TLH Ep.55 | Bim Dave and Walid Romaya on Making Legal Guidance Accessible Through AI

Hello, The Legal Helm listeners!

Today’s episode explores how artificial intelligence is making legal guidance more accessible, understandable, and actionable—and what it takes to turn complex technology into experiences people can actually use.

We’re pleased to welcome Walid Romaya, founder and CEO of Vikk AI, an AI-powered legal technology company focused on making legal guidance more accessible to everyone.

With more than 25 years of experience building technology platforms and consumer marketplaces across the legal and real estate industries, Walid brings a strong focus on user experience, interface design, and product development. Throughout his career, he has worked to make complex services feel intuitive and accessible.

In this episode, we’ll explore how AI and thoughtful product design can change the way people access legal guidance, the importance of creating more intuitive legal technology experiences, and the opportunities to make legal services easier to navigate.

Stay tuned for an insightful conversation on making legal technology work better for the people who need it.

Your Host

Bim Dave is Helm360’s CEO. With 20+ years in the legal industry, his keen understanding of how law firms and lawyers use technology has propelled Helm360 to the industry’s forefront. A technical expert with a penchant for developing solutions that improve business systems and user experience, Bim has a knack for bringing high quality IT architects and developers together to create innovative, useable solutions to the legal arena. 

Our Guest 

Walid Romaya is Founder and CEO of Vikk AI and an enterprise product innovator with more than 25 years of experience building technology platforms and consumer marketplaces. Specializing in UI/UX and product development for the legal and real estate industries, he hasspent his career creating technology that makes complex services more accessible and intuitive. At Vikk AI, Walid is leading the development of AI-powered legal solutions that help consumers navigate legal issues, connect with attorneys, and access trusted legal guidance anytime.

Transcript

Bim Dave: Hello everyone, and welcome to “The Legal Helm”, the podcast where we bring together the leaders, innovators and builders shaping the future of law and legal technology. I’m your host, Bim Dave. My guest today is Walid Romaya, founder and CEO of Vikk AI, an AI-powered legal technology company on a mission to make legal guidance more accessible, understandable and actionable for everyone.

Walid has spent more than 25 years building technology platforms and consumer marketplaces with a real focus on UI, UX and product development in legal and real estate industries. His whole career has been about making complex serVikkes feel accessible and intuitive. Walid, it’s great to have you on the show.

Walid Romaya: Very nice meeting you, Bim. Thank you

Bim Dave: So before we get into what Vikk.ai is all about, I’d love to hear a little bit about your journey. Um, you’ve spent 25 years building platforms and marketplaces. Where did it all start, and what brought you into legal?

Walid Romaya: Uh, well, it started in real estate. I was a real estate builder, developer, uh, and, uh, uh, in Southern California. And then, uh, we– I used to build, uh, track homes for consumers, and I would make, uh… I was very picky about the details in each home, exactly where the windows placed, the, the, the light switch, and so on.

So, the user experience was embedded with me. Uh, then, uh, in 2008, there was the financial crash, and I decided to change careers and, uh, and during when I was a builder, I was building websites and, uh, dabbling in wine, e-commerce and what have you, because wine is my passion. So, uh, in 2008, I decided to switch careers completely and, and, and go into software.

So, I became a software developer versus a real estate developer. Very similar, but the, uh, potential in software is a lot more infinite. You can go anywhere you want without any land. And, uh, so I started training myself. So my first, uh, startup was a real estate software company called Realter, and we were trying to, uh, bring– like make agents very, uh, agile and, and get like on demand, like an Uber for real estate agents.

And we learned a lot from it, good, bad, and ugly. And then, uh, some of our investors were lawyers and said, “What you created was good. There’s a problem in the legal industry.” And, uh, and that led us to starting Vikk.ai

Bim Dave: Big AI. Amazing. What, what a story. And, uh, well, you’ll have to give me some tips on what, what good– what, what’s a good wine later on. Um, so, so, so obviously you’ve built marketplaces in both legal and real estate. What, what do those two worlds have in common from a, from the point of view of the person trying to use them?

