The four-hour clock

From brief to engagement letter, in one business day.

How a brief moves through My Legal Connect, the principles that shape the design, and the SLAs you can expect.

Timeline

The four-hour shortlist clock.

  1. 00:00
    1

    Brief lands

    Buyer submits a brief: matter type, parties, scope, deadline, indicative budget. Async form, no sales call.

  2. 00:00 — 02:00
    2

    Compliance reviews and pre-clears conflicts

    Our compliance lead reviews the brief against each lawyer's declared engagements, employers, and matter history. The shortlist excludes any lawyer with a real or perceived conflict.

  3. 02:00 — 04:00
    3

    Shortlist is built

    Three vetted senior lawyers are surfaced: first name, daily rate, availability window, relevant experience, and a 'why this lawyer' summary written by our compliance lead.

  4. 04:00
    4

    Shortlist is delivered

    Buyer receives the three profiles, sorted by best fit. No sales follow-up. Buyer accepts the intro that fits.

  5. 04:00+
    5

    Engagement letter is scoped and signed

    Fixed-fee engagement letter is generated, reviewed, and signed in-platform. Matter starts immediately on signature.

Design principles

What we deliberately chose.

Rates visible to buyers, hidden from lawyers

Lawyers see their own rate and the buyer's budget signal. They do not see other lawyers' rates. Prevents rate inflation and protects supply integrity.

First-name only until intro accepted

Lawyer full identity is protected until they personally accept the intro. Anti-poaching by design. Employer-safe for in-house and firm lawyers.

Conflicts pre-cleared, not self-declared

Compliance pre-screens conflicts against matter type, parties, and lawyer-declared engagements. The shortlist is the cleared list.

Fixed-fee, not hourly

Scope priced at match. No hourly creep. Scope changes go through engagement letter amendments with transparent re-pricing.

FAQ

Common questions.

What does 'four business hours' actually mean?
Four AEST business hours, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. A brief submitted at 3pm Friday is shortlisted by midday Monday. After-hours and weekend briefs are queued for next business day intake.
What happens if no lawyer matches in four hours?
Rare for the matter types we serve, but if no conflict-cleared shortlist is possible we tell the buyer immediately and either expand the search criteria or recommend an alternative provider. No silent failure.
Is the four-hour SLA realistic at scale?
It is the constraint we built the product around. Conflict pre-clearance is the bottleneck; we cap matter intake to protect SLA, and we hire compliance leads ahead of supply growth.

Ready to try it?

Submit a brief Apply as a lawyer