good faith. always.
Consumer-side legal infrastructure: it triages your situation honestly, finds an attorney matched on real public case history, and carries a portable summary from one door to the next. 501(c)(3) status planned. Phase 1 in development.
"A duty of good faith is implied in every contract."
Why the French. Louisiana, where the founder was born, is the only U.S. state built on civil law rather than common law, and good faith, bonne foi, is one of that tradition's founding principles.
The civil legal system fails on both sides. People with real cases cannot find anyone to take them. Attorneys who would help cannot reach the people who need them. The bridge between them is what is missing.
Every rejection resets the clock. People re-explain everything, every time. We call it the re-explanation tax. And the lawyers who would help cannot reach them either. The structure between them is what is missing.
We route, we do not rebuild. Other companies already build motion drafting and self-help forms. We sit upstream of all of them, with the part nobody else builds: the bridge from "do I even need a lawyer?" to a contacted one.
When the next step is a firm, a clinic, or a legal-aid organization, Bonne Foi hands off a structured matter summary that drops into the case-management systems you already run, no rekeying. The integration is there when you want it. The bridge to a contacted lawyer is always the point.
When she hit a complex, multi-party legal problem, she called firm after firm and got no calls back. So she taught herself, read the statutes, drafted her own documents, and built the tool she wished she had.
Pree Walia has a polymath temperament. Born in New Orleans and raised across the Deep South, she started in politics and community organizing, and has built across ventures ever since, driven by a deep purpose: improving the lives of the next generation and of underserved communities.
She is founder and CEO of Preemadonna, creator of Nailbot. She is the lead inventor on nine-plus utility patents across hardware, computer vision, and software infrastructure. She cofounded Soorma Ventures, is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at JumpStart, holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from Northwestern, and served on the board of MakerGirl. She has prior training as a domestic violence counselor.
She runs at startup intensity and deliberately chose the nonprofit structure this problem requires, which is the whole reason the consumer side of legal stayed empty until now. She feels the pain point herself: an eviction notice, plus civil and corporate matters, all converging in eight months.
Civil legal need takes many shapes. Bonne Foi is built for each of them.
Her heat has been off for four months. The landlord is suing her for back rent in retaliation. He has a lawyer. She does not.
Three private attorneys passed because the dollar amount looked too small. Legal aid has a two-month waitlist. A debt-relief mill wants $1,200 upfront.
She earns too much for full legal aid and cannot afford a $7,500 retainer. The system has resources for her, but no person tells her which to use, when.
Phase 1 is a twelve-week build with a small team, a working prototype, and a defined bar-ethics process. We will not ship the parts that need an opinion until the opinion is in hand.
Foundations, retired litigators, clinical directors, ethics scholars, technologists, anyone who has been thinking about this problem. Tell us a little about you and we will be in touch.
We received your message. Pree will be in touch personally.