Walid Romaya: I think com- uh, uh, just shatter complexity. It’s, it’s very, uh, r- world of real estate has a lot of moving pieces in, in terms of legal documents and, uh, and there’s a lot of stakeholders, you know, mortgage lender and this and that, and the agent, and the buyer and the seller, a lot of characters. Uh, and the same thing in way in with legal.

Legal is very intimidating. So there is a gap between, um, what the consumer wants and really what the industry provides, and that is really the area where we focused on is how do we make it simple for the u- user so they, when they’re fearing the most… when they’re at the most vuln- vulnerable, they can actually, uh, uh, feel that they have someone that’s helping them

Bim Dave: helping them. Hmm. Yeah, no, in-indeed. So, so you- you’re obviously well-known and have had, uh, a bunch of experience by the sounds of it on the whole UI, UX, and product build side of things. What would you say is the biggest design mistake that you’ve seen, um, in the legal industry?

Walid Romaya: I think the, just making the documents and the interface very intimidating and, uh, where it’s kinda like the weight of the legal world. It’s kinda like going, if you’ve been to a court, it just looks intimidating. And, uh, and, and it’s the same thing with, with the websites and the documents that have been, um, done as far as consumer is concerned.

And we’re talking about the consumer right now. We’re not talking about, uh, like a software solution for a lawyer, which is a very different story

Bim Dave: story.

Mm. Yeah, no, in-in-indeed. Yeah, I, I think it’s– it, it kind of reminds me of, um, the whole world that we kind of went from where we had very heavy, very functionally rich, uh, web applications that, that we were using for many years. And then obviously with the, the advent of the iPhone and having to kind of shrink those apps down to a smaller screen and, and making them very, very simple made a big difference, right?

In terms of the usability and, um, and just I think simplicity. It sounds, sounds like what you’re saying is like simplicity in the application design is actually apositive thing.

Walid Romaya: Absolutely, especially in legal, without putting any weight, like without really making the subject matter lightweight, you still have to treat the subject matter very good. But at the end of it all is you wanna have an interface where the legal knowledge, in our case, is not held by a stakeholder like a lawyer, uh, and kinda like give some information upfront to the consumer so the consumer makes, uh, the right decision

Bim Dave: the right decision. Hmm. So why, why was consumer access to legal guidance the problem that was worth solving for you?

Walid Romaya: It’s really the transfer of knowledge. The legal industry is measured by billings. For example, in the United States, there’s a Thomson Reuters, uh, report from 2021. I haven’t seen any updates since, but it’s, uh, it measures the legal industry, like, at $430 billion. But the measurement of the legal industry is based on mostly billings, and, and as we know, the majority of legal issues never make it to court, and a lot of, uh, legal issues never reach a lawyer to be even billed by a lawyer.

So, what about all the issues that everybody faces daily where they never actually contact a lawyer? And even the ones who contact a lawyer, uh, the American Bar Association says 64% of the people who contact lawyers never re- receive a call back. So how are we gonna help these people? And that’s really the core issue that we’re trying to solve.

Bim Dave: Soft trying to solve. Hmm. Well, what do you think the reason for that is? Is that like cost, fear, and just not knowing where to start?

Like why, why do they not speak to a lawyer in the first place?

Walid Romaya: Well, I think they’re worried about the cost. They’re worrying about, uh, the, uh, they just… I think cost is a big factor, but also even if you have a cost, I think, I think the way the lawyers have set up the systems is to try and reject majority of the inbound traffic because they sell their time, and their time is valuable.

So, it kind of, it’s a self-enhancing, it’s like a snowball effect. You’re damned if you do, if you’re damned if you don’t. So the lawyers I talk to, and a lot of our investors and board, board advisors are lawyers, says, “Look, we only have eight hours, 10 hours a day, and we have to be super protective of our time.

If we take every single call, we’ll never be able to do anything.” And, and so I don’t blame the lawyers because that’s how currently the legal serVikkes are measured through billings and through hourly rate, and that’s also being kind of disrupted also because of AI. But, um, but if- in the meantime, the consumer is just like, “Well, what do I do?”

