On today’s Legally Speaking Podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by Nnamdi Emelifeonwu. Nnamdi is the Co-Founder & CEO of Definely. Named as 1 of the 50 fastest-growing tech companies, Definitely was founded by two former Magic Circle Lawyers. Nnamdi, a former Trainee Solicitor and Associate at Freshfields Bruchhaus Deringer, and his Co-Founder Feargus MacDaeid, set out to make legal documents more accessible with drafting, reviewing and understanding legal files.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob and Nnamdi discussing:

– How Definely Was Born from a Visually Impaired Lawyer’s Challenge

– Definely’s Mission to Make Legal Information Effortless to Understand

– How Nnamdi and Feargus’ Practice Empowering the Modern Lawyer

– Transforming Legal Contracts and Workflows to be More Streamlined

– How Definely’s Customer-Centric Approach is Built with Lawyers, for Lawyers

Connect with Nnamdi Enelifeonwu here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnamdiemelifeonwu/

Transcript

Rob Hanna (00:01)

So a very big warm welcome to the show, Nnamdi.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (00:04)

Thank you very much for having me, Rob, and great to ⁓ be here.

Rob Hanna (00:08)

it’s a huge pleasure to have you on the show. And you know, we’ve got a lot to unpack in today’s episode because it’s a truly inspiring journey and everything you’ve been doing. But before we go into all of that, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 10, with 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series suits in terms of its reality of the law on the scale of one to 10, if you’ve seen it?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (00:32)

Um, I, I haven’t seen it. I think I’ve seen one episode a long, long time ago. I think the theory of it sort of is, is fine in terms of, know, they do do legal work, purport to do legal work, but it’s just the timelines, you know, I think each episode they do something that usually takes probably about nine months and they wrap it up into one, uh, one episode. Um, you know, from, as a transactional lawyer, which is, uh, what I was, and even on the dispute side as well. Um, it seems as though, you know, disputes can go on for years.

and they try and wrap it up into one episode. So I would probably give it a ⁓ three or four based on that. ⁓

Rob Hanna (01:09)

Very justified three or

four. And I tried to describe to friends, it’s almost like a heart surgeon going to work one day and then there’s suddenly a GP and then there’s suddenly a hand doctor expert. You wouldn’t necessarily want that, but all good entertainment. All right, let’s start at the beginning then, Namdi. Tell us a bit about your background and career journey.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (01:16)

Yeah.

Sure, so I’m a former lawyer. ⁓ So I studied law university then did a master’s in law and I decided to go into law because I wasn’t very good with numbers at the time all my friends are going to bank and I knew I wasn’t very good with numbers and the other alternative was ⁓ medicine ⁓ or engineering. And again, I wasn’t very good with sort of math based subjects. So law was sort of the natural fit for me.

was lucky enough to secure training contract at Freshfields. ⁓ So I joined there as a trainee solicitor. I qualified there and I qualified into the finance team where I worked as an associate for further two and a half years. And it was during my time at Fresh Shields as a trainee that I met. ⁓

colleague of mine who came over from A &O at a time, Fergus, he was a newly qualified solicitor when I was a trainee solicitor and he and I sort of worked together on the first deal we did together and got to know each other really well. I really enjoyed my time at Freshfields. I got to work with some very, very intelligent people and some really, really high profile.

sort of transactions. Transactions you wake up every morning and you read about on the Financial Times and you hear on the news. So was really sort of just an incredible experience to be surrounded in that sort of environment.

Rob Hanna (02:47)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Cutting edge work. I was just giggling to myself inside when you mentioned accounting, because my late grandfather who ran his own law firm always said, you should be an accountant laddie. And obviously I didn’t go in that direction. I was terrible with numbers as well. But let’s dig a little bit deeper then just at the sort of life at the Magic Circle, because you were a trainee then, then you’re an associate of Freshwater. It’s one of the best law firms in the world, undoubtedly. What did you most enjoy about training at a Magic Circle law firm?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (03:10)

Yeah, I remember going ⁓ as a student to a lot of these open days. I remember listening to it was a former chair chair of managing partner sorry of of McFarlane’s and he gave a really good advice. He said, you know the best training you can do as a lawyer is training a really good, you know, UK law firm because at the time it was when sort of the US law firms were sort of trying to make their presence in the UK and he said that’s where you’re to get the most structured training and you know, you know they have you know,

these UK firms because they’re more established in the UK, they have a lot more resources. I’m not sure that still holds true because I know the US firms have made a lot of sort of way into the UK market now, but at that time they were still very early on. And so the UK law firms ⁓ had a lot more resources and I just felt as though I would get the best training ⁓ environment. And I think I was very lucky and I think I was right. I think Freshfields offered a very, ⁓ you know.

I got to learn a lot. got a very wide sort of range of different practice areas. You could do up to eight seats actually, sorry, six seats of Freshfields. So I got to do various different, go to various different departments. I got to go on an international circumvent at Amsterdam. So it was just a really great experience to have the breadth of range of work that a firm, an international law firm like Freshfields do to get exposed to that.

Rob Hanna (04:33)

Yeah. And plenty of exposure and great diversity, as you said, in terms of super early on into training. We’ve talked a lot about law. We haven’t talked about tech yet. So that’s a large part of what you’re getting up to. So where did your interest in tech originally stem from and what inspired you to co-found Define?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (04:51)

Yeah, so I wouldn’t necessarily say I had an interest in tech. I was very much interested in being an entrepreneur. ⁓ And that was ⁓ really the main driving force for me starting a business when I actually qualified ⁓ as a solicitor during my month off where, you know, people sort of go on holiday and take their qualification leave and travel the world or whatever they do, pick up a new hobby. I actually went to Nigeria, which is where I’m originally from. And I set up a…

Rob Hanna (04:56)

Okay.

