Melissa Brogdon With FourthParty

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor onpay without them. We couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on Atlanta Business Radio. We have Melissa Brogdon with fourth party. Welcome.

Melissa Brogdon: [00:00:42] Thank you, Lee. Super happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about fourth party. How are you serving, folks?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:00:50] Absolutely so. Fourth party provides modern solutions to legacy problems within the legal space, and it’s particularly catering towards mediators and arbitrators. And that’s just like a lot of words to essentially say we focus on negotiators, those middlemen who help everyday people navigate things like car accidents, divorces, custody battles or even the landlord tenant disputes. We just help them do their job better.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So what’s an example of ways that you help them do their job better?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:01:19] Absolutely. So Fourth Party is really focused on making sure that a negotiator can access case files securely anytime, anywhere. The pandemic really exacerbated a problem that’s existed for decades in the legal space, which is legacy paper based systems can’t be accessed in a remote world. So we really make the process of accessing that information easier, more secure with tools for communication, document storage as well in data and insights. And really, we mirror that process the experiences that they’ve had sort of those time honored traditions that are part of the negotiation process. We just make that a little bit easier so that our adoption of our tool can be a little bit faster for them

Lee Kantor: [00:02:04] Now is faster, kind of a double edged sword for lawyers because, you know, a part of I’m not a lawyer, but as a layperson, I think that they like the idea of me thinking that they’re going through a dusty old book thinking of some obscure case. You know, that’s going to save the day, and that requires a lot of time, and that time is expensive. And then if I can just Google search, you know, cases that are relevant to me and in two seconds, you know, 30 things pop up. Is that good or bad from the lawyer?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:02:38] So, so I’ll clarify a little bit that we most of the mediators that we work with are lawyers, but their role is really an authoritative position to help the lawyers who are representing the everyday folks like me. And you sort of get to that, get through that conversation smoothly and they are just balancing so much information. And right now, a lot of folks are doing that with a pen and a legal pad. And so we’re really helping them to kind of move into the modern age with that process and make sure that that information is secure. Because if they’re using that pad and paper, not only is it sort of a time waster, but it also is a really unsecure process that might leave your private information accessible to people that you don’t want to have it.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:29] Now, is this something these kind of changes moving from paper and pencil to digital is a lot of legacy organizations are going, kicking and screaming into this world, even though for the people who are already there, this seems obvious and logical, and there’s no reason to go backwards. But for some reason, you know, it’s not just this industry. There’s several other industries out there that this is like a hill they all want to die on. How are you helping them with this kind of behavior change and this kind of legacy thinking of this might not be the best way today to be doing this kind of work, even though it has worked this way for, you know, decades, if not, you know, multiple decades or a hundred years now.

Melissa Brogdon: [00:04:15] Right, right. Well, well, you know, we agree that our biggest competition is the status quo, the way things that have always been done. And we really do serve a pretty diverse user base and that our users range from age thirty five to 80. And so their experience engaging with technology is as varied and a part of what we sort of message and really try to drive home with folks is we are trying to augment and complement the human centered work that you do. So it’s not so much about change or, you know, sort of villainizing the process as it is. It’s really about adaptation and making sure that people are prepared for what’s ahead of them and doing that really in a compassionate way. That hasn’t been the way that Big Tech has necessarily approached sort of transitioning folks who are sort of used to those legacy systems doing that in a compassionate way has really helped us to engage people and get them onto the platform now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:23] And a lot of SAS projects like yours and companies like yours. The aim is always for the aspirin, not the vitamin right. Look, I’m trying to solve a problem that is dire and not something that would be nice to solve down the road. Is this elevated to that level with the folks that you’re serving?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:05:46] Yeah. I mean, I think we see our our relationship with negotiators as certainly urgent and time sensitive. What we’re seeing is a real sort of crisis, and it was exacerbated by the pandemic, but something that was sort of building up, which is a justice gap in terms of the ability for people to access the sort of representation that they need. And so we see a lot of cases go unheard because there just is not there just is not enough time in our court systems or enough negotiators to handle that work. And so we’re really invested in making sure that as people join this, this career and consider even a career shift to two negotiations, that they’re equipped with the tools to really accelerate their career as quickly as possible. So we focus a lot on process mapping, really coaching people through the process so that they can sort of have an educational coach as a part of using our tool.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] Now, do you have a story you can share about how maybe somebody who was skeptical or, you know, just decided to take the leap into your platform? We’re able to use that in order to, you know? To win something or to to gain something. Maybe surprise, maybe surprise their client.

