Shreya Sharma, Founder Of Rest The Case, Has One Stop Solution For All Your Legal Problems!

Shreya Sharma, today, at the young age of 22, is the founder and CEO of a legal aggregator platform, Rest The Case.

It is a platform that offers solutions to a person’s all legal problems by helping you connect with lawyers from different specializations as per your requirements.

I’m keen to share Shreya’s story with you where this young and dynamic entrepreneur takes you through her journey on how she thought of conceptualizing a platform as unique as this.

As a child, I wanted to sing and stuff like that but…

Shreya, how did you kickstart your legal career and have you always wanted to be a lawyer?

I studied law at Cardiff University in the UK and no, I have not always wanted to be a lawyer. I have had phases as a child where I wanted to sing and stuff like that but later on, I got an interest in law and went for a summer course at Harvard where I did International Relations. There, I figured out that I wanted to pursue law.

Rest The Case is the one-stop solution for your legal worries

What exactly is Rest The Case & how does one connect with the lawyers here?

‘Rest The Case’ is a legal aggregator platform. By ‘aggregator’ we mean we have lawyers from around 180 cities listed on our website. We verify their credentials before putting them up.

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Once these lawyers are on the website, any person can find a lawyer based on their requirements. If clients still feel like they cannot find the right lawyers then we intervene and ensure that they find a suitable lawyer.

We also ensure clients have a facility to talk to lawyers online and if they are not comfortable with that, they can also meet in person. We help them book appointments with lawyers for the same.

Apart from this, we do provide legal information for people where we explain legal terms for laymen and we also help students with content such as how to do legal research, writing, etc.

Many women find it difficult to access legal help

How does your platform ensure easy accessibility of law for women?

We recently got in touch with an NGO called ‘Aspire For Her’ which is based out of Mumbai. This NGO has a lot of women who have been affected by the pandemic, in the sense that they lost their husbands or their properties, and because all of this happened suddenly, they did not get help. So, we are helping these women find the right lawyers according to their requirements.

We have made it very fluid for women everywhere meaning that if you want to find a lawyer, you literally have to just write what you want and you will be able to find a lawyer quickly. You will immediately be provided with the lawyers’ phone numbers at no cost and get in touch with them.

You can do this multiple times a day and get the contact details of multiple lawyers and talk to them as long as you’re comfortable.

Shreya Sharma & Rest The Case: I’m so invested…

What was your key driving force to become an entrepreneur? What are some of the challenges you faced while building your platform?

I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur and knew that I wanted something of my own. If right now someone talks about ‘Rest The Case’, I’m so invested. I can’t think of anything else and it’s not because there is so much to do, it’s because I like doing it so much that I don’t mind talking about it all the time or mind putting in the work.

I come from a business family and I have seen everyone work like this. During my summer holidays, I used to go to work with my dad and I used to sit and observe him work and it seemed so cool. So, that’s why I always wanted to do business. I like the feel of making something from scratch.

With respect to challenges I face, it’s something that I still deal with today. When I started the platform, it was just me. So, what I used to do was I used to draw buttons and then I would write that when you press this button, so and so happens.

In the middle of this, I realized that I require people and that was a challenge to find because finding the right people who would understand my vision was difficult.

Other than this, since I started quite young, a lot of people didn’t take me seriously. So, it was a challenge to create that sort of seriousness and let them know that I know what I’m doing. This is something that I still face today.

Shreya Sharma, Founder & CEO of Rest The Case was not taken seriously!

So, how do you deal with people not taking you seriously because of your age?

This may sound very easy but what I do is regardless of whether they think I am young or not, I keep working. In fact, I’ve been like if you think I am young, you should see the work I’m putting in. So, I just keep my head down and do my work. I honestly only hope that the work I put in speaks more.

There were a lot of things that I learned about myself

Have you faced any challenges as a young woman advocate? Was there any incident that changed your attitude towards life forever?

