Litigant

Investor teaser · April 2026 · Confidential

L

Litigant

Where litigants stand.

Built by litigants, for litigants. Researched against 1,000+ forum posts and shipped to production.

Section 01

The problem and the gap

What people face. What the market ignores.

The problem

80% of family cases have at least one party going it alone.

80%

of private family law cases in England and Wales have at least one party with no lawyer.

MoJ Family Court Statistics Quarterly, 2024

39%

of cases now have neither party represented. In 2013 that figure was 13%.

MoJ FCSQ. Threefold increase post-LASPO.

40%

unmet legal need in family law. The highest of any legal category.

Legal Services Board Legal Needs Survey 2023, n=17,688

110–135k

new litigants in person every year, in family court alone.

Trinder et al. (2014). MoJ LSLIP evaluation 2023.

What people actually say

“

I have read everything online and I still do not know what to do in my situation.

Mumsnet Legal Matters

“

I cannot afford a solicitor anymore. I am preparing to represent myself next week, because I know it will not have any result.

Mumsnet Legal Matters

“

I will be self representing because I cannot afford legal representation. The other party has a solicitor.

Dads With Kids

Why now

Two structural shifts.

Legal aid down. Litigants in person up. The market is set.

The first generation of LIPs forced into self-representation are now on their second case. The behaviour is set. The market is real. The tools are finally possible.

The legal AI gold rush

Where the money went, 2024 to 2026.

$16B+ combined valuation

Harvey

$11B · 100k lawyers · $190M ARR

AI for BigLaw: contracts, due diligence, litigation.

Legora

$5.55B · 750 firms · $100M ARR

Legal workflow AI for law firms.

Lawhive

$116M · $35M+ ARR · 7x YoY

AI-native UK law firm.

casetext

Casetext

Acquired by Thomson Reuters

Legal research for lawyers.

Spellbook

$50M Series B

Contract drafting in Word.

EvenUp

$1B+ valuation

Personal injury demand letters.

Meanwhile, legal aid lost £728M. 59% of providers are gone. Eligibility moved from 80% in 1950 to 20% today.

Where LIPs go for help today.

Verbatim from forum threads and user feedback.

GOV.UK

“Thin guidance. Outsources help to charities.”

Forum consensus, Mumsnet & MoneySavingExpert

advicenow

“Truly invaluable, but does not address my specific case.”

User feedback, Advicenow guides

Mumsnet

“Get a solicitor. Seriously.”

Most common single piece of advice

reddit /r/LegalAdviceUK

“Lots of opinions. Most are wrong.”

r/LegalAdviceUK, observed pattern

Citizens Advice

“30-minute call slots. 6-week waiting list.”

CAB user reports, 2024-25

YouTube

“Random barristers. No structure. No system.”

Common LIP search behaviour

Litigant

One platform.

Triage. Decode. Build a chronology. Practise cross-exam. Prepare disclosure. Get hearing-ready.

Built for the side of the courtroom that is structurally growing.

One commercial platform purpose-built for LIPs.

Section 02

What we have built

Five tools shipped. The infrastructure that makes them possible.

What Litigant is

The operating system for people representing themselves in court.

Document Decoder showing decoded Court Summons in plain English — Document Decoder. Court letter to plain English in seconds.

Your Timetable conversational chat capturing events from user testimony — Your Timetable. Tell us what happened, we build the structure.

Your Timetable structured dashboard with chronology cards — Cross-Exam Prep. Practice the questions you’ll actually face.

Financial Settlement Navigator categories grid — Financial Settlement Navigator. The full divorce process, organised.

Projected timeline showing children arrangements process from MIAM to consent order — Projected Timeline. What the next year actually looks like.

For people who cannot afford lawyers.

Solicitor costs run £8,000 to £40,000 per family case. The free charity layer is thin and not case-specific.

For people who do not trust them.

Repeat LIPs (second and third case) opt out of the legal market by choice as well as by cost.

For people who would rather not need them.

Most family disputes are not legally complex. They are procedurally complex. We solve the procedural problem.

Document Decoder · live · free

Upload anything from court. We tell you what it means.

Court letters, solicitor letters, Cafcass reports, WhatsApp screenshots, photos of handwritten notes.

Decoded Court Summons output — Live output: a Magistrates’ Court summons explained in plain English.

What this document is.

Identifies the court, the type of order, the deadline, and the consequences. The user does not need a glossary.

What it means for you.

Translates "you have failed to pay" into "the court is treating this as unpaid". Removes the 1860s legalese.

Words you might not know.

A live glossary of every term used: liability order, summons, enforcement agent. No tab-switching.