Yeah. ⁓

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (05:20)

a retail, ⁓ I guess, pop-up ⁓ bench in the middle of Lagos market. So anyone who knows Lagos, Lagos is very, very hot. You know, it gets to sort of 30 degrees, mid 30 degrees, you know, during the day. And I’m there standing in the middle of it with like a retail bench full of like, you know, goods that I wanted to sell because I was, the whole concept was I thought I could bring the concept of pound land to Africa.

and start a sort of a, you know, that sort of concept. not only that, I also arranged meetings with some of the big, ⁓ you know, retailers like Proton and Gamble and Unilever and Nestle to try and see if that was a viable venture. ⁓ Eventually I realized that, you know, the FX rate, the FX would have killed the business, but, you know, I always had that.

ambition and that interest in entrepreneurship, even as a lawyer, I remember when I started my training contracts, you know, my supervisor at the time, my first supervisor after about, you know, six weeks said to me, you know, you’re great at being a trainee, but I just don’t think you’re going to be a lawyer for much longer because I was always talking about business. ⁓ The tech element really came ⁓ because, you know, of the problem that we solved and realized that actually this made it was a natural.

sort of a synergy for sort of the interest I had and the opportunity that was there.

Rob Hanna (06:43)

Yeah. And again, thanks for giving us that overview of your background. I was just sat here. My mother-in-law was, was born in Nigeria, actually in Joss. And so, you know, when I used to go there and, know, I know about Okra, Star Lager, all of that great stuff. Yeah. Really, really, really good times and memories. And I also, on my legal recruiting business, helped a lot of sort of lawyers from Nigeria transition to London because they have such rich experience, particularly in the energy infrastructure projects markets as well. Okay. So let’s go into Definy then, cause it’s a huge success story and congratulations, but

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (07:11)

Thank you.

Rob Hanna (07:12)

Definely delivers AI tools for lawyers in a word, but as the CEO and co-founder for folks that might’ve been living under a rock, tell us about what Definely actually does.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (07:15)

Yeah.

Sure, so Define.ly is a productivity suite, mainly focused at working on complex transaction documents. So really high complexity, low volume, the sort of documents I used to work on.

as a lawyer when I was a finance associate. And it really ⁓ purports to help lawyers work efficiently within those documents. It sits within the Microsoft Word interface. So it was very important that we met our end user, the lawyers, where they do most of their work, which is obviously within sort of that Word ecosystem. And it helps lawyers create draft and review contracts. So we have a variety of different tools that do different things. in essence, what they do is you can essentially

Rob Hanna (07:59)

you

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (08:09)

access precedent wording utilizing our vault product via your DMS. You can then utilize our draft product to read a contract, edit a contract, interact with a contract, and then our proof product allows you to sanitize it and clean it up before sending it off to your client or to your colleagues. We’ve then sort of leveraged AI and embedded AI within that utilizing our enhanced product, which essentially is our agentic.

know, framework to allow the agents to access those different products that are now than rather than doing those things manually, you can actually now do them autonomously, autonomously, agents.

Rob Hanna (08:50)

Yeah, and it’s very impressive. And I talk very openly on the show about the importance of mission led companies now, but also in the future. And as you know, Clio partner with us and we get behind their mission to transform the legal experience for all are here at the show. We’re inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures, and define Lee is on a mission to simplify the way the world understands information. So what is the meaning behind your mission?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (09:12)

Yeah, so the finally for those who aren’t aware actually started off and I mentioned Fergus early on. So when I was a training solicitor, Fergus, who was the associate I mentioned earlier on, you know, we joined at the same time and he’s actually visually impaired. And so, you know, he was at the time, one of the few registered blind solicitors in the UK. So I was just always quite curious as to how somebody like him could do the same sort of work that I was doing as a, you know, you know, there’s nothing wrong with my site. And it was hard enough trying to access the information and the

these

contracts because they’re usually multiple pages long, they’re usually quite complex and convoluted and trying to access, as anybody would know, information, a contract is hard enough, but when it’s you know, it’s a finance, it’s a 300 page facilities agreement or an SBA, that makes it even more complicated. And so I was always really just intrigued by how Fergus was able to do that. Of course, he couldn’t do it in an efficient way because of his disability. And although he had various workarounds like text to speech, which he used, it just

wasn’t really productive for him. So he and I brainstormed, you know, and got our heads together. And the spark that we came up with, ⁓ I went away to build a sort of, you know, of concept or prototype of that of that idea and realize very quickly that actually, that was something that could help me also access the information easily as well. And, as I said, there’s nothing wrong with my side. So I figured if I could use it, then pretty much every lawyer could use it. And indeed, anyone working on contracts, not just ⁓ lawyers.

I think one of the things that we’re really, really proud of is that this problem started to really help somebody who was marginalized ⁓ and where there was really no solution to help him. And it’s now being utilized and helping thousands, tens of thousands of lawyers globally ⁓ sort of read and understand and access information in these contracts more efficiently. And for us, we think that actually it can be used outside of law. The technology can be utilized anywhere where contracts are read, not just lawyers, It’s tax memorandum.

randoms, accounting reports, really any sort of sector where you read contracts, think the technology can be applicable.

