Basha Rubin – CEO and Founder of Priori Legal

Hire good people when you find them, not when you desperately need them.

Basha Frost Rubin is the CEO and Founder of Priori Legal, an online marketplace connecting businesses with a network of vetted lawyers at transparent, below-market and fixed rates. She speaks and writes extensively on how technology and innovation is changing – and will change – the market for legal services. Her writing has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, Women 2.0 and Under30CEO. Basha holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Yale College, and is a member of the New York Bar. She also sits on the boards of A Blade of Grass and the Rubin Museum of Art.

Where did the idea for Priori Legal come from?

At Yale Law School, I learned how much lawyers can help businesses and individuals avoid costly trouble and realize their dreams — and also, how structural factors prevent people from using lawyers most effectively. I designed Priori to eradicate those structural barriers, so lawyers are more accessible and legal services are more efficient and transparent.

What does your typical day look like?

A typical day? No such thing in startup life. It’s usually a mixture of talking to lawyers, clients, working with the team, writing and strategizing. I love the unpredictability.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I bore everyone with them. In other words, I subject every germ of an idea to the intense scrutiny of my friends and colleagues. That way, I know the positives and negatives, risks and rewards, intimately before executing them.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

The internet of things. I’m fascinated and terrified by a whole world that is alive with technology.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

My triple latte every morning? Kidding (sort of). Let’s go with a burning desire to ask a thousand questions to understand how everything works and how I can make it more efficient.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

Going door-to-door to register voters for the 2004 presidential election. I lasted two days – and I truly internalized that different people have different skills. That lesson has helped me immensely as a manager.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

I would learn how to code myself, bring in a technical team member from day one, and begin work on the website much earlier in the ideation process.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Pay it forward. I’ve been helped time and again by others, and I help whenever I can. What goes around comes around.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Hire good people when you find them, not when you desperately need them. I’m always hiring.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Wanting everything to be perfect. I realized, in no uncertain terms, that making everything perfect would destroy everything.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

No rip pantyhose. I’d pay for that (and I can’t believe it can’t be made)!

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

Haha – that I also want the whole internet to know? No comment.

What software and web services do you use?

Google has my loyalty…and all my data.

What do you love about them?

Easy and consolidated – sorry to be boring.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Look deeper than Steve Jobs. Read biographies of the great business people, politicians and heroes. A lot of what it takes to succeed now is the same as it’s always been, just in a different context.

What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?

Not to be too old school but I read the NYT, the Economist and the New Yorker.

Connect:

Priori Legal on Twitter: @priorilegal
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Priori Legal on LinkedIn:
Basha Rubin on Twitter: @basharubin
Basha Rubin on LinkedIn: