“Something bad would happen to someone at work, and the story always ended the same way,” she told TechCrunch. “They just left, because doing anything else was incredibly complex and expensive.”
One doesn’t need to look far to notice that for many people, seeking legal recourse feels so daunting and complex that many just don’t try. Even for someone with a cushy tech job, the prospect of going against their company is daunting.
That bothered Shell so much that in 2022, she launched Valla, which seeks to make legal support more accessible to workers.
The company focuses on employment law, and since its launch, it says, more than 12,000 workers have successfully brought complaints against employers and negotiated settlements.
“The basic thesis of Valla was, ‘If we can build tools that let someone file their tax return from their mobile phone, surely we can build something that can help them manage their own legal issue,’” Shell said.
Valla platform enables users to collect their own evidence, generate documents, and then talk to legal experts who “coach” them through what the legal process would be for each stage of their case. For example, Shell said, a user can keep track of an ongoing issue at work, draft a Tribunal claim, and then purchase a coaching package to prepare for the preliminary hearing.
A man falsely accused of voting fraud in the conspiracy film “2000 Mules” tried to hold its producers responsible Friday, asking a federal judge to rule in his favor. But the moviemakers, includin...