From court letter to confidence. Free, no signup, no credit card.

Your Timetable · live · the killer feature

Tell us what happened. In your own words.

Timetable chat opening: user describes events in plain English

Plain English in.

Users describe what happened the way they’d tell a friend, not the way a lawyer would write it. No forms, no jargon.

Empathy as standard.

The AI acknowledges difficult experiences before pushing for detail. Users feel heard, not interrogated.

Events captured automatically.

Behind every message, structured events are being built: dates, people, themes. The user just talks.

5 events captured in 4 messages. No forms. No legal jargon. No solicitor.

From chat to court-ready

Talk it through. Walk out with a barrister-ready bundle.

1 · Inputs

WhatsApp screenshots. Court letters. Photos of handwritten notes. Plus your story in plain English.

2 · Structured

Structured into a timeline that courts actually want.

3 · Exported

Exported as the documents you actually need.

Court chronology. Scott Schedule. Witness statement. Spreadsheet. Full barrister pack.

From a conversation. Generated locally in your browser. Nothing leaves the device.

Projected Timeline · live

What does the next year actually look like?

Projected timelines based on Ministry of Justice data, refined against recent case patterns.

litigant.org.uk/tools/projected-timeline

Projected timeline for children arrangements

Personalised to your case.

Children arrangements vs financial remedy vs domestic abuse: different timelines, different steps.

Two views.

Legal limits (the maximum the system allows) or based on recent cases (what actually happens).

Actionable, not informational.

Each step has a "What you need to do" checklist. Forms to fill, fees to pay, documents to gather.

Saveable.

One click to save to the user’s timetable. Then deadlines and reminders run automatically.

The view of the system that LIPs have never had.

Financial Settlement Navigator · Phase 1 shipped 20 April 2026

The full divorce financial process. Organised.

Form E generated automatically. Disclosure Readiness scored. Net position live.

FSN summary page: Net Position, Disclosure Readiness, breakdown — The user knows their net position, completion state, and Disclosure Readiness in one view.

FSN categories grid — Nine categories. Ten guided sections. Form E ready.

Your full position at a glance.

Net position, assets, debts, monthly outgoings. Live as you complete categories.

Disclosure Readiness score.

The user knows what is complete and what is missing before they file.

Form E generated automatically.

From entered data, not a blank PDF the user fills alone.

What used to need a £400/hour solicitor to organise. Now done in 30 minutes, by you.

Tech stack

Built on infrastructure that did not exist three years ago.

AI

Anthropic Claude (claude-sonnet-4-6)

Reads court letters, drafts plain-English explanations, turns testimony into structured chronologies. Under 5p per request.

Frontend

Next.js 14, React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Vercel

Server-rendered. Instant page loads on a phone at 11pm. Deployed on Vercel Pro.

Backend

Supabase: Postgres, Auth, Storage, Realtime · EU AWS

Row-level security on every table. Auth handled. Hosted in the EU. No server farm to manage.

Payments

Stripe (live Q2 2026)

Subscription billing handled. Standard tier £20, Premium £45. Webhooks into Supabase.

Observability

PostHog EU Cloud

Privacy-safe product analytics. No third-party trackers on sensitive flows.

1

Operator shipping product

No agency, no co-founder politics, no time wasted

5

Tools shipped in 12 months

All in production, all built directly with Claude Code

£0

Spent on devops, agencies, or external dev work

Vercel + Supabase + Stripe collapse the build cost

Tools that needed a 20-engineer team in 2020 take a focused founder in 2026.

Data protection

Built for the most sensitive moments. Engineered to match.

Data residency and regulation

UK GDPR compliant

Data protection by design from launch. ICO registration in place.

Hosted in the EU

Supabase (Postgres, Storage, Auth) on AWS eu-north-1.

PostHog EU Cloud

Privacy-safe product analytics. No third-party trackers on sensitive flows.

Security architecture

Row-level security

On every Supabase table. Each user only ever sees their own rows.

Encryption everywhere

AES-256 at rest. TLS 1.3 in transit. Managed key rotation.

Magic-link or Google

No plaintext passwords. Auth handled by Supabase, not in-house.

User safety

Quick Exit on every page

Visible since v1. Single tap leaves the site for a neutral destination.

Domestic-violence safe browsing

No persistent banners. No alarming notifications. Clear from the URL bar.

One-click account deletion

No human review, no waiting period. The button does what it says.

§

Regulatory line

Litigant provides legal information, not legal advice. We engaged the SRA Innovate team early to confirm boundaries. The product is designed so that no feature crosses into reserved legal activities.

