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Our Philosophy
Build for the Long Term
We are changing how work is done in our industry.
That’s a grand vision and a monumental task, and it isn’t going to happen overnight, or even in a year. To win, we are building a company to succeed in the long term.
Our task demands enduring attention. To succeed, decisions must be made with integrity and discipline. Integrity to ensure that we are doing the right thing; discipline to ensure we are doing it the right way. Ultimately, this core philosophy, supported by the dual tenets of integrity and discipline, is a reminder to bias us in a particular direction: the one that will leave us better off in the long run.
Beyond the core philosophy, we have five key values that are meant to guide our daily work: Set Our Own Bar, Egoless Communication and Mutual Respect, Respect for Users, Process-Driven Growth, and Attention to Detail.
Key Values
- Set Our Own Bar
- Egoless Communication and Mutual Respect
- Respect for Users
- Process-Driven Growth
- Attention to Detail
Set Our Own Bar
We believe that greatness doesn’t happen by accident; it’s a result of high expectations.
At Everlaw you’ll be surrounded by exceptionally driven people. If you’re internally motivated to be great, then you’ll feel at home here.
We set our own standards rather than looking to others for theirs. We aim to be superb rather than just good enough. We think the best results are achieved by setting our own bar, looking beyond outside influences to consider what’s really possible. Instead of “Is this good enough to pass muster?”, we ask “How great can this be?”
If you’re internally motivated to be great, then you’ll feel at home here.
Setting our own bar pushes us to think boldly about every new undertaking and create a threshold of excellence against our own standards rather than anyone else’s.
Egoless Communication and Mutual Respect
We believe that collaboration is the lifeblood of Everlaw: we work together to build a great company.
Working here will mean welcoming feedback, respecting differing opinions, giving compliments freely, and taking pride in our collective achievements.
Egoless communication and mutual respect is the foundation on which collaboration is built.
None of us work in isolation; in fact, we rely on open, fluid collaboration to expose and combine our individual strengths.
Fruitful collaboration, even at our size, doesn’t happen by accident. Without structure, it’s hard for each of us to know how and when to collaborate, and without a common system of communication and feedback, it’s human nature to get defensive about work product. Over time we’ve developed a system that works for us. Our company value of egoless communication and mutual respect is the foundation on which our system of collaboration is built.
Respect for Users
We believe that the success of the company depends on our users – even the ones that don’t pay the bills.
We don’t sacrifice user experience for technical or business expediency. We think actual users are underserved in our market.
Our hypothesis is that providing a world-class experience to our users will “trickle up” to decision-makers in the long run. Creating a product that users actually love is a fundamentally honest and satisfying way to build a product and company. A corollary: the only reason to add a feature is if it meets a real, pervasive user need; making Everlaw easier to sell or market, or satisfying a single influential client, is not a sufficient reason.
Creating a product that users actually love is a fundamentally honest and satisfying way to build a product and company.
This belief also applies to the business side and client interactions. If you work here you shouldn’t be cynical or irresponsible in selling, promoting, or supporting Everlaw. You also shouldn’t blame our users for bad experiences; if they don’t understand how to use a feature, no matter how basic, that’s an opportunity for us to improve the usability of the product.
We know we can’t satisfy all of our users at once, but we value user feedback of all types—even, and especially, the ones that frustrate us.
Process-Driven Growth
We believe that every challenge is a learning experience, and we aggressively codify and update our procedures and best practices to improve ourselves.
You’ll thrive at Everlaw if you’re eager to learn from your colleagues and from external sources.
To err is human, sure, but processes are our secret weapon to institutionally combat errors. In fact, when someone makes a mistake, your first response should be: “What process allowed this mistake to happen? How can we improve this process so that subsequent mistakes of this nature can be prevented?” Ultimately, our processes and abilities can only be as good as our collective knowledge allows.
Process is our secret weapon to institutionally combat errors.
Everlaw employees should always be striving to broaden those horizons. If there isn’t in-house expertise, we find external resources. We encourage self-directed study. We aim to be humble and to learn quickly. This mentality comes with a shared responsibility: Everlaw employees are all in charge of thinking of how to make our processes better. No process is perfect, and anyone can identify improvements. It’s essential to think critically rather than to follow a process blindly. Think of our processes as a carefully tended garden, where pruning is as important as growth.
Attention to Detail
The stakes for uncovering truth and upholding justice have never been higher.
We believe that a great experience gets the small things right. No matter what we’re working on, whether it’s a new feature or an email to a user, Everlaw employees pay attention to every detail. People who choose Everlaw care about things like: terminology, grammar, and precision of meaning; consistency of interaction and behavior; meticulous planning and execution.
A great experience gets the small things right.
Individually, these necessarily sound trivial; that’s why they’re called details. And getting them all right takes time, but the cumulative effect is large, both externally and internally.