Rob Hanna (11:19)

And the sky’s the limit with that. you know, it’s great because everyone can confide and complain about a problem, but not everyone can show the grit, determination to go all in to actually solve that problem. And, you know, it’s a wonderful story, like you said, through meeting Fergs and what you’ve been able to achieve. So again, thanks for giving us a bit of insight into that. And I kind of that touches probably on the early stages. My next question is actually going to be talking us through

the stages of actually building Definely from that starting point to where you are today. You know, is Definely now what you envisioned it to be when you first started building the tech company, given the particular explosion we’ve seen in this AI revolution of late.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (11:56)

Yeah, it’s a really good question. think anyone that knows me at the start, you know, I thought, you know, I don’t think you ever dream of, you know, what happens when you have an idea and seek to bring that idea to life. You know, there is no blueprint. I don’t have a entrepreneurial background. And as I sort of mentioned earlier on, I don’t have a tech background either. So I really, you know, there was really no blueprint or no expectation other than the fact that I knew I wanted to try and

I wanted to start a business, I wanted to bring a company into life and I had this idea which seemed really, really ⁓ fitting with the skills I had and sort of the ambition and the energy I had.

you know, when you look back at it, it’s very easy to say, you know, yes, you know, all of this was to be expected because, ⁓ you know, we did the right things, but the reality is that everything we did, you know, ⁓ we, there was an element of luck, you know, we had to, know, there’s various times. when I, you know, ran out of money and, know, had I not been lucky enough to find investors to invest in the company, we’d never would have survived. There was various times where things went wrong, you know, when we were trying to sort of pitch to law firms

or corporate legal teams. again, had we not been lucky to have a champion within that organization, we probably wouldn’t have won that customer, right?

A lot of it is, you know, obviously working hard and having a great team around me and being able to, you know, really hopefully motivate them to, you know, build this probe, the solution. But a lot of it, you know, is luck and we’re really sort of lucky to be in an environment where, you know, legal tech generally is just exploding and it’s a really, really great opportunity for every stakeholder, not just the end user, but the law firms, the vendors and really anyone, you know, you’re seeing a lot of investing sort of interest in this sector as well.

that’s growing the market and expanding the market and the opportunity for really everyone involved. So we’re really excited.

Rob Hanna (13:53)

Yeah. And we also see a really exciting time for LegalTech. we’re going to talk a little bit more about sort of the investment journey as well. But entrepreneurship is hard, right? And, you know, I think it’s very easy to kind of see the headlines, see the success, but you were sort of alluding to there. And it’s what I wanted to ask next, actually, some of those challenges, the obstacles you faced when building the finally, because there may be other LegalTech entrepreneurs listening to this that feel they have this great idea, but they can’t break through.

Just give us a bit of a flavor of some of the challenges and obstacles and maybe how you overcame them.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (14:26)

Yeah, I think I mean, particularly as it pertains to legal tech, I think one thing people don’t realize is just how long the buying cycle is in law. think it’s actually quite.

You know, it’s quite unique. Actually, I don’t think you know, from what I understand, you know, and I’ve never I haven’t worked in any other sector. But from what I understand, other sectors are not as you know, the time the buying time, the process is not as lengthy as you know, the sales processes and as lengthy as it is in law. It can take up to you know, 18 months sometimes probably longer. is custom there are customers that we’ve been working on for years and you know, we still haven’t signed them and you know, it’s still ongoing. Right. So I think that’s the first thing people don’t realize you think, you know, it’s

sort of like only fools and horses where you start the idea, you come up with an idea and you say, this time next year I’m gonna be a millionaire. It’s nothing like that. I always say to people, whatever timeline you have, realistically add seven years. That is always the feedback I give to people because it’s a really lengthy. ⁓

Rob Hanna (15:07)

you

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (15:23)

process. It’s also a very lonely process as well. You know, in the early days where it was pretty much, you know, just myself trying to figure everything out and you know, didn’t really know what I was doing. And, know, you have to have that sort of self drive and that self motivation to keep going when there is, there are no answers. There’s no sort of, you know, easy sort of book to read to say, okay, this is what I do next. You have to figure, figure everything out yourself. So you have to really be also quite curious as actually, and not be afraid to go out and try things and ask questions.

and ask for help, importantly as well. ⁓ This company would not be anywhere where it is if it wasn’t for all the people who sort of helped us to get here, be it my team, be it my investors, be it our customers. So yeah, it’s a really, really difficult, I’m not gonna sort of, I think there’s a tendency to people make entrepreneurship, like glorify it and really focus on all the.

great things and the successes and the highlights of it. But the reality is that those things are actually very, very few and far between. The real, real reality is that actually most of it is quite boring and quite, you know, quite, yeah, it’s drudgery, it’s drudgery, right? It’s not fun. It’s like a lot of it is your back is against the wall and you’re trying to sort of find solutions to problems you’re facing every day.

Rob Hanna (16:34)

Yep.

But that’s why the story cuts through. remember, you and that’s why, you know, you hit the headlines when these successes happen. Because when I set up my businesses, I remember a mentor said to me, Rob, if you have 50 good days in a year, you’ve had a tremendous year, like an outstanding year. And to your point there, you know, the more risk you take, potentially the luckier you get as well and staying in the game.

And I love that you talked about self-accountability and self-belief. Cause I remember again, a mentor said to me very early, it’s meant to be, it’s up to me. You have to take self-accountability, particularly when the chips are down, you get those knockbacks. And I think it’s really sage advice in terms of lawyering. there’s some law firms that I would still love to recruit and transact with, you know, nine years in to the industry, you know, that we still haven’t quite broken through. And I think if you see this as staying in the game, nurturing, fostering relationships, adding value, really becoming client centric with what you’re doing eventually.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (17:21)

No. Yeah.