Melissa Brogdon: [00:07:12] Absolutely. So the reason that we thought of building this tool was a personal challenge. It really started with the family meeting between myself and my husband, who is a mediator who’s mediated over 200 cases virtually. And he was faced with an individual reaching out to him for some information about a about a negotiation that he actually wasn’t able to settle. And he spent an hour literally throwing sheets of paper over his shoulders, trying to find the detail that that person was looking for. And that was really the light bulb moment for us that there needed to be a way for people to access that information in a much easier way and also say that time on the negotiator side to be able to update and move that process along. And so if you think about that as just one small example of the ways that people are losing time and then in turn, the people who are actually bringing the conflict to bear are the ones who suffer as a result of that, as costs skyrocket and time, they lose time in that process. So it really is an experience, a pain point that we experienced personally and a part of us. Being able to collaborate and bring this sort of universal tool to bear is really something that was a response to a challenge we faced ourselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:44] Now, being an emerging brand is identifying that ideal client is is one of the biggest challenges. Have you been able to kind of hone in on, you know, who the persona of this ideal client? Is this this negotiator? Is it a judge? Is it a lawyer? Is it a mediator? Like, do you know who this person is? That is the most likely to consider this?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:09:14] Yeah. So we’re we’re we’re hyper focused on alternative dispute resolution firms, and those are organizations that really help negotiators with that administrative load booking and all of the things that come along with going into a negotiation that really aren’t a part of that active negotiation process. But we’re also thinking about that solo neutral, a person who’s probably been practicing at least 10 to 15 years, maybe a little bit disenchanted with their experience as an attorney. Maybe the work life balance isn’t the right fit for them, and so they’re considering a shift into the mediation space or have already certified. And they’re looking for a way to turn this from really a side hustle from the beginning into a second career.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:06] And then with fourth party, this really that person doesn’t have any of that legacy thinking this is kind of a fresh idea for them, and this enables them to get up and running faster

Melissa Brogdon: [00:10:18] A little bit. I mean, we still face the fact that they are coming out of the legal space. And so whatever notions and experiences and habits, they still bring those to fourth party. And so we do still have to challenge some of that thinking. But as we engage with early career neutrals and folks who are in that in that age range, they have a little bit more experience with technology. They’re using it every day. They’re engaging with customer relationship management systems in prior experiences, and so they do have some reference points. And again, the fact that our tool really mirrors some of those time honored traditions that they’re used to doing in a in a paper based system. It feels more familiar than a tool that maybe has been built by someone who isn’t truly an industry expert.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:09] So now what’s your back story? Had you been involved in software as a service before, technology before?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:11:17] Yes. So my background is actually in nonprofit of operations. And then I was working part time for the past seven years supporting my husband’s law firm, who is also my co-founder. A fourth party. And so I got to watch sort of deal with some of those administrative pain points and problem solve around that. So when we were first thinking about a solution to having a rifle through all those papers and throw them over his shoulders, we went through several different iterations of using up to a dozen different applications to create some kind of workflow management tool for him. And so that’s where my expertize came in and as he did interviews with colleagues and really engaged with hundreds of. Mediators who were experiencing the same challenges that he was facing. He was able to create that universal workflow and then I could incorporate time saving and efficiency and process management into that workflow so that we could create the basis of fourth party.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:22] Now what about the technology element of it? Were either of you coders or technologists or did you have to partner with someone to in order to get it?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:12:30] We, we’re both. I put quotes around non-technical. We actually got to engage with the team that was based in Jackson, Mississippi. Some really smart young engineers who were really excited about the opportunity to jump into this kind of work. And so they actually had some limited experience, but really ambitious. And they were the ones that brought forth parties MVP to the to to the place where it is now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:58] So now where is that place? Are you looking for funders? Are you? How can we help you? What do you need more of? Do you need funding? Do you need clients or is this funded?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:13:08] All of it. We need all of it. So we actually just wrapped up a pilot with one of the largest alternative dispute resolution firms in the Southeast. And so our tool has currently has over 2000 active cases on it, and we’re serving negotiators in seven states. And we’re thinking about certainly planning for funding. So we were really lucky last year to receive $100000 from Google for startups to help support us in this early stage of development. And now we’re looking to bring on new partners and advisors and advocates, so definitely looking for investors to have a legal background and can really understand the magic of this tool and where we are trying to go, but also looking for those advisors and advocates who can be a part of our team and coach us and support us as we accelerate into this, this new realm. So right now, we are super, hyper focused on building a really high quality tool and making sure that we are able to serve the new firms that we bring on this quarter. And then the next really well.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:26] Well, congratulations on all the success, if there is someone out there that wants to learn more about fourth party, what is the website?

Melissa Brogdon: [00:14:36] They can reach us at fourth party, and it’s spelled out F O U R R T Dot app. Connect with us. We would love to talk. We’re always looking to have conversations with mediators, lawyers, judges, anyone who might be interested in using the tool, but really, again, with a focus on building the right tool for people. We want to understand their pain points and would love to have a conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:05] Good stuff. Well, again, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you.

Melissa Brogdon: [00:15:12] Thank you, Lee. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:13] All right. This is Lee Kantor our next time on Atlanta Business Radio.