Pain-Point Discovery Framework

Legaltech Discovery Framework: Uncover the Pain That Drives Real Change

Before you can sell, you need to understand the problem deeply. This guide helps legaltech founders master early-stage discovery, surfacing real workflow pain and business impact inside law firms. Use this structured framework and question set to decode urgency, stakeholder dynamics, and the path to “yes” without relying on guesswork.

If there's one superpower every legaltech founder needs, it's the ability to surface and understand deep customer pain, the kind of pain that makes a law firm want to change. Discovery is how you find it.

At the early stage, you're not just looking for customers. You're looking for clarity. Discovery is how you:

Validate whether your product addresses a genuine and pressing problem.
Understand how that problem manifests in actual legal workflows.
Identify the roles and stakeholders affected by the pain.
Build a mental model of how the buying process really works.
Create messaging and demos that reflect the customer's language.

Whether you're personally running discovery as a founder or preparing to hand it off to your first sales hire, this phase is foundational. You only get one shot at learning from the market with fresh eyes.

The Goals of Discovery at Early Stage

You're not running discovery to qualify deals, you're doing it to learn. That said, good discovery conversations will naturally filter your best-fit opportunities. Here’s what you should be aiming to uncover:

Detailed understanding of real-world workflows. Get into the weeds of how lawyers or legal ops teams actually do the work your tool touches.
Contextualize that workflow within a business impact. Time wasted, compliance risk, rework, billing delays, client friction.
Validate pain intensity and urgency. Is this a "nice to have" or a "must fix"? How frequently does it hurt?
Identify decision dynamics. Who feels the pain? Who has the power to solve it? Who might block change?
Discover what "better" looks like. What outcomes would make someone say, "Yes, this was worth it"?

If you're not learning something new in every discovery call, you're either talking to the wrong person or asking the wrong questions.

Foundational Principles for Discovery

These principles apply whether you're selling to a five-partner firm or an Am Law 50 behemoth:

Lead with curiosity, not validation. You’re not there to prove your idea, you’re there to understand.
Open wide, then narrow. Let them tell their story in their own terms before drilling into your area.
Ask for concrete examples. "Walk me through the last time that happened" will always get better answers than "Do you have this problem?"
Don't jump to demo. Even if they ask. Anchor your product in their story, not your roadmap.

Be human. Legal buyers are more likely to open up when they see you care about their challenges, not just your pitch.

Discovery Framework: Legaltech Edition

Most sales frameworks were designed for large enterprise SaaS sales. In legal, some elements apply, but the nuances matter. Here's a legaltech-adapted consolidation of SPICED, MEDDIC, and BANT that you can use as your north star.

1. Surface the Pain

Where is the manual effort, stress, or dysfunction?
What tasks are tedious, repeated, error-prone, or delegated inefficiently?

2. Understand the Current State

What are they doing today to get the job done?
How do they collaborate, communicate, or track progress?
Who does most of the work (partner, associate, KM, paralegal)?

3. Explore Business Impact

How does this pain impact revenue, risk, or reputation?
What’s the downstream effect on client delivery, internal morale, or partner time?

4. Evaluate Urgency and Timing

Why now? What’s changed that makes this a current concern?
Are there external pressures (client demands, staffing, regulation, M&A, etc.)?

5. Map the Decision Process

Who else needs to be involved to solve this?
Have they tried evaluating similar tools before? What happened?
Is there a timeline or fiscal window to consider?

6. Define Success

If we were to solve this, what would "good" look like in 6 months?
What specific results would make you advocate for this internally?

When and How to Use Sales Frameworks

Frameworks aren’t a substitute for listening, they’re a lens. Here’s when some of the better-known ones can help:

SPICED-L is helpful when you're selling a high-touch product where legal nuance matters (e.g., anything affecting casework, client comms, or compliance).
MEDDIC is valuable if you’re dealing with a multi-stakeholder sale in a large firm and need to uncover champions vs blockers.
BANT can be useful as a sanity check before investing more time in a lead, but don’t rely on it for depth.

Use a framework only when it helps you focus on what matters most: is there real pain, and is there real energy to solve it?

Sample Discovery Questions for Legaltech Founders

Start with context, delve deep into pain, and conclude with clarity. Here’s a structure:

General Workflow Context

Could you walk me through how you currently handle the [target workflow]?
Who's typically involved? Where do things slow down or get dropped?

Pain & Friction

What’s the most tedious part of this process?
What creates the most client complaints or internal rework?
What do people consistently grumble about?

Workaround & Inefficiency

How are you handling this today? Any tools, templates, or homegrown fixes?
What happens when things go wrong? How often does that happen?
Have you looked into any alternatives?

Prioritization

On a scale of 1–10, how big of a priority is this right now?
What’s driving that urgency? What else is competing for attention or budget?

Decision & Buying Process

If you were to explore a solution, who else would need to be involved?
Has your team recently adopted a new tool? What was that process like?
What would stall or kill a project like this internally?

Success & ROI

If we solved this perfectly, what would be different 6 months from now?
What would make you say, "this was absolutely worth the time and budget"?

Discovery isn’t a gate to selling, it is the foundation of your GTM strategy. Every insight compounds. Every call sharpens your understanding of your market. Every "why" gets you closer to the "how" of product, positioning, and pitch.

If you do this well, your early sales team won’t start with a blank slate. They’ll inherit a library of validated truths, the real-life frustrations, stories, language, and logic that convert curiosity into commitment.

This is how legaltech startups win, not by out-featuring the competition, but by out-understanding the customer.

Back to Playbook