Summerville native Ari Goodstein launches LawLens to simplify legal fact-finding

College of Charleston, Brown University graduate builds AI-driven platform to help legal professionals find statutes faster

“Have you ever sat in general sessions before?” Goodstein asked. “If you ever sit in on it, you’ll see. It is an interesting experience because you’re trying to get through 50 to 100 pleas a day. That is the moment where they’re trying to thin it out, and any mistake slows it down, and then it is pandemonium. The biggest one is a mistake in the sentencing and the sentence filing.”

To assist the legal community and law enforcement with conveniently finding legal facts, Goodstein founded LawLens.

“What was in place before was a really manual process,” Goodstein said. “Every case, every arrest, is researched, pulling out of a list of [codes] and then researching the statutes. They have to find the reference. They have to find the actual paragraph and the lines, and typically, there have been books printed, but those books get outdated. The writers pass away. [LawLens] is essentially one of the only times I’ve seen the last few years where we’re actually a software company replacing a manual process, which is really cool.”

LawLens is a streamlined platform designed to help users locate necessary legal information. Goodstein said that artificial intelligence (AI) was instrumental in its creation, as it generated the platform’s summaries of legal facts, which human team members then reviewed to ensure accuracy. The process will continue as LawLens is updated annually to ensure that legal facts remain current.

To launch LawLens, Goodstein needed investors. He connected with fellow Brown alum Joe Morone, who was on board.

“Ari was someone who understands how to build a team and the importance of effective teambuilding,” Morone said. “He’s motivated by that, and he’s also motivated by understanding where there are real pain points and challenges in society and how technology can be leveraged to solve them.”

Retired judge Clifton Newman, known for presiding over the Alex Murdough case, also advised the team during the creation of LawLens.

“I have been a defense attorney, I have been a prosecutor, I have been a judge for a long time,” Newman said. “Throughout all those roles, I could just observe the need for how things can be done better.”

Newman expressed confidence in the accuracy of LawLens.

“Because LawLens is pulled directly from the state statutes, books and procedures, you will not get just generalizing answers,” Newman said. “You'll get accurate responses.”

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