Rob Hanna (17:31)

they will convert and you’ve touched on before a bit about defining your solutions, but I want to go deeper because what you’re building is truly innovative and it is really helping day to day life of legal professionals. So you have the following solutions to finally vault, draft, enhance, cascade, proof, and PDF. So can you just touch on these sort of briefly and bit more about what the solutions offer?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (17:49)

Yeah,

sure. So I guess the best way to… ⁓

describe the solutions as the chronology of how they actually work. So if you think about when you’re a contractor, a facilities agreement, the first thing you would want to do is create and draft that contract in accordance with whoever you advise in their wishes and what they’re trying to achieve. Typically, what would happen is that you would go to either a senior lawyer and say, hey, is there a precedent we’ve worked on previously with this particular client?

have that precedent and we will use that as a starting point. ⁓

That’s what Vault tries to emulate, right? It accesses your DMS and you can actually now, rather than having to go speak to somebody, you can actually just say, type in a few sort of ⁓ key sort of searches and it comes up with, okay, this is the fitting sort of ⁓ provision or clause or definition or even document ⁓ as a precedent and it sort of has your gold standards that you can sort of choose as a firm and utilize that. Once you’ve then done that process, Draft, which is our sort of our first product that we launched, what that does is it’s US

is to allow you to just stay in one place and from where you are you can interrogate the contract as well as manipulate the contract. So what that means is that can actually in that 300 page contract I can be on page 10 and from there I can read the entirety of that contract as well as any related contract as well as edit any part of that contract.

without ever having to leave page 10. Then you have, once I’ve done that, I’ve created it, I’ve reviewed it, negotiated, drafted it. I don’t want to clean it up before I send it off to my client or maybe to the partner who’s, or to the more senior lawyers. That’s where proof comes in. So that’s a proofreading solution that allows you to sanitize the contract. Things like square brackets that are missing if there are any undefined terms to remove all of those issues. And then finally, our PDF solution essentially is what

draft is but for PDF contracts as we know.

you know, we tend to get a lot of P.D.F. contracts and they can be quite tricky to, you know, review or to navigate through. So they try, it brings a lot of that functionality that you have ⁓ in draft within P.D.F. And then Enhancer Cascade, those are agentic, ⁓ those are AI offerings. So as I mentioned, Enhancer, the way we look, think about AI is that AI really, really works if you have the underlying tools for which those agents to call upon, right? So the reason our Enhancer product works so well is because

We have vault, we have draft, we have proof, and now they call upon the tools, which are these underlying products we have, to do the task at hand, right? And then Cascade is a first of its kind, which we’re really, really excited about. So this tracks the consequential changes that happen when you do something to a contract. So let’s say I change the definition of the financial indebtedness. It can say, okay, now I’ve done that, I may wanna go and look at the clause.

I may want to go look at my change of control provision, my events of defaults, my reps on warranties, and it tracks the first, second, and third layers of changes throughout the contract as a result of making a change to a particular part of that contract.

Rob Hanna (20:59)

And that is so, so valuable. Cause I’ve, I’ve interviewed professional liability lawyers and you know, one word can potentially cost billions. And so that, that level of quality of what you built is, fantastic. ⁓ Okay. You, you talk about sort of, to finally making and accessing and understanding information within legal documents. Simple. love how you sort of describe those workflows there. And I always talk about you want fusion rather than confusion when you’re, trying to implement and do things, but how is the finally delivering on

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (21:06)

Right.

Rob Hanna (21:28)

that what would you say separates you in terms of that real ease of understanding information?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (21:33)

Yeah, I think for Ross, it’s all about understanding the problem and going really deep into that problem, right? We have been working with lawyers over the last five years, really going really deep into understanding the way they work on these contracts. We are fortunate enough to work with some of the biggest law firms and corporate legal departments globally. The likes of A &O Sherman, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, Evershed, Cravath.

but also the likes of like JP Morgan, Barclays, IKEA. So we’ve really worked with these companies to understand the problems that their lawyers have when working.

on sort of complex contracts. And we’ve worked with them and added all of those, you know, the feedback we’ve received from them over the years, you know, into our roadmap and work with them to, you know, build solutions to solve those problems that are and solutions that are really tailored to the problems as opposed to just being generic. So the way we think about sort of what we do is that we really go, we focus on going deep and really understanding the workflows. And for us, if you can do that, that’s how you simplify

It’s all about making complex information, complex workflow simple. And for us, it’s all about simplifying that and coming out with the best, not just the best solutions, but also introducing those solutions with the best UI, for example, the best user experience, so that ultimately what you’re doing is creating a solution that the best fits for the end user and the problem that they have.

Rob Hanna (23:09)

I love that because you’re exceptionally customer and client focused there and that obviously builds trust and you can be specific, know, this is be sick and tired of me saying it, but specific is terrific when you’ve read that it’s so, true. And that sort of inch wide and mile deep really going in onto the heart of the problem. So I’m going to be more specific then you’ve talked about that, but give us a couple of examples then of some of the specific pain points, both law firms and lawyers that you’ve sold.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (23:33)

Yeah, mean, Cascade is a very good example of that, right? You know, we realized that actually there is, you know, if I’m a junior associate, there is no, you know, there’s no manual that tells me how to actually review a contract. lot of it is, a lot of the time I’m like, you know, spending hours and hours trying to think about…

you know, what are the changes that happen and the sort of natural consequences that happen as a result of any edits I make to a contract before I send it off, you know, if I’m brave enough to send it off to the partner to do their final review, right? And so, you know, cascade was one of those things, those problems where we were working with lawyers and saying, hey, okay, let’s think about that workflow with you, right? You know, yes, it’s not, it’s never gonna be 100 % sort of, you know, technology, you’re gonna still need the sort of lawyer

in the loop to do the final checks and make sure that the answers are sort of, you know, fits for purpose. But we can get you 95 % of the way there, right? So that you’re not having to spend 100 % of your time doing that. You’re spending really that 5 % where you need that like really high value sort of review, you know, but.

