on your side and how would you wanted to see it go? know, best case scenario, right? And I'm sure you've been just working that into this whole process. what all are...

You know, I don't know the process really, as going through a divorce, having access to this information or even having a file to upload or somewhere to enter it in, like how many different ways are these attorneys trying to collect it? But I assume that they're putting it on you as like, Hey, I need all this stuff. And the attorney probably just has to wait and sit back and say, well, let me go on to my next case because they have their...

Third to do list, if you will.

Hans Guntren (09:06)
Yeah, yeah, you know, just about no matter what they're doing today, it's a manual process. You know, it's typically some early intake meetings where attorney is getting a sense of lay of the land for a particular case and then some intake forms that are lists of questions and asking for high level documents and then and then many, many emails back and forth asking for additional information, additional documents. And one of the things is

especially challenging about this is that the documents have a lifespan. So for example, your bank statements that are shared this month might be out of date in a month from now or two months from now, and you've got to do it again. so it's just over the course of the divorce, it's just a continuous back and forth. It's like ping pong between attorney and client trying to get all that information as it's needed.

Kevin Daisey (09:50)
Mmm.

Hans Guntren (10:02)
So one of the things we did right away, as you mentioned, this is based on my own experience as a client, but we went out and enlisted the help of a bunch of law firms as design partners. And they were great in giving us their perspective and telling us how it's difficult for them. And with all of that in mind, we started laying out the roadmap for a platform that solves

both problems for client and also for attorney makes life better for all.

Kevin Daisey (10:30)
That's excellent. So in that you, you you didn't just try to do this based on your experience, but you actually brought in attorneys and you got their perspective and they've, they've kind of had some part in, in developing this. So that's awesome. As far as the system is, I think it was when we taught last time, is it, is it kind of like a question based kind of system where it's running you through and then you're able to, answer your question and then, okay, you're going to need to provide this and then.

Is it that kind of system where it walks the, the, the client through that?

Hans Guntren (11:01)
That's right. Yeah. So we built the platform for law professionals. We sell it into law firms and then law firms extend the platform to their clients and the clients have an experience and the attorneys have an experience. On the client side, it's a chat-based experience. It's a bit like any of the AI chat agents that you've

that you're familiar with, like chat GPT, but it's turned on its head. So it's almost the reverse of that rather than the client asking questions of the AI, the AI has awareness of the case and the kinds of things that the attorney looks for. And it facilitates a conversation with the client and asks a bunch of questions. it unfolds as an organic thing. That's what's special about AI. It would have been impossible to do this really well.

Kevin Daisey (11:36)
Hmm.

Hans Guntren (11:53)
three or four years ago because family law cases are unstructured. Every family is unique. Every family is different. And the AI can, it can roll with it, right? As it learns, as it's asking these questions and the client is answering questions, it can ask more directed questions and it can ask for the right kinds of supporting information and documents and allows the client to just drag those documents in and they all go into a...

repository behind the scenes that's then available for the attorney.

Kevin Daisey (12:22)
That's super cool right there. so say like, yeah, it sounds like I could be like engaging with the, with the AI. and then go off and I got something else to do. got meetings to come back. Like it knows where you were in the process. It knows what you still need to, what it needs to collect. but it'd be like having unlimited time with your attorney to keep, to keep talking to them with them and keep going and finding stuff and.

Hans Guntren (12:42)
That's right.

Kevin Daisey (12:47)
I assume it's quite a process to find a lot of this documentation, the access, know, passwords and whatever things you need to do.

Hans Guntren (12:50)
Yeah, yeah.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, in my own experience, it was often a bit like hurry up and wait. You know, the next the next meeting with attorney might be two, three weeks out. And if I have some blocking questions on my side, I'd just be kind of waiting around. And this allows the attorney to extend the platform to me. The attorney can go off and do their work and I can just work on my on my case, you know, in my nights and evenings when the attorney might not be.

Kevin Daisey (13:10)
Hmm.

Hans Guntren (13:22)
available. I can be answering questions, uploading documents, and when the attorney comes back the next day, they see a real-time update of everything that's been provided. They see progress in the case and show what's missing, things like that.

