Barrister and lawtech entrepreneur Laura Keily, Founder and Managing Director of Immediation, started her business to provide greater accessibility to justice for all. She has leveraged secure technology to generate virtual court rooms and mediation that facilitate dispute resolution in a more efficient, cost effective and collaborative manner than traditional legal approaches allow. Immediation‘s features also enable matters to be fully settled remotely, removing the impost of (often repeated) costly travel and accommodation, and putting justice within the reach of many.
Designed by lawyers, Immediation has a panel of over 100 dispute resolution experts plugged into the platform, and was voted Best Legal Tech at the 2020 Startup and Innovation Awards.
What led you to create Immediation?
I’ve seen firsthand the pitfalls of the legal industry where courts are inundated with cases that take years to address, and the high costs leave justice out of reach for many. As a result, I saw an opportunity to use technology to facilitate justice, alleviate the pressure on public institutions, and create real avenues of resolution for complaints by aiming to resolve disputes in a more meaningful and efficient way.
My mission is to make justice more accessible for all. The platform provides cutting-edge virtual court-room and mediation technology to courts, tribunals, government and law firms. It also provides a low-cost, easy, quick, amicable and efficient method of resolving disputes by enabling users to directly access online dispute resolution as an alternative to expensive judicial proceedings or traditional mediation and arbitration.
How does Immediation provide secure virtual legal courtrooms?
Unlike regular online meeting service providers that allow anyone with a link to join, Immediation has high-end security features built by accredited engineers, such as individual meeting links for each registered attendee of an online dispute that are single-use only.
What is the benefit to lawyers to this service over technology like Zoom?
Zoom and its counterparts have one main feature, video conferencing. Immediation on the other hand has all the tools a lawyer needs to carry out online dispute resolution in one place. The platform has secure chat features where you can liaise directly with counsel and neutral parties, documents can be uploaded and drafted directly on the platform and each party can then review and make amendments. Integrations with DocuSign allow for documents to be signed and finalised, and features like whiteboard allow for easy collaboration.
How does this service help rural and regional legal cases?
One of the key advantages of Immediation‘s online dispute resolution platform is that it removes the need for parties to travel. Therefore, people in rural and regional areas are not disadvantaged by the justice system due to their location and do not have to incur costly expenses for travel and accommodation to appear in court in person, which can easily add up over the duration of a case.
Your greatest challenge?
Going against the grain and starting Immediation when technology and online mediation and arbitration was not the ‘done thing’.
Most proud of?
Having pulled together my team – they are fabulous.
Advice for future female leaders?
Remind yourself you are the one who can deliver.
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