# Market Context — Thai Legal Practice Management

## The Competitive Landscape

### Global Leaders (Poor Fit for Thailand)

**Clio** — dominant in North America, growing in UK/Australia
- No Thai language support
- Built for common law jurisdictions — civil procedure concepts don't map
- No understanding of Thai court scheduling, chanote documents, DBD filings
- No LINE integration
- Pricing in USD, support in English — high friction for Thai firms
- Strong on time tracking and billing; weak on document AI

**MyCase, PracticePanther, Smokeball** — same problems as Clio, less market share
- All built for English-speaking common law markets
- None have Thai localization

**Lawsyst, Legal Files** — enterprise players
- Require significant implementation budgets
- Not designed for boutique civil practices
- No Thai-specific features

### Regional Alternatives

No credible Thai-first legal practice management platform exists at the time of writing.
A few local IT firms have built bespoke systems for specific large firms — not products.

### What Thai Law Firms Actually Use Today

Most firms, including good ones, run on:
- Microsoft Word for all documents and correspondence
- LINE for client and internal communication
- Excel or Google Sheets for matter tracking and billing
- Email (often personal accounts, not shared inboxes)
- Physical files or ad hoc shared drives (Google Drive, Dropbox)
- WhatsApp or LINE groups for internal coordination

The result:
- No audit trail
- Documents scattered across personal devices and chat histories
- Deadlines tracked in individual attorneys' heads or calendars
- Client communications impossible to supervise or hand off
- Billing reconstructed from memory at invoice time
- No institutional knowledge — everything leaves with the attorney

### The Opportunity

A purpose-built system with:
- Thai language UI and document processing
- Thai civil procedure matter structures
- LINE as a first-class communication channel
- Local legal compliance (Thai Bar, PDPA)
- AI trained on the firm's own Thai-language case data

Has almost no direct competition and addresses a near-universal problem across the Thai legal market.

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## Market Size and Entry

### Target Market — Thailand

**Tier 1 — Small civil practice firms (primary target)**
- 1–10 attorneys
- Corporate civil, family, property disputes
- Currently running on Word + LINE + spreadsheets
- Price-sensitive but high pain
- Soi96 Legal is the archetype

**Tier 2 — Mid-size Thai firms**
- 10–50 attorneys
- Mixed practice areas
- May have legacy systems or bespoke builds they've outgrown
- Higher willingness to pay, longer sales cycle

**Tier 3 — International firms with Thai offices**
- Already using Clio or similar
- Need Thai-specific extensions, not a replacement
- Possible integration play, not a primary target

### Expansion Path

Thailand → ASEAN civil law jurisdictions with similar conditions:
- Vietnam (civil law, similar court structure, tech-forward)
- Cambodia (civil law, emerging legal market)
- Myanmar (when conditions permit)
- Indonesia (civil law, large market, complex)

Each jurisdiction requires a new template — same platform, different configuration.

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## The Moat

**Data** — each firm's AI trains on their own case history. After 12–24 months, their system knows their firm better than any generic platform could. That data advantage is not transferable to a competitor.

**Thai-language document processing** — classifying chanote deeds, DBD extracts, and Thai civil court filings automatically is a capability that takes time to build and train. First mover advantage is real here.

**Design partner advantage** — Soi96 Legal's attorney shaped the product in active practice. That's not a marketing claim — it means the matter structures, document taxonomy, and workflow reflect how Thai civil procedure actually works, not how a foreign software company imagined it might.

**Switching cost** — once a firm's matters, client KB, and communications history are in the system, the cost of moving to a competitor is high. This is a category where retention is naturally strong.

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## Build Estimate

| Component | Estimated Build Time |
|---|---|
| Matter model + CRUD + UI | 2–3 weeks |
| Time entry + billing | 2–3 weeks |
| Trust accounting (must be bulletproof) | 3–4 weeks |
| Conflict checking | 1 week |
| Court deadline calendar | 1–2 weeks |
| Document intake + AI classification | 2–3 weeks |
| Client KB (Approach B) | 2–3 weeks |
| Communications agent (email) | 2–3 weeks |
| LINE integration | 1–2 weeks |
| **MVP total** | **~3–4 months** |

Trust accounting is the highest-risk component. Getting it wrong exposes attorneys to disciplinary action by the Thai Bar Association — potentially including suspension. It must be built carefully, tested thoroughly, and reviewed against Thai Bar requirements before any client funds touch it.