And so, AI, in a way, is been the greater leveler because now we don’t have to wait for the lawyer to get back to me. At least I can have a touchpoint with AI that is intelligent and empathetic to at least get some guidance, some assistance. Up to the point where you really need a lawyer, then that’s the d- you know, that’s the unauthorized practice of law line in the sand where a lawyer is really needed

Bim Dave: is really needed.

Hmm. So can you, can you help like paint the picture for us? So let’s take a, a simple scenario where someone’s just received a letter for– from their landlord, or they’ve got a new contract that they need to, um, review and sign. What does that– what does the experience look like before Vikk, um, Vikk.ai? And what does it look like after Vikk.ai in terms of the, the user experience?

Walid Romaya: That’s a good question. Uh, uh, well, before is I would go do a web search and look on,

Bim Dave: look on,

uh–

Walid Romaya: know, when when I say before, before 2023, 2024, ’cause when AI became, uh, you know, a force, so to speak. Uh, then, you know, you do a web search, most people, or call my cousin or my friend or, uh, try and get a favor from a lawyer that I may know I- in my building or whatever it is.

That’s really the, the journey. There’s not much more. You can also go to, like, templatize, uh, legacy websites like LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer, and maybe try and get a template and, yeah, and, and maybe, you know, then get tripped a little bit with filling the template, and then they’re gonna try and get you a lawyer to talk to.

But that’s been the experience. With the post-AI, with Vikk, for example, you simply start a chat, tell, tell the Vikk what the problem is, or you upload the document, and then immediately you get all the answers and… But it will also tell you if you need to have a lawyer, it will suggest that you reach, reach out to a lawyer

Walid Romaya: So what we’ve done is because there, every case is different and every state is different with their own laws. In the United States, 50 states plus Washington DC plus, you know, Puerto Rico and Guam and you name it, like all the territories, uh, then we don’t wanna be… Like AI is just gonna always suggest to you at any touch point that a lawyer is available for you.

So, in our case, we built,

uh, uh, a place where it’s called Connect with a Legal Pro button. The button is there at any time you wanna activate it. So we give the power to the consumer, we take them as far as they want, and then when the consumer is ready, they push the button, then the lawyers that have, uh, paid to be sponsored within that button then get connected with that user

Bim Dave: user. Mm-hmm. Gotcha.

Excellent. So, uh, so obviously with, with any, um, AI platform these days, there’s, there’s always a q- uh, a question that has to be asked around trust and accuracy of the, the information, the knowledge that’s being provided. How, how– What, what’s your approach to making sure that, you know, you’re not suffering from hallucinations or maybe there’s differences in jurisdiction?

Um, like what, what, what are you doing to make sure that the, the data being served to the consumer is, is as correct as it can be?

Walid Romaya: That’s a great question. In fact, that was our biggest, uh, issue before we even launched Vikk AI, is we had a hypothesis and as far as, A, the user expe- like the user expectation, does, does a consumer trust a chatbot to give it legal assistance? Like, will they even talk to it? And we didn’t know until we launched Vikk and, and that was answered empathetically.

We, uh, as of today, we’ve had over half a million downloads and 136,000 active users as of today. We know they trust the… They, they feel there’s a personal connection with, with Vikk because of the way that we trained Vikk. As far as the ha- the actual hallucination issue, we’ve, we’ve trained Vikk to be, uh, very on the cold side of the temperature and to be very, like, if it doesn’t, if there is nothing there, is there’s nothing there.

Like it’s not gonna make up anything. And we can think of one incident where a consumer have contacted us and complained about a hallucination. So that is, uh, you know, that’s our kind of secret sauce, how we’ve trained Vikk. And Vikk also gives sta- state-specific answers. In fact, the first question that Vikk always ask you is, “What state are you in?