how can we utilize technology? How can we use the experience that we have working with some of the biggest and best law firms and corporate legal teams globally and the technologies that we’ve built out over the years? How do we leverage these tools to create a problem that sort of gets you sort of a lot of the way there? And can scale with that. We work with our law firm ⁓ customers as well as our corporate legal teams and we work with them for the over the last 18 months. We sat with them, we told them sort of we went through

the various workflows with them. We review the contracts with them. went, you know, we iterated on the solution. We had the first version got it, you know, does that do it? Okay, yes, that’s good. But think about this or, you know, add this and we did that we went through that sort of back and forth. I think it’s only to your point, being sort of customer centric like that and really going deep and working hand in glove with the customer and the end user. That’s how you get sort of solutions that are fit for purpose and not just trying to see what problems they can solve. So we are very, very confident with our solutions because they’re already battle tested. I think one of the things that we pride ourselves in is that we are, I think it’s gone are the times when people actually launch solutions out of the box to solve a problem, right? Nowadays you hear about a lot of these AI tools that are, hey, we’ve got this AI tool, but we want to work with customers to see what solutions they can solve. And I’m like, no, surely that is not the way to do it. Surely the way to do it is to identify the problems

Rob Hanna (25:52)

You know, think it’s at a time when people actually launch solutions out of the box to solve a problem. know, nowadays you hear about lot of these AI tools, know, hey, we want this AI tool, what we want to work with your customers to see what solutions they can solve. And I’m like, no, surely that is not the way you do it. Surely the way you do it right.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (26:10)

with that end user, go through those hard yards of solving and going deep and helping them coming up with the right solution for that and then launch and saying, hey, this is the solution for that specific problem because we’ve battle tested it.

Rob Hanna (26:23)

Yeah. And I think it’s such a valuable advice there. And you make a good point. It’s hard, right? Yes. Being country, all sounds lovely, but actually it’s hard because they’re challenging you, but they’re giving you that feedback that’s fit for purpose for that market. So you’ll have the right market fit product rather than trying to be just everything and hoping, ⁓ and ⁓ sort of guessing demand. is the demand telling you what you need. So I love that. Okay. I’m gonna stick with being specific because we’ve talked about the finally vault, but

Let’s go a bit more into that because it’s a Microsoft Word add-in and an AI powered drafting system. Brilliant. So talk us through stage by stage, how the vault actually works again for lawyers listening in first time they heard about the finally they need to go and speak to their bosses and be like, we need this.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (26:52)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. when you think about, know, agents became all the sort of, you know, the raw sort of probably, you know, about 12, 18 months ago, whatever it was, and everyone got really excited about agents. But then, you know, when you sort of take a step further and say, okay, it’s great that we have an agent, but really the way we think about agents is that for agents to really work, you need an underlying tool for which that agent can call upon, right?

If you don’t have that underlying tool, it’s literally just essentially leveraging an LLM, which anybody in our opinion can do. Right. So I think first and foremost, you have to go through that hard sort of experience of building those underlying tools. And we were very lucky that actually before we started, you know, the world started screaming and shouting generative AI or, or, sort of agents, we were building really difficult solutions, but we were doing it the hard way. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t leveraging, you know, it was utilizing, you know, different

technologies, different methodologies of techniques to build solutions that solve problems. That’s how we got our draft solution. That’s how we got our vault solution. That’s how we got our proof solution. And then we were just very fortunate that actually now the world has sort of tuned into agents. And actually, as I said, for an agent to work, you need the underlying tools for which those agents can call upon. that’s what vault is our agentic offering. But vault leverages the underlying tools that we’ve built already to do various things. So

when I’m reviewing or drafting the contract, what Vault does is that it can call upon, you know…

it’s sorry, can call up what enhanced does not vaulted in house does is that it can call upon vault to say, Hey, I want to draft this contract, but can you leverage defining vault to get me the precedent to, know, to have the best sort of wording or the best document to start with. And then simultaneously, I can also call upon defining proof utilizing our enhanced offering to say, Hey, can you proofread and sanitize this contract at the same time? Right. So it allows enhance allows ⁓ our sort of

to call upon the underlying sort of vault, draft, and proof tools to do various things.

Rob Hanna (29:10)

And that’s a powerful ecosystem, isn’t it? I think if you can build that and they work flawless, then you know, it’s going to be super powerful and you’re to reduce that friction. You’re going to improve those workflows. You’re to make a lot of life for lawyers better. Again, all sounds great, but legal tech can be very intimidating. You know, we’re seeing buzzwords, we’re seeing headlines, we’re seeing lots of things, but there’s no point building the tech unless we’re getting that high level of adoption.

