I first got the idea for @legaleqapp 6 years ago right around this time. We had just witnessed the death of Eric Garner and than we read about the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson shortly after. We immediately saw protests similar to the protests that we see today. https://twitter.com/esbrigham/status/1296925391769280513

During the Ferguson protests, I noticed that the opinions on what happened to Michael Brown were wildly different, and the difference came down mainly on racial lines. Meanwhile, the whole time, I was hoping that someone had recorded that incident.

In December of 2014, I was headed to work (insurance sales) when I got pulled over after being followed for a couple of miles. I knew I would get pulled over, because I have had police follow me before, but I had no idea why. I was not speeding, and had everything up to date.

The officer finally got to my car door and told me that he pulled me over because I had a warrant for my arrest. I was incredibly shocked considering I had been pulled over twice by the same department in the previous 2 weeks and even got a ticket that was eventually thrown out.

When I let the officer know that, he said that the system must have been down. I showed him a printed ticket and asked him how they could print a ticket if the system was down. He didn’t have an answer, but he asked me to step out of the car.

I was handcuffed, and placed in the back seat of his car while “he checked on the warrant.” His checking on the warrant was him walking around my car and flashing a light inside for 15-20 minutes. After about 30 minutes, I was let go. I was traumatized, and I knew I was profiled.

My mother and I went to the police department the next day to make a formal complaint against that officer. We were told that the officer had a right to profile, and we should do something about it if we felt we were wronged. That was when I knew something had to change.

Towards the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, I finally decided that I wanted to use technology to change these interactions with police. I used all of the money in my savings at the time to create the first basic, basic prototype of @legaleqapp. It had 2 buttons.

After that, I decided to create a GoFundMe thinking that $25,000 would be enough to build an app and start a company. . Anyways, after an article from @_TARYNitUP and @blackvoices, we were able to raise enough money to finally get our first app. https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55b652b5e4b0224d8832d007?guccounter=1

After getting that app built and getting some publicity, I was encouraged to engage more with the tech community. It was at this time, that I was also encouraged to enter in pitch competitions and see how my idea would be received by even more people. Fast forward to early 2017.

I received an email from someone who heard me tryout for @ABCSharkTank to come and be a part of the inaugural pitch competition for @MBK_Alliance at @sxsw. I scrounge you money and get help from family to get to Austin, and we actually win the 1st ever pitch comp that we entered.

We were excited and thought that we would truly get the help to grow, but we got absolutely nothing that was promised to us from winning that pitch competition, so that was a lesson that we learned early on. Despite this, we knew we still had to grow, and keep working.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/on-the-road-shark-tank-legal-equalizer/ The good news that came out of heading to @sxsw and winning that pitch competition was that we were introduced to @rodneysampson who would end up helping me find my coder.

Despite the disappointment of not getting what we were promised from that pitch competition,we entered the pitch competition for @RPCoalition and @InvestAtlanta and we were able to win both of those.The winnings from that and investments from friends allowed us to upgrade the app

In December of 2017, we were finally able to release the second version of the app. This version had more laws, a new design, and we added emergency options for Immigration, Domestic Violence, and Active Shootings. The country had more things to address and we wanted to help.

We released the 2nd version of the app after we participated in accelerator’s such as @thevillagefund and @AscendAtlanta. After participating in these programs, we then spent time working on building a web app for attorneys, so that we could connect them in real time.

We wanted to give people the opportunity to contact a local attorney in real time, and pay the attorneys a small fee for real time consultation. This process and the process of updating the app took a little longer than we wanted because we had issues getting funding.

Most of the money we raised was in the first 3-4 years of us starting this project. What we have had to do the whole time is be frugal and smart about how we spend that money. We have survived on less than 60,000 a year for the past 6 years, but we know we need to raise.

When we first started, the only thought we had was about building something that could save lives. It wasn’t until we truly started talking to people that were in tech that we realized in order to save lives, we have to show that we can make money.

We are not at a place where we have made revenue yet, but we have a logical, clear, and obvious plan on how we are going to monetize the app. We have multiple ways that we have come up with as to how we are going to monetize the company.

We have a plan to monetize @legaleqapp using everything from subscriptions for attorneys and users, to advertising, to using the data that we have collected, to working with cities and police departments to change how they respond to civilians.

We even have a plan for how to take this globally. We just released the latest version of @legaleqapp 3 weeks ago, and once again we have added a feature that nobody else has in this field. This update now allows people to have witnesses in real time.

In this update of @legaleqapp, we incorporated @zoom_us into the app, so now you can send a link to your loved ones and there will be 5 people there to hear why you got pulled over or stopped by a police or immigration officer. Those 5 people are also allowed to record the call.

We are currently in the process of adding even additional features that will let people know information on arrests as they enter a new city, and allows you to place tickets within the app that remind you of your court date or when to pay your fine.

We also want to be able to let people know about the individual history of officer’s that they are interacting with so, they can have a better understating of the situation. I want to change the justice system and I know technology can help. If you want to chat, please contact me