Offline legal practice scales linearly: more clients usually means more people, more overhead, and more complexity. I built Pravoved.ru to make legal help transparent and repeatable through a simple user flow and a marketplace model where multiple independent lawyers respond to each request. We focused on two core metricsconsultation volume and a steady inflow of requests and scaled the platform to 4 – 7M monthly visitors and 1.5 – 2.5K consultations per day, with a business model centered on connecting clients with legal professionals and generating qualified leads for law firms and independent practitioners. Why traditional legal services don’t scale Why traditional legal services don’t scale I started as a practicing lawyer working with small businesses. It didn’t take long to see the ceiling of the offline model: every new client adds “manual” work, and the usual solution is hiring more people. That creates a predictable chain reaction: more coordination, more quality control, more management, higher costs. This model can be strong for complex bespoke work, but it struggles when demand is массовый (mass-market): short questions, repeated scenarios, and clients who need clarity quickly. So I began thinking like a product builder: how can you deliver legal help in a way that’s fast, consistent, and trustworthy—without turning growth into endless headcount expansion? The market gap: information existed, trust didn’t The market gap: information existed, trust didn’t When people look for legal guidance online, they often end up on forums and random comment threads. The issue is not the lack of opinions—it’s the lack of verification and accountability. What was missing was a convenient online format where users could: describe a situation quickly, receive responses from qualified professionals, and compare those responses to make a more informed decision. That’s the problem Pravoved.ru was built to solve. Two product decisions that made scaling possible Two product decisions that made scaling possible 1) A brutally short user journey We made the first step as simple as possible: 1. the user describes the situation in free form 2. submits the request No complex intake, no scheduling as the first action, no long “pre-consultation” ritual. In urgent situations, friction kills conversion—and it also damages trust, because people feel pushed into a process before they even understand their options. 2) Trust as a visible feature (not a promise) The core marketplace mechanic was straightforward: multiple lawyers could respond to the same request. This changes the experience in a meaningful way: Users can compare reasoning, not just tone. Independent answers reduce the risk of acting on a single weak opinion. Transparency improves confidence: the logic is visible, not hidden behind a brand. In my view, this is what “transparent LegalTech” really means: trust becomes observable inside the product. What we measured (and why it mattered) What we measured (and why it mattered) During growth, it’s tempting to obsess over vanity metrics. Traffic and attention feel good, but they don’t tell you whether the system is actually working. We focused on two metrics that reflect reality: consultation volume a steady inflow of requests from individuals and businesses These metrics forced the right questions: Is the marketplace liquid—do users reliably get responses? Is value delivered quickly enough to drive repeat behavior? Does quality remain consistent as volume grows? Over time, Pravoved.ru reached 4–7 million visitors per month and 1.5–2.5 thousand consultations per day—proof that legal support can be packaged into a repeatable product and scaled through technology, not just through hiring. A playbook for scaling “expert marketplaces” A playbook for scaling “expert marketplaces” If I compress the lessons into a framework I’d reuse, it looks like this: 1. Shorten the first step to the minimum meaningful action 2. Make trust visible (comparison, multiple viewpoints, transparency of reasoning) 3. Track reality metrics that reflect throughput and demand stability 4. Design for repeatability: clear workflows, predictable outcomes, measurable quality This approach isn’t limited to LegalTech. Any domain with “manual expertise” (legal, HR, finance advisory, compliance, etc.) becomes scalable when you turn complexity into process + product + measurement. Why I applied the same logic to HRTech Why I applied the same logic to HRTech Later I founded Jinn, a cloud-based platform for employee assessment and development. It brings fragmented HR processes into one system: surveys and employee listening, 360/performance review, OKR/KPI goals, development plans, org structure, feedback, and analytics. At first glance, LegalTech and HRTech look unrelated. But structurally they’re similar: the domain is traditionally “manual,”decisions are often made by intuition,processes are scattered across tools and spreadsheets,outcomes are hard to measure. the domain is traditionally “manual,” decisions are often made by intuition, processes are scattered across tools and spreadsheets, outcomes are hard to measure. The same product principle applies: make the process transparent, measurable, and repeatable. This unlocks scale.
