Hey there Legal Rebels! 👋 I’m excited to share with you the 47th episode of the 2025 season of the LawDroid Manifesto podcast, where I will be continuing to interview key legal innovators to learn how they do what they do. I think you’re going to enjoy this one!
I’ve been fortunate to know Brian Liu for many years. He and I attended UCLA Law a year apart and I’ve always admired Brian’s ability to combine doing well with doing good. Although LegalZoom is typically viewed as technology success story, Brian has always centered customers: their problems and their dreams. For his work in opening the doors to justice for millions, I give him the title, “The Access Pioneer.”
If you want to understand how technology can democratize legal services while maintaining the essential human element that clients need, you need to listen to this episode. Brian is a true pioneer who fundamentally transformed the legal industry and continues to innovate with ventures that expand access to justice.
Transforming Legal Access Through Human-Centered Innovation
Join me as I interview Brian Liu, founder of LegalZoom and current founder of Elm Tree Law and Overture Law.
In this insightful podcast episode, Brian shares his remarkable journey building LegalZoom from a vision to democratize legal services into a company that has helped millions of people start businesses and secure their families’ futures. He dives deep into his current ventures: Elm Tree Law, which provides lawyer-prepared living trusts with a focus on making estate planning more approachable and user-friendly, and Overture Law, a lawyer-to-lawyer referral network that helps solo practitioners compete in an increasingly complex legal landscape. Brian also shares his perspective on how AI will reshape the legal profession, not by replacing lawyers, but by freeing them to focus more on the human relationships that remain central to legal practice.
His stories and insights underscore a consistent philosophy throughout his career: legal documents represent people’s dreams and deeply human moments, not just words on paper. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in the intersection of legal practice, technology, and access to justice, offering valuable perspectives from someone who has fundamentally changed how millions access legal services.
The Skinny
Brian Liu, founder of LegalZoom and current founder of Elm Tree Law and Overture Law, shares his journey from creating one of the most influential legal technology companies in history to his current ventures expanding legal access. With a deeply human-centered approach, Brian discusses how his recent personal experience helping his parents with estate planning revealed ongoing gaps in the market, even the founder of LegalZoom felt intimidated and struggled to get attorney attention. This experience inspired Elm Tree Law, which provides lawyer-prepared living trusts with an emphasis on making the process more approachable, efficient, and user-friendly. Brian also explains Overture Law, a vetted lawyer-to-lawyer referral network helping solo practitioners serve clients across jurisdictions. Throughout the conversation, Brian offers a refreshingly optimistic view of AI’s role in law, predicting there may actually be more lawyers in the future as AI frees them to focus on the human relationships that remain essential to legal practice. His philosophy centers on remembering that every legal document, whether a business formation or a will, represents someone’s dream and deeply personal aspirations.
Key Takeaways:
Brian founded LegalZoom to democratize legal services, ultimately helping millions of people start businesses and secure their families’ futures
Even as LegalZoom’s founder, Brian felt intimidated and struggled to get attention from estate planning attorneys for his parents, revealing ongoing market gaps
Elm Tree Law focuses on lawyer-prepared living trusts, filling the space between do-it-yourself services and traditional attorney services
Overture Law provides solo practitioners with a vetted network of attorneys across jurisdictions, helping them compete in an increasingly complex legal landscape
Brian predicts there may be more lawyers in the future, not fewer, as AI frees them to focus on human relationships rather than routine tasks
General counsels and decision-makers will continue wanting to work with people they trust, not just AI systems, especially when their jobs depend on getting things right
Brian emphasizes work-life balance, noting that stepping away from problems often leads to breakthroughs and that rest makes work time more efficient
The most meaningful aspect of his work has been the individual stories, understanding that every legal document represents someone’s dream and deeply personal aspirations
Estate planning is experiencing the largest wealth transfer in history as baby boomers age, creating enormous demand but limited attorney availability
LegalZoom’s lasting impact extends beyond the company itself, influencing how the entire legal profession thinks about access to justice
Notable Quotes:
“I recently had an experience where I had to do some estate planning, helping my parents get some estate planning done. And it was really a struggle. It was really difficult. And I felt like I couldn’t get the attention of some of these estate planning attorneys. And I even felt intimidated going through this process.” - Brian Liu (02:03-02:21)
“I think, you know, even with AI and computers and all that, people value peace of mind. And only a human lawyer can give that.” - Brian Liu (03:39-03:48)
