Smart and Affordable Legal Services in Africa

An intuitive application built to support the African legal sector, joined more than 100 law firms and 3000+ local experts.

The company and product

Afriwise is an award-winning platform focused on the African legal sector. Its goal is to provide simple and affordable access to legal information, with a constantly-growing database.

Its success relies on the community-oriented conception. Afriwise has signed agreements with over 100 law firms from 11 African countries, with more to come; and reunites their enormous legal knowledge into one platform, used by big European companies such as DHL, Deloitte, etc. on a daily basis.

Afriwise has built a legal bridge between Africa and Europe. It creates an easy door for companies to know the different regulations, and stay informed on the ever-changing legal world.

This web application is not only an updated database, but it also gives its clients the opportunity to consult a specific topic they’re interested in - resulting in a continuously evolving & growing platform.

Client’s feedback

Scope and Highlights

AWARD-WINNING PLATFORM

WEB APP DEVELOPMENT

RUBY ON RAILS AND VUE.JS

COUNTRIES & GROWING

200+

CATEGORY-DATABASE

100+

PARTNER LAW FIRMS

Afriwise appliaction screenshot

The Challenge

Steven De Backer, founder, and CEO of Afriwise saw a problem in the market: hiring intermediaries for legal counseling was expensive and inefficient.

Steven knew what the fast and effective solution would be, however, he and his legal team lacked the software knowledge to create this platform. The concept was clear, but they needed the tools and a team to help them both design and build it.

After contacting over 50 developing companies, Monterail was selected. We took the wheel and prepared a workshop that would adjust to the client’s expectations, using an MVP approach with a flexible scope, while communicating ideas with little-to-no technical language.

Key challenges

Building an MVP product to fit a defined budget.

Establishing a large and flexible database that allows for continuous expansion.

Creating a product for a non-tech audience, with intuitive UX that facilitates access to information.

Building an MVP product to fit a defined budget.

Establishing a large and flexible database that allows for continuous expansion.

Creating a product for a non-tech audience, with intuitive UX that facilitates access to information.

The Process

After our discovery workshop, where we agreed on the design and scope, the web platform was built from scratch with Ruby on Rails for the backend, and Vue.js for the frontend.

Since the MVP product was delivered, Afriwise has grown, updated, and maintained over the last 3 years; big features are still being introduced as new ideas come afloat.

This is how we made it happen:

Organized a workshop to agree on a flexible scope and translate the client's idea into tangible deliverables.
Creating a user-friendly design for non-tech-savvy users.
Picking robust technologies that were a perfect fit for the task.

Team’s voice

The Outcome

After outsourcing product development to Monterail, Afriwise’s web service is the result of legal information and technology being put together.

This idea has now become a tool that revolutionizes a rather traditional market.

Afriwise cuts the intermediaries, forming a bridge and automatizing a collaborative approach. The more centralized Afriwise becomes in the legal ecosystem, the more visibility it gives to the law firms with whom they become partners.

And although the outcome is an innovative platform that wins awards every year (each award being more honorable than the previous one), Afriwise is an evolving solution that continues growing and adjusting, to provide a better experience for the user, without any limitations.

Since then, Afriwise became the first platform of its kind, uniting Africa and Europe in a legal ecosystem, offering a unique solution based on a collaborative model, that has joined more than 100 law firms and 3000+ local experts listed in the database. It’s now the go-to legal database for big companies on a daily basis, with over 4000 logins since 2019, and has won multiple awards in legal and business areas.

Moreover, it has gained a million euro investment from two Belgian investors to add more relevant content for users, accelerate growth into new countries, and further develop the platform’s technology.

The success of this project hinged on the following factors:

A flexible scope and MVP approach to the project.
Close collaboration with a non-technical client for mutual understanding.
Prioritization of the strong-base tasks
Continuous expansion and improvement of the platform.