Emessay Uses Gavel to Make Legal Easier for Small Creative Businesses

By leveraging Gavel’s no-code automation software, Emessay allows their clients to create and customize several key contracts by answering a handful of easy-to-understand questions. Those contracts are then immediately downloadable by the client and ready for use in their Gavel client portal.

What Key Contracts Are Included in Emessay?

Emessay has a substantial offering of contracts, and the ambitious product roadmap of a legal tech software platform.

Currently, the platform includes the following agreements and areas of law: 

• Nondisclosure Agreements
• Contractor Agreement
• Discovery Letter
• Services Agreement + SOW (Statement of Work)
• Employee New Hire Letter
• Location Release
• Appearance Release and Referral Agreement

Emessay has plans to expand this platform, with the following contracts in their Pipeline:

• Client Sign-Off Contracts
• Likeness Releases
• SOW Amendments

Additionally, as Emessay is continuously updated, contract templates are monitored for changes in the law and new content is constantly in the works.

Who does Emessay Help?

‍Emessay is for small and growing creative businesses that aren’t quite ready for a full-service lawyer.  Specifically, Emessay helps creatives that produce and own design (print and digital), logos, wordmarks, brand systems, web development, illustration, strategy and consulting.  

Alternatively, Emessay can be for people who can afford a full-service lawyer but just don’t want to talk to them and want a more DIY approach.  Emessay contracts are enforceable in every U.S. state, UK, Canada, Australia and other common law countries.

What does “Emessay” Mean?

A typical contract that is used in the professional creative services industry is a “Masters Services Agreement,” which is also known by its acronym, “MSA.” So, the phoneticism of the acronym is “Emessay.”

Who are the People Behind Emessay?

Emessay was created by Josh Barrett, a business lawyer with over 15 years experience and a CPA background.  Barrett focuses on creative professionals, creative agencies and people who make digital goods or provide services related to digital goods for their clients.  Today, Barrett is focused on helping creative professionals through Emessay and his law firm, Matchstick Legal.

Is There Flexibility With How Gavel Is Used?

Yes, Emessay is the tech company built by law firm Matchstick Legal, and they both use Gavel in different ways.  

Though not a stand-alone legal product and software tool like Emessay, Matchstick Legal also utilizes Gavel’s document automation platform for client intake and to generate 17 other document templates.  

The key difference in the way Emessay and Matchstick Legal use Gavel is this: while Emessay is client-facing and creates contracts ready to use upon generation, other than client intake documents or a few other client-facing products, Matchstick Legal uses Gavel as more of an internal, lawyer-facing platform that helps lawyers generate the foundational documents (making it more cost efficient for the client) before additional customization. Matchstick Legal uses Gavel for everything from the initial client intake and engagement process (including Engagement Letters) to more complex documents in a case, allowing them to be efficient and to deliver bulletproof legal work.

Matchstick Legal also uses Emessay as a lead generator for the law firm, because as their clients outgrow Emessay or have more complex needs, they move over to the law firm for full-service representation. 

What Does “Affordable” Mean to Emessay?

Affordable pricing at Emessay means you can get access to all of Emessay’s current and future database of customizable contracts for a one-time payment of $449.00.

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How Does Emessay Handle Marketing Their Legal Software Platform?

Emessay has a large mailing list from the law firm side. They started the Emessay brand with two initial promotions to Matchstick subscribers, explaining the new offering. Through these promotions, Emessay has become profitable and is working on additional digital marketing campaigns. The takeaway: use the audience you have to offer them something different. They may end up using both the low-touch and high-touch services at once.

Advice for Other Law Firms and Legal Tech Companies Incorporating Automation Into Their Practice?

Barrett advises to start with a narrow scope of two to three contracts/items to get running smoothly but without the expectation of perfection.  If run well, those few products can begin to generate value and be a strong foundation for future iterations.  Also, once the idea that the products will evolve over time is readily accepted, it becomes a less daunting task to keep up to date and more manageable to budget time to improve.   

Want more?  Watch our rapidfire interview with Josh Barrett below:

Interested in learning more about how you can build a legal tech platform of your own on Gavel? Book a demo with our team here, or start your 7 day free trial now.

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