And then that’s actually carrying through with the results, the efficiencies, the pass on the gains to clients, et cetera, et cetera. So how again, specifically as to finally ensuring the tools stay sophisticated, but a super easy for the lawyers to actually use. they’re adopting them.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (29:49)

Yeah, so I think, know, and that’s a really, really good point. think there’s no point having these great, you know, technology and AI has incredible opportunities, right? And there’s so many things that we can do with it that we haven’t even scratched the surface. But I think.

as it pertains to law and the legal industry, one of the biggest barriers is that actually are people utilizing these tools, A, and also are they utilizing it then in a way where they’re sort of getting the ROI on them, right? And I think that’s an important thing for any company, right? Any company building something, ultimately you’re building for somebody, you’re building for an end user, you’re building a solution that you want and you hope people use and people love and people come back to time and time again, right? And for us,

always been sort of key to this business. When I started this company, I’ve always said, it’s actually, what we do with our customers is more important for me than trying to win new customers. Because actually, that’s how you grow a business. It’s by satisfying your existing customers. Because guess what? They’re going to come back. They’re going to expand with you. They’re going to grow with you. And they’re probably going to increase your revenue more so than you will get from just getting new logos. If you think about when you go fishing, it’s all great having cash

catching a lot of fish but if you have a massive net hole at the bottom of your net you’re just losing the know the fish you catch as you do so so for us it’s always been very very important to be super customer centric you know from the outset we have customers all over the world i recently just ⁓ you know put we’ve recently just put something in place where we go and visit our customers all around the world

at least once a year. We speak to our customers regularly. We go out to them to train them. We work with them to find champions to help train the champions so that they can be trainers of trainers, if that makes sense. So we work hand in glove with our customers, all about making sure, A, that they’re getting the ROI that they wanted and they hoped for and that they’re paying us money for. But also just to make sure that they’re satisfied. One of the things that we are really, really sort of key about and one of the sort of KPIs that we have is

How do we make sure we are super responsive to our customers? How do we make sure that when they sort of work with us, they’re not just getting another vendor, they are getting a partner relationship where they’re working side by side with us as a trusted partner. So for us, adoption has various variables to it. It’s not just about, here’s the solution, we’re going to do one training. It’s proactive. You have to keep working with your customers. have to almost like building the solution itself. You have to iterate with them to find out what

works best for that particular customer and you’ve got to go on that journey with them. I think that that’s for us, you know, key to what we do.

Rob Hanna (32:34)

Well said. again, a mentor said to me very early on Rob contacts are good, but relationships pay to your point. You can have loads of clients, but how deep are you going into those relationships? How are you really delivering and enhancing value and delighting those particular clients? So, yeah, I love that. And I’ll just sort of share a quick analogy that I heard from Jeff Bezos, in a world where

And I’ll probably butcher this, but in a world where everything is changing, everyone’s looking at the next thing, why didn’t you actually stop and take a step back and think, what are you actually, what’s not going to change in the next 10 years? And for Jeff and Amazon, it’s like, he can’t imagine a world one day where he’ll wake up where clients are going to want their packages slower in a longer lead time. You know, that, that, that’s probably going to continue to be people are going to want things faster, more efficient, delivered at a certain particular time. So get fascinated about potentially those things that aren’t going to change.

and lean all into them. And simply when you’re talking to your clients and you’re going around the world and you’re speaking to them and those relationships, there’s probably certain things that, you you just need to go deeper in on that particular problem rather than looking at the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. So I love that.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (33:32)

And that’s the hard thing,

right? The hard thing is to do what is boring, right? You you’ve built a solution that solves a problem. Great. Let’s go and find the next solution that solves another problem. Let’s go and find the next one. That’s easy. That’s exciting. That’s shiny, right? That’s what everyone wants to do. The hard thing is saying, hey, we’ve built this solution. It solves a problem. But guess what? It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Like there is all of this other stuff that we can do and we can go really, you know, go into the depth of doing that.

Rob Hanna (33:37)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (33:59)

but it’s not as exciting, Because people, as human beings, when we have a natural affinity to seek adventure and seek exciting opportunities and seek new things and seek shiny things, right? But I think that that’s, for me, it’s like part of being an entrepreneur is knowing actually when you win customers and when you work with sort of customers, you have to really be.

all in in helping them solve problems and those problems may take much longer than you actually think that they will and you just have to be patient and you have to sort of stick it through with them because you’re both in it you know side by side you know yeah correct

Rob Hanna (34:32)

Yeah. And you’re collaborating, collaborations, domination say

that a lot. And also the sales and consultant side of me comes in here in terms of the importance of asking the right questions. know, a simple example is, did you have a good day? Yes or no, you’re not going to get the information. What do you get up to today? know, the right questions to ask those customers to ensure you’re getting the information you want is super paramount as well to take you on path that you want to go down. Okay. I promise we’ll talk about investment and we’re going to, because it’s been a huge year.

for Define.ly and Clio Ventures. Obviously, Clio support our show. They invested in 2025 and Clio are the world’s leader of cloud-based legal technology. They’ve had a huge year themselves with the acquisition of ShareDo moving into BigLaw, obviously with Vlex as well. But how’s Clio’s investment amongst others assisted you in addressing the gap and how league professionals interact with complex documents?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (35:05)

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we have been so fortunate to have an incredible investors, you know, on this journey with us, you know, and time and time again, I’ve been so, you know, I have to sort of take a step back to really just appreciate the fact that I’ve gotten like a very helpful.

⁓ sort of an proactive sort of know, investors with me and clear, you know, one of those investors where, know, actually when we first start, when I first started the company, I actually reached out, you know, I didn’t know who he was or he didn’t. So he didn’t know me. I knew him. I reached out to Jack from clear and, know, you know, I didn’t get a response, you know, rightly so. Why would he? I’m sure he gets those emails every day. So it’s really nice actually that, you know, this sort of a full circle journey where he’s now, you know, that, you know, clear now.

investors and obviously Jack is the founder and CEO of Clio. But yeah, I think for us, know, we saw the opportunity as synergistic, like in terms of, you know, Clio, you know, the biggest, you know, supplier probably for sort of the mid market and, you know, smaller sort of law firms in terms of what they do and being able to partner with them and to, you know, leverage the experience that they have built over the last sort of two decades is just incredible, right? They have achieved incredible things.

of which you sort of mentioned. So for us being able to partner with them, you know, it’s like a dream sort of, it’s a dream relationship that I think any sort of small vendor would want to be able to partner with another company that’s really a leader in your sector. And I think Clio has very much established itself as one of the sort of really, you know, legal tech leaders in this space.