To be honest, I have not practised much as an advocate because whatever work I did as an advocate was right after law school and at that time, there was so much happening that it was difficult to find out what I liked and what I didn’t.

I was just taking it all, especially when you work in a big firm, it’s difficult to get the time to find out what you like. So, there was nothing of the sort that changed my life or my attitude towards life. But something that has changed the way I think has happened once I started ‘Rest The Case’ because there were a lot of things that I learnt about myself.

Before this, I had never understood the importance of different people in different roles and their contribution to an organization. So, that’s something I have learned along the way.

Believing in yourself is a process

In your Ted Talk, you said that “Believing in yourself is a process.” I know a lot of youngsters struggle with this, so how do you apply this to your life?

What I meant by ‘believing in yourself is a process’, is that it’s not that you overcome one problem and become a different person altogether. Because everything that happens in your life is different from the last and when something happens, it is better to think of it from a different perspective and start again.

If you don’t think you can do it then it doesn’t happen. So, that’s why it is a process and that’s why you have to keep doing it with everything that happened and everything that life throws at you.

The way I practice this in my life might not be the same for everyone. When I feel that I’m doubting what I’m doing, I stop doing it for a second. I think about how I’m supposed to do this thing or what this thing means and why I’m doing this. I also write down how I feel about things. Once it’s on paper and I can see it, then I will understand that it is not as much as it’s in my head.

I do this with my work as well. When I write down my to-do list, I can see that it’s always manageable.

I don’t want my company to be bound to a place

What is it that you like about being an entrepreneur and what are your future goals and aspirations for the company?

What I like about being an entrepreneur is that I like to be invested and interested in what I’m doing. This is something that I have always wanted to do and it is an idea that stemmed out of my head and I like that investment of myself in it. I also like that I have a goal and I have a place that I want to reach and that I’m working towards it.

Today, we’re a company that is around the country. In a couple of years, I hope to have a company that is present in prominent parts of the world.

I don’t want my company to be bound to a place because when you’re doing it online, the main goal is to go global. I also want to add more technology to the platform because it’s there in every field now and it should be in law too.

For example, I want to add smart contracts to ‘Rest The Case’ because that will show that the legal field is moving forward. Smart contracts have a strict understanding of the law and are relatively safer. So, these two things are what I want for the platform soon.

I want to be transparent with what I am doing

What are some of the values of your company that you will always stand by?

We want to be transparent with what we are doing. This is something that I have always stood by since the beginning whether it is with lawyers or clients.

We also ensure the credibility of the lawyers on our platform before we put them up on our website. We want to create that trust with everybody who is on the website. We want to let everyone know that you can trust us because we’re ensuring that everything is foolproof for both lawyers and clients.

For lawyers because of the Bar Council rules, we do not advertise them in a way that will create problems for them. We hope to create trust with everyone we work with.

It’s important to feel comfortable with who you get ‘that’ support

Do you have a strong support system when you face hardships in your personal or professional life?

I have eight people in my family other than me. So, at some point or the other, I always have somebody who is around me with whom I can talk or share because I know them and they know me. I rely on them completely and I think they’re my biggest support system because it’s important to feel comfortable with who you get that support and I feel very comfortable with my family.

A piece of advice I would give to any person

Do you have any advice for young women who want to be entrepreneurs like you? Would you ever consider mentoring young students?

I still have a long way to go but if someone is interested in listening to me, I would love to. A piece of advice I would give to any person who wants to start something of their own is you should be brave and just do it. The time is now and don’t wait for years to pass by, just do it!

This doesn’t mean just blindly doing it but maybe start writing it down, be clear with what, how and why you want to do it.

Let Shreya Sharma, Founder & CEO of Rest The Case, inspire all the young women out there, including me who sometimes doubt ourselves even though we’re fully capable of doing whatever we want to if we put our mind to it!

Image credit: Shreya Sharma, Rest The Case

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