#StartupsEverywhere: Scott Kveton, Co-Founder & CEO, CaseMark
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Legal busywork simplified
Scott Kveton is a five-time startup founder working to save lawyers and paralegals precious time in case work with his new AI software, CaseMark. We sat down with Scott to discuss his company, his stance on the state-level approach to AI legislation, and his decades-long experience with raising capital.
Tell us about your background. What led you to CaseMark?
As a serial entrepreneur, this is the fifth company I’ve founded. I've mostly been building, scaling, and selling business to business and software companies. Most recently, we exited a transparent ledger for a physical assets company about two years ago. That’s a lot of word salad for using blockchain to track the ownership of sports memorabilia.
We started CaseMark about 18 months ago when my wife–an insurance defense attorney–asked me for some help with her practice. We built out what I call the easy buttons for AI and legal. We started with summaries of depositions, court proceedings, billings, and medical chronologies. We’re focused on automating the routine tasks in trial law that consume too much time.
What is the work you all are doing at CaseMark?
We’ve expanded beyond the foundation of easy buttons for law, CaseMark has expanded across the Litigation Lifecycle. From intake to settlement, appeal, or verdict. There's a whole host of these sorts of easy buttons that we can do. We’re working to save lawyers and paralegals precious time in their practice. Our sweet spot is personal injury, but we're starting to see a lot more in employment and family law.
From the start, we decided to build on top of the major foundation models developed by OpenAI, Google, and others. They’re advancing at such a rapid clip, that it doesn’t make sense for us to develop our own AI. Because of this, we’ve built a layer of software that allows us to leverage any cloud provider or large language model (LLM) behind the scenes. Having that flexibility to utilize the big-name LLMs has allowed us to move quickly in development.
How do you feel about the current state-by-state legislative approach to AI regulation?
I’m always wary of states setting rules that end up affecting how you operate a business across the entire country. Years ago, I was in the point of sale industry, specifically for cannabis companies. It was hard to build a business because each state had different rules about how they were legalizing cannabis, and so any commerce software had to account for that.
It forced me to build 39 different software systems just to comply with individual state regulations, instead of one that could work nationwide. We ended up selling the company as fast as we could because we couldn’t keep up with state-by-state compliance as a small business.
With respect to AI, each of the states are going to have their own version of regulation which is going to create a barrier to companies that want to adopt this technology. From a strategic standpoint, America has to be moving faster and better than anybody else otherwise countries like China and Russia will eclipse us. A patchwork of state policies instead of a single, federal framework will only hold us back. We need to push forward.
As a seasoned startup founder, what has been your experience in the capital raising process?
I’ve gone through the capital raising process so many times that it’s now second nature to me. It’s one of those skills you wish you didn’t have because it can be incredibly draining on both your time and morale. It also ends up being a bit of a boy’s club. You have to know how to play the game, and the rules of the game easily become gendered.
The important thing for every founder to remember is that most angel and venture capital investors follow larger trends and are typically driven by two things: fear (of missing out) or greed. They’re looking to fund something that will succeed, and they want to be the first to get there.More needs to be done to give all founders a level playing field in navigating and acquiring funds to make their ideas a reality.
Are there any local, state, or federal startup issues that you think should receive more attention from policymakers?
I’m apprehensive about all 50 trying to legislate technology individually. State governments already have a hard time deploying or understanding the existing technologies they have. It's even harder for them to regulate new technology they don't understand.
More importantly, many of the countries we’re competing against don’t have those speed bumps; some have jet engines or rockets behind them. Policymakers need to coalesce around coherency and common ground if America is going to be a leader in the technologies of tomorrow.
What are your goals for CaseMark moving forward?
Ultimately where we’re headed is what I call full case automation. My dream is to have CaseMark become a verb in the legal industry, just like Google is synonymous with search in everyday conversations. The legal industry never truly digitized, and yes, I’m intentionally using that very ’90s term.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
