For this, the first blog post of Define, I thought it would be best to introduce myself and write about how my friend, colleague and co-founder Nnamdi and I conceived the idea for Define.
From the onset, it is important to say that I am registered blind and originally worked for Compaq and Microsoft. Unfortunately, during the time I worked there, my sight began to deteriorate to a degree that meant I could no longer pursue a career in IT. Additionally, the technology did not exist at the time to enable me to adapt my work environment in such a way that it would be able to sustain a long term future in my chosen field. Faced with the prospect of re-skilling, I considered a range of options and decided to study law. During this phase, my wife read all my law books to me and some of the Text to Speech engines were beginning to become more advanced. My primary method of learning was still predominantly audio recordings of my wife reading text books, cases and notes, as well as recordings of lectures and tutorials.
It seems however, that I had an aptitude for auditory learning and graduated with a 1st class honours degree from King’s College London. On the back of this, I secured a training contract at Allen & Overy where I began to realise the difficulties of pursuing a career in law from a very practical perspective. Unlike many of the books I read, transaction documents are drafted and structured in a very different way. I quickly figured out that the core of almost every contractual document is the defined terms that form the marrow of every provision.
The essence of my biggest problem was not the reading of text, nor the volume of the material that I was required to read, but the fact that during the course of reading I would have to constantly look up the meaning of a defined term that was being used in a clause or provision. Indeed, sometimes there could be as many as ten defined terms being used, each of which, I would need to look up. Some of those defined terms would contain further terms that were used within the body of their meaning. As a blind person who does not read braille, this meant that the only solution for me could be IT based. Having had a background in computers helped and I figured out a wide range of soft solutions to make this process as painless and efficient as possible. None however, were even close to ideal, as I would always lose the context of the clause or provision that I was reading and then would need to re-find my position in the document itself.
There were some things that I knew for certain. First, that this was the 21st century and second, that there had to be a software-based solution that would enable me to be able to read the meanings of defined terms without ever leaving the context of the part of the document that I was reading. This is where Nnamdi comes into the story of Define. After qualifying at Allen & Overy, I started to work at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as a newly qualified solicitor. As fate would have it, at the same time I was working on my first transaction as a finance lawyer, Nnamdi was in his first seat as a trainee and was assigned to work on the same transaction. From the get-go, I knew that we would both work well together, and as we got to know each other over some long nights, he would ask me questions about how I managed to do the work that I did without sight. I would show him all of the methods that I used, and not long after that, I knew he was trying to figure out a solution that would benefit me. Apparently, Nnamdi was on the same wave length as myself, namely that this is the 21st century and that there must be some way that this problem could be resolved.
Being the big dreamer that he is, Nnamdi asked “in an ideal world, what would be your dream solution?” To this I replied, “if I could highlight any defined term and just have the meaning pop-up on my screen without ever having to look for it, then I would be happy”. This is where the spark began and not long after that Nnamdi was determined to make it happen. In many ways he is the engine that has driven this project and from when we met in 2013 and first discussed the idea, he has relentlessly pursued the vision. It took us some time to work out all the various issues and features that would create an ideal solution. Through this process, we quickly realised that Define was something that would not only help the visually impaired, but that it would also be applicable to any person who was reading a contract containing defined terms. What started out as a concept to make my work more efficient and accurate and thereby saving time, became a vision that would see all kinds of people using Define to help them read and understand their legal documents, without having to continually search for the meanings of various defined terms.
There is rarely a time in life when events converge in such a way that makes one realise that anything is possible. I had an idea, Nnamdi had a dream, and combined we believe that we have created the most efficient and practical way in which people can read and understand their legal documents.