What’s your name and what’s your state?” And, um, and then, you know,

Bim Dave: and then, you know, we,

Walid Romaya: we, uh, tailor the answer based on that state. Also, the lawyers that are gonna be served will be tailored based on the subject matter and the location of, o- uh, of you. So you’re not gon- if you’re discussing, let’s say, a divorce matter in San Diego, California, you’re not gonna get an injury lawyer from Arizona, uh, or, or in New York.

Uh, it’s gonna be a lawyer in that location near

Bim Dave: location. Hmm. Makes sense. And, and I’m assuming that this is– Is it US– launched in US only or is it all of North America, anywhere else in the world?

Walid Romaya: Currently just United States. Uh, and, uh, so if you’re in, um, other parts of the world, it’s not, it doesn’t work because we, because the laws of these states are, you know, these countries are very different. Uh, it… This is more of a business and operational, uh, restraint. It’s not so much a technological one.

We can definitely launch, say for in the UK, we’ve tested it. We’ve, we have a version that works for the UK for all the four different,

Bim Dave: different,

Walid Romaya: you know, uh, England, uh, Wales and, uh, Northern Ireland and so on, and Scotland. Uh, and the same thing for Canada. Same thing for Spain and, uh, but e- every country has their own laws and, a- and so on.

But our users are, uh, come, are all from United States, and Vikk also speaks in different languages. So, you know, Spanish is also another, uh, a big one that people talk, talk to Vikk in Spanish and, and other language. Uh, we have like 80 languages available inside Vikk

Bim Dave: inside Vikk. Okay, amazing. Really good. So, so, um, I’ve, I’ve heard you talk about making legal guidance actionable. What does that mean in practice for a consumer?

Walid Romaya: It means I have the power to decide what to do. I can… I c- Well, it could be knowledge. I just need to know what are my choices, and maybe that’s enough. That’s all I need. Or it could be I’m gonna go represent myself like a pro se litigant in court if it’s a, if, if it’s that kind of matter. Or it could be I have a choice of a lawyer and I can talk to any lawyer I want, and it kind of like,

Bim Dave: it kind of like,

Walid Romaya: it opens up and levels the playing field between the consumer and the lawyer.

We’re also unlocking a segment of the market that was never even measured to begin with because before AI, how do you measure all these inquiries, legal inquiries on a website across, uh, or talking to your cousin or who, whoever it is? Uh, you know, now this is a whole segment that is, we think is like a blue ocean untapped

So, so if we, if we switch sides of the table for a moment, uh, and you kinda touched a little bit on this earlier, but I’d love to dive a bit deeper. So te- tell us about the, the lawyer ad side of things and how, how is the AI first advertising different from legal marketing firms, uh, in terms of what they, they usually do, typically do?

Walid Romaya: Well, Vikk, Vikk Ads is a focused ch- it’s a new channel for lawyers. So if I was a lawyer, uh, let’s say I’m the marketing head for a law firm, or if I’m a small to medium law firm that I do my own advertising, most lawyers right now in the United States are, to market themselves, they have a website with a intake form.

They’ve hired probably some marketing agency to do, you know, good SEO as much as possible. And, and a majority are advertising on Google, you know, so, uh, either pay per click or, uh, or Google LSA, local serVikke ads, which is very popular. Uh, and to us, Vikk is just a new channel that it’s a, it’s a parallel channel.

We recommend to all law firms stay, you know, keep doing the Google thing, and Google is changing because now AI is the default answer for consumers. So a lot of the websites that the lawyers had been optimizing for years, now they are bringing a lot less traffic, and because AI is now generating the answer for Google as the default.

So as a, as a lawyer, you wanna figure out how to get inside the recommendation engine for Gemini, recommendation engine for ChatGPT, and so on. But that’s really another side of the coin for SEO and but that’s not an alternative channel. So we are saying, in our case, our users have high legal intent, and they’re there specifically for…

Yes, it’s AI, they’re not talking to ChatGPT about the weather or about, uh, a trip planning or, or a menu or clothing or whatever it is. They’re here because they have a legal issue. So we have, even though the volume is less from the consumer side, these are highly, highly engaged, actionable traffic that you need to be in there as, as, as part of your whole suite of marketing.

