Brett Colvin started his legal career at a traditional law firm. “I was always internally kind of known as ‘Mr. Ideas Guy,’ which in the firm was not a compliment,” says Colvin.
In 2019, Colvin (a member of Avenue‘s Top 40 Under 40 class of 2022) left and put one of his big ideas into practice by becoming the co-founder of Goodlawyer, a platform for businesses to connect with experienced lawyers.
Goodlawyer’s mission is to be “the most desirable way to practice law.” The company vets and curates a roster of lawyers (currently around 180) and matches them up to specific clients and needs. The company has become known for its fractional legal services in which Goodlawyer lawyers can provide a fraction of their time to companies, eliminating the need for that company to hire a full-time employee instead.
“Over the last year or two in particular, as we moved into this fractional in-house legal space, it became super apparent that the biggest impact Goodlawyer was having — you know, we’re saving clients a ton of money providing them with more value — but the biggest impact we were having was on changing the lives of the lawyers that we were working with by giving them this totally new sort of career path that didn’t really exist before,” says Colvin.
Since its founding, Goodlawyer has served more than 5,000 clients across Canada such as Neo Financial and Loblaws Corporation, and was named Canada’s 15th top growing company of 2024 by The Globe and Mail. On November 21, Colvin and his team at Goodlawyer are hosting the second annual Future of Law Summit, a free, one-day virtual event that features keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki, a legendary marketing expert known for his roles with Apple and Canva.
“The core product that I’m selling [to Goodlawyer’s clients] is a damn good lawyer who understands their business and what it means to support an in-house legal team or legal function,” says Colvin.
