For most, legal documents often bring connotations such as long, unreadable and jargon-heavy.
That is the perception which shizl founder Rebecca Kelly is working to change with her new startup.
A seasoned tech lawyer and partner at Gunnercooke, Kelly has spent over two decades advising on IT and IP matters.
With her latest venture, launched in 2024, she is looking to bring something unique to a sector that is traditionally slower to adapt to technology: an accessible, affordable and – maybe unusually – fun platform.
“Legal services for small businesses can be daunting, inaccessible and expensive,” she told BusinessCloud.
“We wanted to change that.”
A bold brand in a more serious sector
At the core of shizl’s early traction is its tone of voice and branding, which has been crafted to be intentionally light, clear and human in a sector sometimes known for being the opposite.
Kelly explained: “It’s really important. If you’ve got no budget to let people know that you’re there, what’s the point in existing?
“You’ve got to be visible and you’ve got to be able to market yourself, because people don’t know that you’re there if you can’t shout about it.
“So the approach has been engaging digital and PR consultants to create convincing and different marketing campaigns through social media and networking.”
With limited marketing budget and a small founding team, the Manchester-based LegalTech had to stand out as well as having a solid product.
It did this through a playful name and lighthearted campaign content to aid its goal of removing the fear from legal tasks.
“We put a lot of thought and effort into our brand at the start,” she added.
“We wanted to create a really strong, recognisable brand with an accessible tone of voice that enables us to create fun campaigns, not usually associated with lawyers!”
Legal documents without the stress
Shizl allows users to generate, customise and store legal documents via a self-service platform.
Documents can be downloaded or sent out for e-signature via DocuSign, and are automatically saved to a personal dashboard for future use.
The product includes templates for a range of documents, from employment contracts and SaaS agreements, to data protection policies and NDAs, and customers span from recruiters to real estate firms.
“We wanted to do something that would give people access to a fun website that was simple to use, that had high quality documents, that are easy to read and understand, and that can be customised and made appropriate for each business.
“The feedback so far has been really, really positive.”
Startups need law that speaks their language
The need for better communication in legal services was one of the key motivators behind shizl’s launch.
Kelly and her co-founders, Mark Edgeworth and Chris Coleman-Brown, saw a consistent pattern of early-stage companies which either delayed legal steps due to confusion, cost or fear of getting it wrong, if not skipping them entirely.
“We see daily the pitfalls of not sorting your legal foundations from day one,” she said.
“If you start in a compliant manner, you’re going to progress as a compliant business, which means culturally that is embedded into your organisation, rather than getting yourself established and then realising when you’re looking at exiting or when you’re looking at raising funding that you are not compliant with the law.
“If you are able to get the basics right, such as a privacy policy, good information security policies, culturally good processes for managing data and keeping things secure and safe, then you will inevitably be a solid business in which people are prepared to invest or do business.
“You wouldn’t build a house without solid footings, so why do that with a business? You just end up coming unstuck at a later date, which you don’t want.”
More than marketing fluff
The Gunnercooke partner is clear that this isn’t branding for branding’s sake.
Kelly and her co-founders’ legal background gives the product real weight, with all templates created and reviewed by experienced lawyers, including herself.
She continued: “I’d say my experience of doing this for 20 plus years means that I know what commercial matters are important to a business and what protections a business needs.
“And inevitably, I know not to make the mistakes that other people have made when setting up my own business.
“Practically I think because we have been lawyers for so long we can write documents in a way that people understand and we know is fair to people, because we don’t seek to create documents that are imbalanced.
“The idea is to create fair documents that provide good protection so they’re not heavily negotiated.”
Building a legal brand that grows with its users
Kelly and her co-founders are still limited on resources and balancing their legal careers with weekends and evenings dedicated to growing the firm.
However, despite ‘a lot of spinning plates’, there is a determination to grow.
“We would like to bring shizl to as big an audience as possible and see businesses growing with us,” she said.
“We genuinely believe it’s a product that can really help small businesses in managing their risk profile and building the value of their business.”
Attio raises £38.6m to continue developing ‘first AI-native CRM’