So that’s how, how it works, and we just launched Vikk Ads in the last 60 days, and it’s been wonderful. We have lots of lawyers and, and we’re just ramping up. We just attended our first legal conference, Law Degraw, in San Diego, um, last week. I was a speaker there. And, uh, and we are off, off to the races.

We’re hiring sales teams and, and so on. It’s just an awareness campaign

Bim Dave: campaign.

Yeah. No, no, it sounds, sounds like an exciting time.

So, is, is there a specific type of, um, firm that’s typically signing up, uh, here? Like, is it, is it typically solo or small practice, or are you seeing, um, larger mid-size firms also, uh, signing

up?

Walid Romaya: Both. Uh, you find, uh, of course, the ones that spend the most of the money are injury and tort lawyers, lawyers in medical malpractice, so that’s typical. They spend the most because that’s high-value cases that, what they’re looking after. So we’re getting mid-size law firms that are in that ca- you know, they’re, where they’re trying to cover multiple states.

And, uh, but, but we’re also finding, like, small lawyers, like a tax lawyer in a, in a metro area or, or a divorce lawyer, a family lawyer in a small state. So we cover the whole gamut. For us, it’s important that we have all kind of lawyers. We cannot be just, like, injury lawyers advertised spending most of the ad money.

It should be across the whole… Uh, you know, we’re targeting all lawyers of, of all kinds. And, you know, whe- if you’re, if you’re advertising in Cheyenne, Wyoming, uh, as a bankruptcy lawyer, you will have an audience if, just as if you are advertising for injury law in Los Angeles big metro area, uh, you should have the audience

Bim Dave: have the audience.

Yeah. No, it makes, makes total sense. So when, so when someone arrives at the lawyer conversation through Vikk, they’ve obviously already done some homework through the platform. How does that change the first conversation that they’re having with, uh, the lawyer? And I assume the quality of the lead changes as well as, as a result of that information.

Walid Romaya: Just to be clear, we do not have a legal conversat– So just to define what you’re asking, the legal conversation is happening between consumer and Vikk. It’s never between the consumer and the lawyer inside Vikk. So when the consumer sees the connect with a legal button, they, the a- our, our technology takes a summary of the conversation, puts it in an intake form, and shows you the available lawyers.

You look at these lawyers and decide who you wanna connect with. And then w- then you can edit any… The consumer has full use of whatever they wanna change or edit or remove, and then they will send that form, and that becomes an intake form to the lawyer. And at that point, we’ve done our job. We are no longer involved in that transaction.

The law– It’s up to the lawyer to talk to the consumer because we, because of the unauthorized practice of law. We cannot recommend. We can only show who’s actually advertising, and we leave it to the law- the consumer to interact with the lawyer. And from that point on, the lawyer does whatever they do, whether their CRM takes place or their intake team, uh, that’s the point where we’re not involved

Bim Dave: we’re not involved. I see. Yeah, no, that’s good. Uh, I think it’s nice that the power is really in, in the consumer’s hands, right? As to who they select and what they share with the, the lawyer in the beginning as well.

Walid Romaya: Absolutely. We, so we’re not a matching serVikke. We’re not a recommendation serVikke. Uh, it’s, we believe that the consumer has, should have full control of who they contact

Bim Dave: they contact and and when

Hmm. And when. Yes, indeed. So, so you have, um, this really is obviously is a really interesting platform, right? Because you must be able to gather some really interesting insights in terms of the types of legal inquiry trends that are happening at, in a particular state or, um, or a particular area.

Um, what are you seeing in that space? Like what, what’s your approach to data and, and how you’re leveraging that data to be able to either give you better insights in terms of what your, what the consumers want, um, or using it for other, uh, for any other purposes that, that would be interesting?

