A Northwestern alum and his partner recently launched a startup that uses crowdfunding to help people pay their legal fees.

Alan Savage, a Kellogg grad,  and CEO Michael Helfand created Funded Justice in December. Savage compared Funded Justice to sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

“We help people raise funds using crowds just for legal fees only,” Savage said.

Before creating Funded Justice, Helfand’s law firm tried to solve a problem that plagued lawyers for years, Savage said. People would walk into a law office and have a good case, but they would not have the money to hire an attorney.

Helfand said that during his career as an attorney, he met many good people who couldn’t afford legal help. He decided crowdfunding was the right approach to give people a fair shot.

“You might not know one person who has $2,000 to help you with your legal fees, but you probably know 100 people who could give you $20 to help you with the legal cost,” Savage said.

Savage said Helfand came up with the idea of crowdfunding while reading a book by Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone, co-founder of Twitter.   

Helfand said he has always been impressed with the quality of NU students and sought a partner through the Kellogg School of Management.

Helfand said Savage stood out to him after a process of resume submissions and interviews. They began talking in August 2014, and were able to create a website and finish the necessary programming for it by December, Savage said.  

Funded Justice is using a very different approach than businessmen used years ago, Savage said.

“We quickly develop a product and iterate over that product until we find the perfect product market fit,” he said.

Helfand said the startup is going well. He said it is interesting that Funded Justice has influenced people nationally. Since it was founded in Chicago, Helfand expected the majority of people using the startup to be from Illinois, he said.

Although there is interest from Illinois residents, clients from all over the country have found out about Funded Justice, largely through word of mouth and social media, Helfand said.

Helfand and Savage are happy with the metrics they are seeing so far, Savage said.

“Any startup is a constant test of hypotheses and exposure to the market,” he said. Savage said Funded Justice is currently going through this process. 

“We are hoping that when people think of a need to finance legal fees, they automatically think of Funded Justice,” Savage said about the company’s long term goals. He said he believes Funded Justice can carve a niche and maintain it well in the future.

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Twitter: @peterkotecki