Case Studies

I’ve been at Artsy since November 2015, and when I first started I was the sole in-house counsel. In the first 12 months, it was very clear to me that I was going to need additional support, but it can be challenging to get buy-in to spend more on legal when there are pressing business opportunities.

In my second year at Artsy, more resources were allocated to the legal department. I knew I didn’t have enough money for permanent help, so I began to investigate temp solutions.

The first step in my process was to write to the Tech GC Google Group, an organization of General Counsels of leading venture capital firms and venture-backed companies with chapters in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston, to find out what services members were using. Priori Legal clearly rose to the top in terms of the number of recommendations. The buy-in from the tech community was very important in my decision-making process because I wanted to work with a company that understood and worked well with tech companies.

Like any good due diligencer would do, I talked to Priori and several competitors. I had in mind a very particular type of skill-set, class years of experience and culture fit for an attorney whom I thought would be the ideal second person in a small generalist team. Priori’s rigorous vetting process and data-driven technology platform made me confident that Priori had segmented the market to deliver the right person and right fit from a skills and culture standpoint.

I didn't have any concerns because I had done so much due diligence ahead of time. But that said, until I saw the quality of attorneys, their backgrounds and pricing based on my project request, I didn’t know for sure! Both of the attorneys I interviewed made me feel confident in Priori’s vetting process – not only were they a match on paper, they were lovely in person. I would say the only other concern I had was that your rates may be too reasonable…

I chose Priori because I was looking for cost savings off of traditional outside counsel for legal advice in a number of areas. I have been particularly impressed with Priori because the quality of attorneys is the same or better than our usual attorneys at larger firms, which, given how selective we normally are, says a lot!

I really didn’t think I needed a third party to help me find a lawyer – I thought I knew enough people to do it myself. But within 30 minutes of contacting Priori, they had scheduled three attorney interviews for me, something I never would have been able to do myself. Booking appointments on the Priori platform was seamless and delightful. They had thought through every detail, including providing a pre-arranged conference number.

There was one lawyer we particularly clicked with, and the next day we were on our way, negotiating the deal.

Priori has saved us quite a bit of time and money, and it allows us to easily find, and receive advice from, experts in many different areas. In particular, quick responses from attorneys on Priori’s platform, clear communication from the Priori team, and transparent billing make Priori my default when I’m looking for niche expertise, local counsel or simply cost savings compared to more traditional firm solutions.

We needed extra support on our legal team at Via but couldn’t quite justify the budget to bring another person on full-time yet. A colleague of mine who is also in-house at a technology company in NYC had used Priori previously and found the experience remarkably positive. I had also been aware of Priori from their blog and email newsletter, which I found to be very relevant and interesting.

As Via has grown, our legal team’s workload expanded, but we didn’t have enough in-house lawyers to do all the work and didn’t want to outsource day-to-day commercial legal matters to outside counsel. As such, we needed to bring someone on who could work in a part-time and flexible manner to handle NDAs, engagement letters, vendor service agreements and commercial contracts. 

We also used Priori following the imposition of the federal government’s travel ban early last year. We offered to assist with identifying legal resources for affected members of the Via community. Not only did Priori enable us to identify a roster of reasonably priced immigration practitioners, but Priori also helped us find a great lawyer to come in and provide an informational session for Via drivers on the legal ramifications of the ban.

In my experience, Priori’s vetting process is much more thorough than other legal staffing agencies that I have used in the past at my prior jobs. As a result, the caliber of lawyers recommended by Priori is much higher.  Another benefit of using Priori was how specific we could make our hiring requirements. For instance, we needed lawyers with particular expertise who had also worked in technology environments. With Priori, you can really tailor your outside counsel and temp attorney hiring in a way that best suits your needs.

Priori has top quality attorneys with a variety of expertise. We chose Priori for our projects because their attorneys had the best expertise in corporate/transactional matters. We also love the service that we receive on an ongoing basis. It is timely and efficient, and very cost-effective.

Any corporate legal department would benefit from Priori's services. Priori offers an excellent alternative to hiring, especially for temporary, short-term, or individual project needs.