Walid Romaya: Yeah, that’s, uh… So when we started, we knew that we are gonna collect a lot of, you know, conversations and what have you with privacy in mind. Of course, we do not read any of this, but we, our technology is in a way that can… So what we did is we built,

Bim Dave: built,

Walid Romaya: a pipeline of redaction and deindu- deidentifying all the, these con- conversations, and then we built…

Uh, so we applied for, with AWS to help us, because it’s a, it’s a massive project to build a data product. Essentially what I’m saying is we’re building something called Vikk Intelligence, and which we just launched, uh, uh, actually as we speak today, uh, as a soft launch with, uh, the Mass Tort Made Perfect, uh, legal show in, um, in Las Vegas as we speak.

Um, so essentially we take all the conversations, we redact them, we, we put them into a knowledge graph, and we created an intelligence platform that forecast- tells you what happening to brands and issues from a high level, and shows you also what’s the potential for a brand, like forecasting risk. So we’re kind of like the canary in the coal mine for legal intelligence.

Uh, and, uh, so I’ll give you an example. Let’s say I’m a pharma company, and I have, uh, a, a drug that I just launched. Then you’ll be able to sign into Vikk Intelligence and see how was your drug mentioned, in what context, in what state throughout the United States. And then, but also you can look at your competitors’ mentions, like if you have a competing pharma product.

Uh, and then you can,

Bim Dave: you can,

Walid Romaya: look, and then you can ask Vikk to take that as a forecast, risk forecast, what should you do? Uh, so that’s, uh, that’s called Vikk Intelligence, and we’re super excited. It’s, it’s like a great product. And AWS and Meta helped us last year into their AWS with Meta plat- uh, program. There were 5,000 companies applied.

We- we were one of 30 that were picked up, and, uh, and they’ve hired a lot of resources for us, and they put a lot of money with us, and we, uh, and now the product is actually live as of

Bim Dave: live as of today. Yeah. No, that, that sounds really, really interesting actually, because that data would be so valuable to, um, firms who are deciding like where to grow, how to grow. Um, like you said, the medi-medical side would be really interesting, insurers. Lot– lots of, lots of opportunity to, to leverage that to get true, true intelligence, right?

Walid Romaya: Yeah, like for example, insurance companies would look at fraud patterns. Uh, if I was their actuarial department, I can look at the fraud patterns in certain states, how- and how much there’s criminal activity with fraud and, or y- you know, trends with liability, with injury, all of that, and I can adjust my actuarial table based on that information.

Uh, if I am a mass tort lawyer trying to find the next case to go after, uh, I can see trends, like about what I’m targeting. Let’s say I’m targeting a mesh, a medical mesh, and I’m seeing there’s a lot of chatter in a certain part of the c- the country, well, then I can then put more money in marketing to acquire these consumers because I see there’s a spike in activity.

Hedge funds, uh, we, we have a ticker symbol within Vikk Intelligence, so you can track all the publicly traded companies and see how they’re mentioned. And if I’m doing a trade today one way or the other against, uh, a, a certain publicly traded company, then I could see the risk against them and what, and I, before, uh, you know, before they become public, so to speak.

And, uh, so there’s so many applications to it. We have, uh, modules for manufacturers, for, uh, for government as well, and, uh, academia and, and many others. So we’re, um, it’s just the beginning

Bim Dave: It’s just the beginning. Hmm. Yeah, no, I love it. S- s-sounds really, really interesting. So, so one area I d- I did wanna just quickly touch on is, so we’ve got some information being delivered by the AI, which could be, it could be all the answer that a consumer needs, right?

Um, in terms of the adVikke that they need at that point in time. Um, but let’s say they, they need to do, um, the, the call, call, hit the call the lawyer button, um, to go and validate that they, that, that this adVikke is good and they just wanna speak to somebody, right? What is– Does that change the model in terms of how, uh, the lawyer sees the kind of intake request of this type of, um, uh, this type of request?

Because technically it’s, it’s less, I g- I guess it’s less time that they’re selling at that point, and it’s more validating what’s going on, um, and, and, and what’s, what’s been, uh, uh, you know, answered by, by the AI. Like how, how, how are, h-how are you seeing that in terms of the, the kind of lawyer experience?