Trust is the product. Sensitive data, handled with the discipline that matters.

Tester feedback and early signals

Built from feedback. Validated against real users.

“Aaron validated the chat box, the conversational tone, and the question quality.”

Early tester. Used Litigant Cross-Exam Prep ahead of his FHDRA. Validated the conversational chronology builder.

Personalised dashboard with five tailored next-step cards — The personalised dashboard testers see. Five next steps. Not a feature dump.

What the system has produced

5

Tools shipped to production

21

Family law guide pages live

10

Categories in the FSN dashboard

Phase 1 live 20 Apr 2026

What the market tells us

The demand is already there. People just had nowhere to go.

What we hear from the market

“95% of preparation is done before you even get to court. The last 5% is at court and you really are, to a greater or lesser extent, in the lap of the gods.”A Fathers Friend, McKenzie Friend with 20 years experience

“Make a timeline. Stop stressing. Facts are key. Evidence to back up your argument is key.”Mumsnet Legal Matters, advice to LIPs

“I will be self representing because I cannot afford legal representation. I would like some advice on how to present my case and areas to focus on.”Dads With Kids forum

Litigant exists because every one of these problems is solvable with software.

What we are building next, then everywhere

Three milestones. Then the engine transfers.

Q2 2026

Stripe paywall ships

Free triage stays free
Standard tier unlocks document tools
Premium tier unlocks lawyer-ready output

First subscription revenue.

Q3 2026

B2B distribution

Charity pilots
CAB referral routing
EAP and LEI conversations
First signed pilot by September 2026

Distribution that bypasses paid acquisition.

Q4 2026

Cross-vertical expansion

Cross-exam prep merged into core
Employment scoping starts
Renters research begins

The platform thesis becomes visible.

Family first, then everywhere

FamilyLIVE

Today

Five tools shipped. 21 guides live. Triage, document automation, evidence organiser, timeline builder, hearing prep, lawyer-ready output, all running in production.

EmploymentNEXT

Q4 2026

Triage engine and timeline builder transfer directly. Templates change: ET1, settlement agreements, ACAS conciliation, tribunal hearings.

Renters' rightsPLANNED

2027

Section 21 notices, rent disputes, deposit recovery, disrepair claims. Same engine, new templates.

CriminalPLANNED

2027

Magistrates’ court only at first. Plea decisions, pre-sentence reports, character references. Different tone, same scaffolding.

Section 03

The market and the ask

TAM, unit economics, the team, the raise.

Market and unit economics

A SaaS-vertical market, priced like software.

Bottom-up TAM build

244,000 family court cases per year · 60% involve at least one LIP · ~146,000 LIPs per year · price £200 to £1,000 per case · midpoint £400 · family-only TAM ≈ £58.6M. Cross-vertical layer takes addressable spend toward £500M.

Subscription model

Free£0

Triage, Document Decoder, basic guides

Standard£20/mo

Timeline, evidence organiser, Form E support

Premium£45/mo

Full case management, cross-exam prep, output pack

Year 3 revenue scenarios

Comparables: LegalZoom (2 to 5% conversion, $252 ARPU); Lawhive ($35M+ ARR); Harvey ($190M ARR).

Sources: MoJ Family Court Statistics Quarterly; Cafcass case volume reports; project market analysis 2025.

Why us, why now

The problem is solvable. The window is open. The operator is in place.

Infrastructure

The tools finally exist

GPT-class models can read court letters and turn user testimony into a chronology. Next.js, Supabase, and Stripe collapse the build cost to one operator.

Demand

The market is desperate

110,000 to 135,000 LIPs per year in family court alone. They are already searching, posting, and paying for fragments. No coherent product exists for them.

Whitespace

Competition is elsewhere

Harvey, Legora, Spellbook, Lawhive. All aimed at lawyers and firms. The £16B+ legal-tech wave has skipped the consumer who has no lawyer at all.

Why us

James, founder. 14 years in equity capital markets. Completing the PGDL law conversion. Going full time after exams in May 2026.

Sat on both sides of a capital raise. Finishing legal training to understand the product at the level of its users. Ships product directly. No agency layer, no co-founder politics, no time wasted.

5

Tools shipped

21

Family law guides live

1

Operator, no agency

£0

Spent on paid acquisition

Raising

£X

(figure to confirm pre-meeting)

for 18 months of runway.

Plan to September 2026: 2,000 to 3,000 signups, 80 to 150 paid users, at least one signed B2B pilot.

What the money buys: a second engineer, a content lead with legal training, six months of paid acquisition to calibrate CAC, legal review for the B2B channel.

james@litigant.org.uk · litigant.org.uk