Rob Hanna (36:57)

Yeah, well said. And I think it’s been a tremendous journey for Jack and the team. And I love that story. Shoot your shot, ultimately. again, you miss 100 % of the shots you don’t take. So sometimes you’ve got to go out there and it’s a lovely full circle moment, obviously, when you do come to that, that points at the table. But let’s talk about sort of improving clarity and accessibility. So the vice president of corporate development at Clio, the head of Clio Ventures, who’s been a former guest on the podcast, actually, Shivam Datta, shared.

about Definely, their approach to improving clarity and accessibility in legal documents aligns deeply with Clio’s vision for a more intuitive and inclusive legal experience. you’re obviously the co-founder, your co-founder has a visual impairment, you’ve touched on Fergus in terms of accessibility in the legal sector as being key to the mission. So in what other ways is Definely continuing that sort of accessibility and inclusivity mission that you set out to achieve?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (37:52)

Yeah, for us, mean, first and foremost, we do not think that there should be any barriers ⁓ to the profession, right? It was unfortunate that, you know, yes, Fergus, because he’s an exceptional individual, ⁓ but he still faced barriers when he entered. And, you know, even with all of the…

sort of challenges he had and hurdles he had to sort of cross to enter the profession. Once he entered, there were barriers to him actually just being able to do his work in an efficient way or to do his work in a level playing field with his peers, right?

doesn’t make any sense in this day and age, right? So first and foremost, we want to try and remove those barriers. We think about what the finally purports to do. I read somewhere, something like one in five people have some form of ⁓ dyslexia, right? There are people who suffer from learning difficulties or disabilities or other types of ⁓ challenges that something like the finally can sort of

with so for us first and foremost is to make sure that there isn’t another Fergus you know who is in this profession having to sort of suffer without sort of the assistance to be able to feel confident in being able to know that what they’re doing and the

the prof, you know, the role that they have, they can really be as good as anybody else because of, you know, the limitations that they have from a technological point of view. And it was actually really nice once we first launched the finally, there was a lawyer at, you know, Sherman who was visually impaired and he wrote about this and how the finally actually helped him, you know, become sort of much more confident and, you know, much more, you know, ⁓

have a much more level playing field in what he was doing amongst his peers. And he wrote about that in the Financial Times, which was really, really nice to read about and learn about how ⁓ our solution was helping somebody else who had a visual impairment. I think generally what our solution purports to do is help.

Rob Hanna (39:49)

generally what our solution is to the

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (39:53)

to find the easiest and the simplest ways for the lawyers to work on contracts,

Rob Hanna (39:54)

easiest and simplest way to do work across

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (39:59)

on complex contracts. That’s utilizing the best solutions, working with them to build the best solutions and making sure that those solutions are really, really intuitive. And the UX, the UI is super, super simple for them so that it becomes sort of, it becomes as easy as them as only Microsoft Word, essentially.

Rob Hanna (40:19)

Yeah. And what a beautiful story you just shared there of the, the Aaron Sherman lawyer as well. And yeah, ultimately, and I talk about this very openly on the show, you know, there is a bit of a mental health crisis within law. is the workload, the overwhelm, know, tech for good. We talk a lot about, and actually if you can bring technology in that could remove a lot of the drudgery that can remove a lot of this time suck and actually improve the overall wellbeing of being in the workplace and focus on the things that you probably trained and wanted to do.

as a lawyer, then we’re absolutely here for it. Okay, I want to take you back to 2021 now, because Define.ly was part of Tech Nation’s inaugural and liberal program for black and multicultural founders. You have been recognized again, and you’re the first ever graduate, I think, to make the Future 50 cohort. So what does that achievement mean for you and Define.ly?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (41:05)

Yeah, you know, that’s like, I didn’t actually, some of those things you forget about until you sort of, it reminds you, if that makes sense, I completely forgot. ⁓

Rob Hanna (41:13)

Yeah, until you get asked on a podcast.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (41:15)

Yeah,

completely forgot actually that we had done the Libra program. Because I remember at the time it was, when you had sort of the whole fallout with George Floyd in America and the Black Lives Matter movement. And there was, you know, there was a time when a lot of companies were trying to do things to essentially help, you know, people from that community. So from an entrepreneurial perspective, know, Black founders and diverse founders and, you know, TechNation sort of released this, you know, had this program, they launched this Libra program, which was, as you said, to support sort of Black

founders and founders from sort of diverse backgrounds. I remember when we got on the program, then the finding was very early. I’m not sure. I think we had a few customers and revenue was not very much. We didn’t have many people in the company. ⁓ And I remember seeing like reading about that.

program, but also reading about the future 50 program. I was like, okay, now that’s the proper program. That’s the program for like, you know, where their technician is saying, you know, based on an objective field, based on, you know, objective criteria, these are the companies they see as the sort of the next big

Rob Hanna (42:07)

Yeah.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (42:16)

things, right? The next unicorn, right? I was like, man, I wish, I don’t know how, but I wish we could one day be part of that program. And of course you never again, like, as I said, as Steve Jobs says, you you can never connect the dots looking forward. It’s always looking backwards. You’re like, wow. And it’s such a nice sort of moment now to actually like be part of that Future 50 program and to be recognized for all what we’ve done over the last sort of four years. And, I’m really proud of that because, you know, I think sometimes you forget ⁓ just how much you’ve done unless you take a moment to actually just reflect

Rob Hanna (42:19)

I don’t know how, I wish we could one day. Yeah.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (42:46)

You know, we have grown a lot, know, we are now some, you know, 100 people where at that time I think we were less than five people probably, you know, we have over 120 customers back then we probably had like, you know, two or three customers, right? So, you know, I think, you know, we’re really, proud of that. We’re really, really proud of the sort of the growth and the maturity that we’ve had, but also the learnings and the lessons along the way. And that’s why I can say to you, you know, at the outset of this conversation, it’s really, really hard, you know, because I’ve gone through that. I’ve got the sort of

the scars to prove sort of the journey we’ve been on but I’m very very proud to be, yeah, it’s really cool to be part of the Future 50 program.