Presumably this is, this is really, uh, this is really focused on bringing, um, a connection to the lawyer so that then they can upsell other serVikkes that, that they can offer, um, the, the, the consumer in the first place. But interested to get your take in terms of how that, how that flow of, of information then changes the, the next part of, of how, how the, the consumer interaction would be with a lawyer.

Walid Romaya: The, the, we’ve trained the connect button to be static and not, uh, uh, again, I think again, I, we, we’ve deferred always to the consumer has the power.

So just bec- if, let’s say I push the button, let’s say I’m halfway through my conversation, I think, “You know what? Let me see if I can, what lawyers are available at this matter.”

I see them, and then I decide not to send the form. I can continue with my conversation with Vikk. It’s not gonna change the way Vikk talks to me. Uh, I can pick it up from that point as though I never connected with a lawyer. And, um, it, the only difference is if I push the button again, 10 conversatio- 10 turns back and forth between you and Vikk, well, the summary form will now capture the additional, uh, whatever it is that you decided to share with Vikk, and then it’s up to the user to decide what to share with the, with the lawyer.

At the end, this is really a connection. We call it Vikk Connect Ads.

Bim Dave: Ads. and they, the, the lawyer, the, the consumer decides what to send and, and when to send and, when to send. Okay. And is, is there any adVikke that you typically give, um, you know, ma- the managing partner of, of a firm that has, uh, has ads on your, um, app to be ready for the, for the, for the clients who arrive, um, having already asked the question of, of the AI?

Walid Romaya: Respond immediately. So, uh, so some lawyers have, uh, uh, CRMs, for example, and they have intake departments. And, uh, we notify the lawyer when they receive the connection, uh, immediately, however they choose to be notified. And, uh, then, uh, some people want to do integration, for example, with Clio or with Lawmatics, or, uh… So we have in, when they set up their accounts, the lawyers, uh, we do have a full CRM integration section.

And, uh, but some people, it could be just a one, a solo attorney, and, and they just wanna track their email. Now, if you receive the connection at midnight and you’re asleep, it is what it is. Like, some people have answering serVikkes or whatever it is that lawyers need to do. So that’s kind of gets into the operational part of the lawyer, which we definitely don’t wanna be part of.

Um, you know, we deliver to you what you need, and then, and it’s up to you. Because we’re a tech company, we’re not a

Bim Dave: company, we’re not a lawyer. Yeah. Makes total sense. So, so tell me, uh, what’s next on the Vikk.ai roadmap that you’re most excited about?

Walid Romaya: One thing I’m very excited about is we’re building agentic… I mean, agentic, as you know, has been ta- the talk in AI for, for quite a while now. It seems like almost old-fashioned talking about it. And, uh, uh, so, uh, with consumers, we’ve, we are about, you know, we’re building agentic tools where it takes the conversation to the next level, right?

Uh, you know, a conversation with AI is typically back and forth, back and forth.

Bim Dave: back and, forth. Um,

Walid Romaya: you know, they, we call those turns, as you know. And, but what if you can take it f- to the next level where the AI agent creates playbooks for you based on your legal matter? So, uh, so for example, if you’re talking with a family law, uh, f- about a family matter, Vikk would say, “Okay, well, you know, I detect that you need like a more complex playbook.

Let me turn you over to Vikk Family Agent.” And Vikk Family Agent then will be a new interface, and now you have a lot more choices. You, i- it’s not just talking, it’s preset templates, preset playbooks, suggestions, ap- applied laws. And now it’s almost like you’ve entered a suite of, uh, like a specialized room just for your case, and then you can take it to the next level if you want to.

It, it, and then you can always pick it back up and continue with, with Vikk. So that’s kind of where we’re, we’re going because y- our users are asking for more. They wanna, you know, they’re getting, people are getting more comfortable with AI in general, whether it’s with us or using general chatbots. But, uh, so they want like the next level of sophistication.

