Lawyer marketplace UpCounsel is shutting down.
The San Francisco based company, which has raised a total of $26 million, including a $12 million Series B in April 2018, notified customers by email this morning that it will shut down permanently on March 4.
The company served corporations by providing freelance lawyers for anything from a one-time consultation to staffing a legal department.
It was cofounded by Mason Blake, an engineer who was its CTO, and Matt Faustman, its CEO and an attorney who previously represented startups in Silicon Valley.
Following is the email that went out today:
We want to thank you for your continued support since we first started UpCounsel in 2012. It has been a delight to work with each of you along the way, building innovative products to make the legal experience better. Pursuing our mission of creating a remarkable legal experience was made possible because of you. As founders we are humbled and honored that you came on this journey with us.
Pursuant to a decision approved by our board of directors and shareholders, the UpCounsel website will be shut down permanently on March 4, 2020. At that time you will no longer be able to login to your account. In connection with the site shutdown we will be deleting all account information and any data associated with your usage of UpCounsel in accordance with best data practices. If you wish to retrieve a copy of your data, please contact support@upcounsel.com.
We recommend and encourage you to continue working with your lawyers. This does not disrupt your attorney relationships or interfere with the progress of any legal project. Please reach out to your lawyer to discuss steps on managing this transition and feel free to contact us with questions as well.
It is with a heavy heart that we deliver this news and understand that this abrupt announcement will come as a shock to some of you that have come to rely on UpCounsel. Our team will be available as usual to answer any questions you may have leading up to the site’s shutdown on March 4th. We will share further details with you as they become available.
Best,
Mason Blake & Matthew Faustman
UpCounsel Co-founders