Launching LexGraft

We are driven by the question “How might we enable small businesses and startups to manage the risk in their business?”

I started my legal career as a junior associate in the mining team of a large law firm. We helped mining companies to manage their legal, regulatory and environmental risks. In our team, part of our responsibilities were to create legal registers for the firms clients to check their level of compliance across their operations. This was in preparation for the annual inspections from officials sent by the Department of Mineral Resources, who, if they weren’t satisfied with the performance —eg the mining company not meeting its community development goals, would be entitled to fine the company, arrest the directors (which I did witness) or suspend the mining operations entirely (which I also witnessed).

For example, AngloAmerican, an international mining company, was fined $58 million and served a 90 suspension for environmental infractions in Brazil. I am pretty sure that this issue was on the risk register dashboard, but for reasons unknown, it wasn’t handled appropriately and eventually the worst case scenario played out.

Risky Business

All businesses carry risk. It just scales according to the size of the operation and regulatory requirements of the industry. A large company like Anglo has internal and external resources to manage their risk, however incidents like the one above can still occur. A small business that sells bagels and coffee carries legal risk as it needs to right licences to operate and, if there are employees, it must comply with the minimum wage requirements or it will be penalised.

A small business or startup does not have an army of lawyers like Anglo to help them figure out their legal and compliance issues. Often what begins as a legal risk will often become a business risk, and by the time most companies decide to address the issue- the solution is going to be costly.

At LexGraft, we understand that the priority for small businesses and startups is to grow. We want to enable them keep focusing on their core business by identifying where they have legal risks that are going to affect their business operations. Once all the risks have been identified, we use our AI system to evaluate the impact of the risk on the business operations. We provide business centric insights that may include legal actions to mitigate the risk. In addition, we also advice companies of the incentives available to their specific industries as a result of overall compliance.

We see ourselves as providing real time insights to small and startups so that they can focus on their growth, while managing risks.