Kevin Daisey (13:36)
That's awesome. mean, so I just think from like a peace of mind piece of this too, like you're in a bad situation. It's scary. You don't know what's going to happen. You're trying to navigate this situation anyway. And to sit on things for three weeks at a time or have questions and you can't ask, you get answers to them. You just become frustrated for one as a client to the law firm.

Then yeah, it's just, it's your, your distress versus like, get to work on my case as much as I want to, if it's a Sunday or a weekend or whatever, if that's on your mind, you want to work on it and get stuff together for it. Then you can, you can do that and all float a little bit. meanwhile, you're pushing things forward and the attorney can focus on strategy or the problem areas or things that you need to work on.

Hans Guntren (14:25)
Yeah, that's exactly right. That's really the bottom line. We think a lot of these things can be automated for the attorney, right? Not the legal work, but the administrative logistical work. Those are the kinds of things that attorneys say, we don't want to do that. And we're buried in that stuff. You're emailing back and forth, trying to get this information or that information. It doesn't leave a lot of time in the day to actually focus on strategy.

Kevin Daisey (14:49)
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, would do the real good work that they want to do and what they went to school for and what's the important parts that helps people focus on that. Just kind of like with what we do here, marketing, we're interested in the strategy than collecting logins and doing all the admin work and setting things up. The strategy is what you want to...

what you want to be paid for and what you want to focus on. But usually a lot of other stuff that you got to do before that. that's really awesome. So right now you're mainly focused on the family space. You're a year in roughly it sounds like. What's kind of the roadmap and what do you kind of see as you guys go forward in this venture, I guess.

Hans Guntren (15:24)
Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, we're about a year in. It takes it takes time to build a great product. One of the things I think that's sort of unique about us is I would say we're the we're the first enterprise grade software company for family law ever. As far as I can tell, you know, the tools and software that are available for this industry, they're they're pretty terrible.

I mean, I'm hearing about them every day as I talk to attorneys and I see them. And I understand why people are frustrated. you know, my background here in Silicon Valley is building really world-class software, right? The kinds of things that get built for major Fortune 500 companies, you know, around the world. And that's the same approach that we're taking with this platform.

Kevin Daisey (16:03)
You

Hans Guntren (16:24)
So we've been highly focused over this year on building a really robust, scalable, secure system. And we're now approaching the point where we're ready to start turning it on for our design partners who have become pilot customers and a small set of customers that we're calling our charter customers. ⁓ They'll be giving us feedback, letting us know.

Kevin Daisey (16:40)
to our customer school.

Hans Guntren (16:45)
what to add next, and we'll go from there. So we'll be doing that in the next couple of weeks. And then over the course of this year, we'll be opening up the platform to wider and wider swaths of law firms.

Kevin Daisey (16:50)
Nice.

Excellent. Well,

if you're listening to the podcast, you know, could be one of the first to know about his product and, and that'll be available soon. So that's some, you know, happy to have you on the podcast to talk about this and to get this in front of folks that are listening and what's coming, what's available, what's possible. Sounds like, you know, you guys are putting together an amazing product. And yeah, I know a lot of AI companies and

A lot of them reach out to come on the show or I meet them at conferences. And, you know, it's, there's a lot of things out there, a lot of noise, you know, a lot of small solutions, you know, for little things here and there. Which I think, you know, a lot of them have some utility and some, purpose for sure. But most people stay around from like, they stay away from like the bigger, more robust platforms or things that

that should be out there being developed like what you guys are doing. So, but you got the background for it. So pretty cool stuff.

Hans Guntren (17:48)
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, as you mentioned, we'd love to, know, if you have interest, we'd love to talk to you. More input we have, better product we can make. And we love hearing about the challenges that small firms face.

Kevin Daisey (18:01)
Yeah. So are you looking for more charter clients, if you will, or folks that are interested in to check it out or sign up?

