The short-term aim of Clerky appears to be to tame the process by which founders take the legal steps to traverse the path from launch to first funding by giving founders and their lawyers the tools to do it all more efficiently and cost-effectively. I would think that is a worthy goal and a worthy market to target. How many founders over the years have given up as much as a percent or two of their equity just to get fee deferrals from law firms that would enable them to get to first funding? And paid sizable fees to boot? Credible founders do not begrudge a lawyer his hire they also do not want the legal part to take more than its fair share of the budget or the equity.
Clerky offers as a first step a standardized Delaware C-corp approach to startup launch, and a skillfully done one at that. Its site suggests that it will targeting as well the remaining steps on the standardized path, right down to ones that will facilitate efficient and low-cost handling of all the important steps leading to first funding. This is not a modest goal - it is huge.
In law, there are strict limits to how far anything "standardized" can go - law is simply too big and complex to be reduced to simple recurring steps in any important area. For this reason, the role of the lawyer (even as to the standardized aspects) will not soon be displaced. Indeed, traps and issues abound for founders in setting up their companies, in funding them, and in dealing with a whole host of legal issues that will crop up. It always has been, and remains, foolhardy for founders to wing it in this area once they get beyond the very early positioning parts of their ventures. The beauty of what Clerky seeks to do, however, lies in providing ways to make it all easier both for founders and for lawyers and thereby setting up ways of doing collaborative relationships by which all concerned will benefit. I am a lawyer. I have done this stuff for years. But I have no stake in wanting to do any of this the clunky way if there is a simple and elegant way at hand. I welcome what Clerky is trying to do and look forward to its benefits as they roll out their services. The fact that founders can save on fees is not a threat but instead an opportunity for me to focus on the parts I do best rather than the repetitive parts.
The beauty of Clerky, as I see it, is that the founders, having worked extensively as superb startup lawyers in their own right, have a keen sense of how all this works and are aiming to develop a service that truly deals with the issues that have burdened clients and lawyers alike. It is a tall challenge but, if anyone can do it, this is the right team, especially working within the innovative framework provided by YC and the startup community. It will be fascinating to see how it all unfolds.