“I was at this AI theoconference yesterday and we’re asking, people are asking the question, what is the landscape going to look like 20 years from now? And a lot of people are going to say, well, a lot less lawyers. Maybe no lawyers. Maybe no associates. Certainly not so many younger lawyers. It was kind of like the rare dissent there. And I was thinking, I think there might be more lawyers.” - Brian Liu (04:28-04:49)
“One of the most important things is that the AI will free people up to really focus on relationships even more, the human relationships. Because so long as the general counsels and everybody else, so long as the people who have the controls of the purse strings are going to be people, they’re still going to want to deal with another person, first and foremost, especially at big companies and big Fortune 500 companies.” - Brian Liu (04:59-05:18)
“When your job is on the line and your job is to keep the company safe, who are you going to trust? Yes, you can use AI to make things more efficient and to save money. But in the end, your job depends on getting that thing done right. It doesn’t depend on you saving some money. You have to work within your budget. But if the AI hallucinates and you get something done wrong, you’re out of a job.” - Brian Liu (05:25-05:49)
“So you need these times to try to work through things, work through problems and issues that you have in your head. But the second thing is, the best thing is you don’t have to always be working, working. If you really enjoy or you think about it, it just comes naturally anyway.” - Brian Liu (39:08-39:26)
“I still remember when we were doing a demo for LegalZoom. And there’s this one person who was a friend of Mr. Shapiro’s. And we essentially, we’re going over there and essentially drafting a will and drafting some of these other estate planning documents for her. And we’re doing this as a demo when we were trying to raise money. And man, it was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time because she had terminal illness.” - Brian Liu (40:48-41:16)
“I realized that every document that we’re doing really affects people’s lives. You know, it really affects them in a much deeper way than just words on paper. Every business that we start, every LLC that we formed, it’s somebody’s dream. It’s their lifelong dream to start a business.” - Brian Liu (41:19-41:44)
“Being able to help those people in understanding that, I think that was one of the key things about LegalZoom and our brand that we understood. That it’s not just a legal document. It’s not just, again, words on paper. They’re very human emotions that we’re affecting and that we can help and we can help people realize this better thing. And that’s what drives me.” - Brian Liu (42:10-42:33)
Clips
AI Will Make Law More Human
My Dad Risked Everything to Start Up
I Chose Law Over Medicine
LLCs are a Metaphysical Fiction
Brian’s journey from founding LegalZoom to his current ventures reveals a consistent thread: technology serves its highest purpose when it enables human connection rather than replacing it. His recent personal experience navigating the estate planning system, even with all his expertise and connections, demonstrates that gaps in legal access persist across all segments of the market. This insight drives both Elm Tree Law’s focus on making estate planning more approachable and Overture Law’s mission to help solo practitioners serve clients more effectively.
What stands out most is Brian’s counter-narrative on AI’s impact on the legal profession. While many predict fewer lawyers, Brian sees a future with potentially more lawyers, freed from routine tasks to focus on what humans do best: building trust, understanding context, and providing the peace of mind that only personal relationships can deliver. This perspective reflects deep wisdom about what clients truly value and what will remain irreplaceable even as technology advances.
Closing Thoughts
As a legal tech entrepreneur myself, I find Brian’s perspective both inspiring and deeply validating. He’s living proof that you can build massive technology companies while keeping human needs at the center of everything you do. His story about the woman with terminal illness during the LegalZoom demo captures this perfectly, behind every legal document is a real person with real dreams and real fears.
What excites me most is seeing Brian continue to innovate after LegalZoom’s success. Many entrepreneurs would rest on their laurels, but Brian identified new gaps in legal access and is building solutions. The fact that even he struggled to get quality estate planning help for his parents shows how much work remains to be done in democratizing legal services.
For our Legal Rebels community, Brian’s journey offers crucial lessons. First, technology should enhance rather than replace human connection. Second, the best business opportunities often come from personal frustrations with existing systems. Third, success comes from deeply understanding that legal services involve human emotions, not just transactions.
As AI continues transforming the legal landscape, those who share Brian’s vision, using technology to free lawyers to be more human, not less, will be the ones who thrive. The future of legal practice belongs to those who remember that behind every document is someone’s dream, and that’s worth protecting and nurturing with both technological efficiency and human care.