Hans Guntren (18:08)
Absolutely, absolutely. know, we're especially focused on, you know, attorneys who tend to be younger in age and they're, they're accustomed to working in technology and using AI. And those, those, those are the folks who tend to be most excited about what we're doing. And they'd be excellent, charter customers for us.

Kevin Daisey (18:27)
Excellent. All right. We heard that here first. yeah, reach out and Hans, what's the, you know, first off, best way to connect with you obviously go to the website. Is there any preferred way to connect with you? You know, social media that you use direct contact or email. What's the best way to tell people to connect with you?

Hans Guntren (18:47)
Yeah, I'd love to hear from you. You can contact me directly. My email is hans at deliberately.ai.

Kevin Daisey (18:54)
Cool. And then of course you can go to the website and take a look at what they have going on there. And I always say, you know, if you, if you didn't get that email or want to direct connection, just ask me, like, Hey, he was that guy that, you know, was on the AI for family firms. I got you. We'll, we'll make the connection. So, well, Hans leave with a tip. what's, what's something that maybe we haven't covered?

something that you feel be nice to share in regards to what you're doing and how you're helping firms. What's a good thing that you'd like to leave us with?

Hans Guntren (19:23)
Well, I just say, don't get left behind. I think we're in a period of transformation right now where firms that adopt these technologies are going to become more efficient, more effective, better at what they do, probably have better client satisfaction. And those that don't, honestly, their lives will remain hard and they'll struggle. And so we'd love to help you. We'd love to help you.

modernize your practice.

Kevin Daisey (19:48)
Yeah, I think a good way you put it in the beginning was you modernize, but it's the client experience, right? And then I think what you're doing too is not just the experience the clients have, which is super important. lot of complaints, local bars and stuff like that, state bars on communication, response time and availability. It's rampant. So I think just improving that client experience is really important.

And today people are used to Uber and Domino's and instant gratification and always having a pulse on what's happening with their order or with their Uber. And so we just, gotta get on board with this stuff. Maybe you have some runway to continue with the clients you have, but at some point you have to be on board with this stuff. But just think about the client and the experience and the frustration that they're going to be experiencing.

Hans experienced firsthand. So put yourself in those shoes. this becomes a little more easier to say, you know what, this is time I adopting these things and getting intelligent about AI.

Hans Guntren (20:51)
Yeah, yeah. And honestly, we've made it very easy. We've automated the setup. We've made it such that you just turn this on and it starts working, which I think has been historically a big hurdle for law firms. It's a big rollout of a technology platform and integrations. We've done away with all of that.

Kevin Daisey (21:08)
Yeah, I mean, I can see that being a concern. Maybe it's a good question for people to understand is when you're looking at anything, like right now I'm switching, we're switching to new payroll and healthcare and benefits provider. Massive undertaking. Every single employee I have, you 50 people plus. Hey, we're switching. Hey, know, meetings and benefits and it's just, you know, rolling over 401k, all this is insane.

not something you want to do. Or if you switch to QuickBooks or some other system platform, I think business owners in general are like, the switching cost is not worth it. So that's I'm glad you threw that out there. That is easy. You turn it on. Boom. You're up and running. I think will help people say, OK, well, maybe it's something I should look into. Yeah.

Hans Guntren (21:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

that's been a core value since day one because, you know, the industry's been slow to adopt technology for that reason. It's because technology has not been easy to adopt.

AI we can make it fairly easy.

Kevin Daisey (22:07)
Excellent. Well, it's good to hear. Well, it sounds like you guys are doing a good job developing a great product. Hopefully we'll see you out there and about. You know, I'm always going to shows and conferences and see lawyers all over the country. So I hope to see you guys once you're up and running out and about. I'm excited to see where you guys go.

Hans Guntren (22:24)
We'd love that. Thanks so much, Kevin.

Kevin Daisey (22:26)
Yes, Hans, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Please take a look at what they have, his product and, and, and again, if you want any connections, let me know, please. And, y'all have a great day. Thanks for tuning into the show as always, and, get out there, improve your law firm and we'll see you on the next episode. See ya.

Hans Guntren (22:44)
Thanks again, bye bye.