Rob Hanna (43:17)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and richly deserved. yes, entrepreneurship is hard. You have to have a high threshold to rejection and everything else that goes with it. But yeah, I love that story. And I’ve loved this conversation. I guess looking at the future then, what are the future plans for the finally, what do you hope to achieve in the coming years? What can you share with us?

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (43:44)

Yep.

So when I started this sort of company, I remember vividly thinking, you know, why has law not had its moment like some of the other sectors, right? ⁓

finance, insurance, you know, why has there not been this sort of moment where a gold rush moment for law, right? And I sort of took a bet that that time had to be coming sooner or later. And obviously what we’ve seen over the last two years, that time is well and truly arrived, right? And I’m so glad that we are, you know, we’ve been able to be part of that sort of, that sort of capture that.

environment and be part of that movement. the way I see it, this sector is only going to grow and this sector is only going to expand and the market is only going to get bigger. I think that you now have a situation where the tide is rising. And I think as a company, as the finally, our focus is making sure that we are building the best solutions. We are servicing our customers in the best way possible and making sure that we are solving their problems because that’s how we’re going to stay ⁓

That’s how we’re going to continue to sort of thrill our customers and win customers and keep our customers right and delight them. And for us, if you can do those things, I think there is a genuine opportunity to become a market leader because the tide is riding and as long as you do not sink and you are still there once it hits the ceiling and once it gets to the, you are going to, you’re going to be one of those companies that are sort of market leaders in your space. I think Define has a real opportunity to be the market

We solve a problem that is, you know, we solve a unique problem. think we do that in the best way. think in a time we’ll tell that and we’re really, really sort of excited about sort of that opportunity and then sort of looking more sort of on those sort of granular level. You know, we’re really excited about just continuing the innovating like we’ve done over last couple of months. We launched enhanced. We launched cascade. We have so many different things that we’re working on with our customers and in glove with them and then just experience

expanding

globally as well. The US is a really important part of what we do. It’s the world’s biggest legal market. So for us, it’s about continuously to expand internationally in places like the US, Asia, and likewise.

Rob Hanna (46:13)

And it’s all very, very exciting. And you know, there will be challenges along the way again, as a mentor said to me, new level, new devil. There will be some challenges as you go through that, but the energy, the passion just seeps through the microphone. I’ve really enjoyed this, this whole conversation. And it’s no surprise why you have been able to achieve what you’ve been able to achieve with that sort of real understanding of business, being customer centric and the energy and passion you bring to things. I guess a final question before we look to close, what would be your advice for those who are interested in learning more about legal tech?

an AI.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (46:44)

Yeah, I think there is so much information out there now. think when I first started, there wasn’t that many information. There wasn’t that many sort of…

places you can an organization she could go to to actually learn about sort of technology and law. think now like it’s everywhere. You just need to open up your LinkedIn. So I think you really like you have no excuse not to be curious. You know, you have no excuse not to be reading and keeping abreast with sort of latest developments. There’s so much opportunities out there and it’s really about just being really well informed and doing your homework and really, you know, asking questions if you’re thinking about, know, and it’s also it’s there are different ways to get into this.

Rob Hanna (47:04)

Yeah.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (47:25)

industry, don’t, not everybody has to be a founder. And I don’t think everybody should be a founder. You can go and work on the sort of legal innovation side of things in a law firm. You can go and work for a tech company and sort of learn that way. can sort of, so they’re different sort of, can go and work for an investment firm and, you know, know, focus on investing in legal tech, right? So there are different sort of ways you can look at it, but I think that there is a huge, huge opportunity generally across the breadth of legal tech. And that’s in every sort of, you know, avenues, investments, you know, work

⁓

as a startup working within sort of professional services. And I think that people should be learning, people should be asking questions, listen to podcasts like yours, Rob, and just doing their research because I think this is here to stay and this is a really, really exciting time. And I think we have a real opportunity now to make sure we are part of that movement.

Rob Hanna (48:18)

Yeah. And everyone talks a lot about we’re moving to super intelligence and everything else, which we will, but I think we’re in an age where you could do super learning. You know, if you use the AI, you know, like people saying there’s overwhelm, you get the right promptings within these tools. You could be learning and getting so much inputs into your, into your ecosystem and into your education. That’s going to help you become a lot sharper and better for purpose. I’m really, really enjoyed this now. I’m sure our listeners are going to as well, and I’m sure they’re to want to learn more about you and indeed finally. So.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (48:25)

Exactly.

Yeah.

Rob Hanna (48:46)

Where can they find out more? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles. We’ll also include them in this very special episode for you too.

Nnamdi Emelifeonwu (48:53)

Sure, thank you so much, Rob. So yeah, you can find more about me. I’m on LinkedIn. So definitely can reach out to me via LinkedIn if needed. And also Define.me via our website. So that’s just define.me.com. Yeah.

Rob Hanna (49:06)

Awesome. Well, thanks so much once again. It’s been an absolute blast having you on the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Clio. But from now, from all of us wishing you lots of continued success with your career and indeed, definitely over and out.