And I think that’s where specialization

Bim Dave: specialization is everything

Yeah, tot-totally. No, that sounds really, really exciting. Um, I, I’m, I’m loving what I’m hearing about the platform. So, um, really, really great to learn more about it. Um, so, so Walid, it’s been really, uh, really good talking to you. I, I just have a couple of wrap-up questions that I would, uh, love to just ask you before I let you go.

The first of which being, if you could borrow Doctor Who’s time machine and go back to yourself at 18, what adVikke would you give yourself?

Walid Romaya: Move fast and trust yourself. So trust your gut. That’s the key. Trust your gut always

Bim Dave: I love that. Yeah, no, that’s g- very, very good adVikke. Um, outside of the legal world, what’s keeping you inspired and motivated right now?

Walid Romaya: Wine. I love wine. So I’m a certified wine educator. I’m a, I have a diploma from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust in London, in your backyard. And, uh, so I’m part of a group of, uh, a few thousand around the world that graduated with a diploma, and I love to teach wine, about wine. So on Saturdays, I have c- courses and teach people about how to appreciate and taste wine.

And I also love photography, so, uh, I have my Hasselblad camera and my Leica camera, and I, I like to take a lot of photos and frame them up

Bim Dave: frame them up and sometimes participate in galleries. Amazing. Oh, no, that’s, that sounds, sounds really good.

So, um, I know we were t- we were talking before we started recording about being, um, that me visiting San Diego, uh, recently, and there’s a vineyard there, I think it’s called Gordano, uh, Winery, if I remember rightly, which is in a stunning location and does beautiful wine. I’m a, I’m a red, red wine guy. Um, but it’s beautiful wine, and all they serve is basically pizza and wine, and it’s just fantastic.

The views are fantastic and, and it’s incredible.

Walid Romaya: That sounds wonderful. I, I’m not familiar with that winery, but it’s, um… I mean, we are in California. There’s so many wineries. Uh, Southern California has, uh, San Diego has some wineries in the, uh, northern part in Ramona and what have you. Uh, but we’re also close to Santa Barbara, and the Central Coast wines are underappreciated, but they are under…

Not underappreciated. They’re appreciated, but under the radar. That’s what I meant. And, uh, so I highly recommend

Bim Dave: recommend Central Coast and Santa Barbara wines. Absolutely. Sounds, sounds good. We’ll check them out. So it– For, for anyone listening today who wants to learn more about Vikk.ai or get some wine adVikke from you, what’s the best place to, to come?

Walid Romaya: Well, for, for the legal, uh, go to Vikk.ai or, uh, or send me a message on LinkedIn and happy to… We’re happy to talk to consumers. We’re happy to ta- We have a customer success, customer support team. And, uh, we can onboard lawyers through our platform and, uh, go to our website. We have two parts to the website, the consumer side as well as the lawyer for Vikk ads.

And as far as the wine, I am, uh, s- shameless plug, I have a website called Prince of Wine. I’m known as princeofwine.com. You can also find me on Instagram at Prince of Wine and, uh,

Bim Dave: uh,

Walid Romaya: can shoot me and

Bim Dave: you can shoot me and we can discuss wine. Fantastic. I’ll, I’ll be following you later without a doubt, Walid.

Walid Romaya: Thank you. Thank you very much. Very nice. Uh, uh, B- and Bim, you’re based in, uh, which part of the UK?

Bim Dave: Um, I’m in Reading, so j- just outside of London

Walid Romaya: Well, I went to University of Reading for my undergrad.

Bim Dave: Oh, okay. Amazing. Small world. Small, small world.

Walid Romaya: Yeah. Yes, I know Reading very well. Um, well, ver- very nice meeting you, Bim

Bim Dave: It’s been amazing having you on the show. Thank you for sharing your journey and making us all think a little harder about what happens before a client even walks through the door of a, of a law firm. So it sounds like you’re doing some amazing things with your platform, so wishing you all, all the best.

And to everyone else listening, thank you for joining us on “The Legal Helm.” If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave us a review, and we will speak again soon. Thank you very much.

Walid Romaya: Thank you