When Manny Griffith worked with a personal injury lawyer after his wife's car accident, he was surprised at how little information or communication he received from the lawyer regarding the claim. The couple sometimes didn't hear from their lawyer for months and found the entire process very opaque.
Griffiths dug deeper and found he wasn't alone in this issue. His research found that nearly half, 44%, of negative Google reviews for law firms that work with individuals rather than other businesses relate to consumer frustration due to poor communication. But even though consumers feel they can't get in touch with their lawyers, lawyers report spending 37% of their day communicating, Hona's survey of 41 lawyers found.
“People just want to be heard and they just want to know what's going on because it's an emotional and stressful time for them,” Griffiths told TechCrunch. “I started talking to law firms and really digging into their challenges, and I found that they were being interrupted on average every three minutes a day and they were just too busy to really communicate with their clients.”
Griffith and his co-founders launched Hona to fill that communications gap with technology. Hona is a communications portal that plugs into a law firm's existing case management software and sends automatic updates to clients. The goal, Griffith said, is to make it as easy for clients to track their cases as they track an Amazon package. This clearly resonated with law firms, and the company saw strong demand even before its February 2022 launch.
“I actually did some mockups, had somebody design the product in Figma, and said, 'Let's pitch this before we've written a line of code and tell people we can ship it by x date,'” Griffiths says. “I just started calling law firms, and I had five of them sign up before I'd even written anything.”
The Lehi, Utah-based company has seen demand continue ever since. The company grew revenue by 400% in 2023, but did not disclose exact revenue figures. Hona currently works with more than 500 law firms and serves 308,000 clients. The company also just closed a $9.5 million Series A round led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Ludlow Ventures, Soma Capital and Y Combinator.
Griffith said he doesn't expect Hona to replace or automate all communication between lawyers and clients, because neither side wants that. Rather, it will simply save clients from having to call their lawyers just for updates or questions about legal terminology. Clients can also message their lawyers through Hona and have access to educational materials on terminology and information about where they are in the legal process.
Lawsuit updates, educational resources and answers to client questions are generated by AI, Griffith said. He added that the company is being very careful about deploying AI because of the sensitive nature of litigation and the critical importance of getting the information right. To combat potential misinformation, lawyers decide what Hona's AI system has access to.
“Initially, we're allowing law firms to upload approved conversation topics, approved metrics, and information about their cases,” Griffiths said. “Our model may be a little slower to grow than other AI models, and we'll initially limit what it can say, but it will be more accurate from the get-go. Making sure they don't get misinformation is a big commitment for us.”
The firm decided to focus initially on consumer-facing legal work, such as personal injury and criminal defense, because that's where Griffith expects there will be the most friction. Those law firm clients are likely to have a poorer understanding of the legal system than corporate clients who interact with lawyers more frequently. The firm hopes to expand into B2B legal work in the future.
Hona is also working to expand its services: It recently released an e-signature tool for documents and plans to add invoice and payment services in the future.
“We're passionate about our opposing clients,” Griffiths says. “Litigation is hard, and anything involving the law is stressful. Hona helps law firms be more efficient and save time, while also helping consumers and giving them peace of mind during litigation.”