Two former BigLaw M&A attorneys have launched a authorized tech startup aimed toward addressing one of many occupation’s most persistent challenges — the hole between regulation college training and the sensible abilities wanted to achieve transactional follow.
Rubi Legal Training, based by co-CEOs Madison Keeble (pictured left above) and Geetika Jerath (pictured proper), formally launched final week with a digital apprenticeship platform designed to coach junior attorneys in transactional regulation.
The Austin-based startup has already secured a big institutional partnership, with the College of Texas College of Regulation offering its whole pupil physique with entry to the platform.
The founders constructed rubi — they lowercase the identify — primarily based on what they discovered from their mixed experiences as M&A associates at regulation agency Norton Rose Fulbright, which is that new transactional attorneys typically wrestle with out structured coaching within the sensible elements of deal work.
“Madison and I drew on essentially the most priceless classes from our 25,000+ billable hours in BigLaw, reverse-engineered them into precisely what a junior M&A lawyer must know, and constructed a platform that teaches all of it upfront,” Jerath mentioned in saying the launch.
The platform’s flagship program, “The Transactional Follow Information: M&A,” goals to take a brand new lawyer and prepare them to function on the degree of a second-year affiliate. Throughout two years of curriculum improvement and pilot testing, the founders found demand for the coaching prolonged past new associates to incorporate boutique agency attorneys, in-house counsel and skilled attorneys switching follow areas.
Apprenticeship Reimagined
Rubi’s strategy simulates the expertise of working as a junior affiliate on a BigLaw transaction, the corporate says. Contributors are “staffed” on Mission Rubi, a complete mega-deal designed particularly for studying, with step-by-step steerage from the founders by each activity, resolution and doc.
“It’s as if Geetika and I are at their desks, instructing not simply substantive ideas and what to do, however why they’re doing it, what inquiries to ask, and the way all the pieces suits into the larger image, utilizing a full buy settlement and transaction paperwork to construct judgment in context,” Keeble mentioned.
This system is structured in digestible items that take 10-15 hours to finish and match into busy schedules. Assignments progressively construct on one another, masking all the pieces from managing competing priorities to analyzing change of management provisions and drafting transaction checklists and ancillary paperwork.
Texas Regulation Partnership
The College of Texas College of Regulation, working with its Texas Regulation and Enterprise Program, has signed on to supply all regulation college students with entry to rubi.
“Our program bridges the hole between authorized training and the realities of transactional follow,” Eliot Cotton, director of the Texas Regulation and Enterprise Program, mentioned in a press release supplied by the corporate.
“Rubi is designed to assist college students develop abilities which have historically taken years in a agency to be taught: context, construction and a transparent understanding of how offers really work. Offering this platform for our college students is an incredible alternative for us, and we’re excited to get began.”
Jerath and Keeble, who each earned their bachelor’s levels from UT Austin, mentioned the partnership “is deeply significant” to them each. “By providing rubi to each pupil at Texas Regulation earlier than they even enter the occupation,” Jerath mentioned, “Texas Regulation is demonstrating its continued dedication to giving its college students a aggressive edge.”
Plans to Scale
The platform can be utilized by particular person attorneys working independently or deployed institution-wide at regulation companies or regulation faculties. In keeping with the founders, this system establishes a constant baseline of abilities and data whereas instructing attorneys how you can adapt to their particular crew’s preferences.
“As soon as rubi is deployed at a agency or regulation college, the coaching runs itself,” Keeble mentioned. “It’s designed to work alongside on-the-job studying: college students use it to face out in recruiting and put together for summer season affiliate positions, working towards attorneys apply new abilities and add worth to their offers instantly, and senior attorneys can give attention to higher-level work whereas their groups develop systematically.”
The startup plans ultimately so as to add coaching packages for different follow areas, Keeble advised me.
“Our M&A program is the flagship, however the broader imaginative and prescient is to construct a cohesive coaching ecosystem, scaling horizontally into extra follow areas and vertically into mid-level and senior development,” she mentioned.
“We’re being intentional about sequencing so each program meets the identical normal of construction, depth and sensible relevance.”
