Final Project: Legal Entity Determiner

by Anon Silpavuthi

Introduction

I created a chat bot for my partner, Suffolk University Law School's Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship Clinic using a tool called QnA Markup. The chat bot will suggest users what type of legal entity they should structure their business as. The complete version of the chat bot can be found here. The code of the bot can be found here.

Suffolk Law School’s Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship Clinic (IPEC) provides free legal services to appropriate clients with limited resources on issues relating to new and emerging businesses, with a focus on intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets). For this project, I worked with Loletta Darden, who is an Associate Clinical Professor and IPEC supervisor.

Click here to learn more about IPEC.

Process

Framing

As one of the student attorneys in IPEC, I find that one of the most common issues that small business or other start-up cleints have is forming a business and choosing an appropriate legal entity. In most cases, that is part of the main reasons why they come and seek help from IPEC. The problem is the fact that most clients come in without knowing what type of entity they want incorporate as or without any knowledge of the differences between different types of entity, that alone wastes a lot of time during a client interview process. Therefore, it would be a big time saving if clients or potential clients can get a general idea of what are the differences between each type of legal entity and a general idea of what they should be. The goal is to create a tool that will educate and suggest users and potential clients of what entity they should consider structuring their business as.

Research

Before I start, I conducted an extensive search to see whether there are identical similar products. I have also consulted with my partner and other professors at Suffolk University Law School who familiar with the Legal Tech field. I received several suggestions on which product might be similar to mine. I then conducted more research but it turns out that there are no product on the market that actually doing the same thing.

Thereafter, I decided to proceed with the project by conducting an extensive research on different types of legal entity. With a help of another IPEC student who is also a Corporate Examiner at the Secretary of State, I was able to come up with this table of all the potential differentiation and advantages of legal entities.

After one consultation session with my partner, I decided that for the purpose of this project, this bot will only determine 3 type of legal entities which are Limited Liability Corporation, C Corporation, and S Corporation. The reason for that is to first observe whether this bot will work out and also because most if not all IPEC clients fall within these 3 entities anyway. My partner and I decided that the other entities will be included in future improvement.

I then started conducting another extensive research on the specific questions I should ask in the bot and started drawing a decision tree, which can you find a final version in the Ideation & Prototyping below.

As you can see in the bot, I used investopedia many times as a source. I consulted my partner and we both agreed that this would be the best source of information for now because it is very user-friendly and it contains videos explaining legal terms that users might not understand.

Ideation & Prototyping

I did not make a lot of prototypes because I decided to do things by hand first. I basically started with many different versions of hand-drawn decision trees. A final version of my hand-drawn decision tree can be found here An early prototype of the chat bot itself can be found here.

User Testing

I had three other IPEC students test the chat bot in-person. My partner had many chances to test it in-person as well as over the email. The latest testing feedback that I received from my partner over the email can be found here.

Refinement

Most of the testing occurred in-person, I was able to refine the product immidiately. Most of the feedbacks that I received in-person are about the design such as structure of the question of the qna and as you can compare it to the early prototype, there has been significant change.

I was also able to refine the product after the latest feedback. However, I was unable to change some of the minor suggestions that my partner suggested because it would be time consuming and I would need her to re-approve that so I decided to leave that for future improvement.

Product

Intro Pitch

A powerpoint presentation of an intro pitch that I made earlier in the semester can be found here.

Complexity

This project relies on the QnA system. Initially, document automation was going to be one of the expert system that I use for potential client to fulfill the IPEC client intake form. However, after a discussion with my partner, we decided to postpone this for future improvement instead because it would require a lot of permissions and we will also have to work with Suffolk University's website administrator.

Impact

It would be difficult to give a number of how much impact this would make to IPEC but this project has a potential to make a significant impact IPEC in regards to client counseling and interviewing. This bot can potentially save a lot of time for both the IPEC clients, supervisor, and students.

Completeness

This bot directly addresses the stated problem listed above. If users go through this chat bot, there is a high chance that they will be familiar with different types of legal entity or get a general idea of what entity they might want to consider. Users will also be able to learn important legal terms regarding forming a legal entity if they click the hyperlink in each question as suggested in the instruction of the bot. Therefore, this would directly addresses the problem and save a lot of time for IPEC clients and students. However, as discussed above, the scope of determination is still limited to 3 entities, future improvement is still expected.

Documentation

The bot contains a well written and approachable information for the overwhelming majority of potential users. Users will be able to click on hyperlink under each questions to read more about the terms that they do not understand.

Real World Viability

I believe that this chat bot is ready for real-world use as is as long as users are looking for a suggestion limited to Limited Liability Corporation, C Corporation, and S Corporation. I also believe that it is ready for real-world use as a general informaiton of each legal entity. As stated at the heading of the bot, this bot is never meant to give user a definite decision nor legal advice, the target users are potential clients of IPEC.

Sustainability

There is a clear plan for continued operation and updates. The goal is to eventually put this chat bot up on the website like the chat bot on Committee for Public Counsel Services's website. This chat bot will likely appear on IPEC's client intake page and the goal is to get it done by the May 2018.

Another main improvement would be incorporating decision tree structure of other entities such as Partnership, Sole-propriatorship, or Benefit Corporation into the chatbot as well as creating IPEC Client Intake document automation.