My father once told me a story about a boy in a small wooden boat. Waves rocked it. The rain would not stop. A leak opened, and all the boy had was a bucket. To reach the other side, he had to keep going.
I carried that story with me. In 2017, I used it to open my application to the London School of Economics. I was finishing law school, but already thinking seriously about a different future.
I wanted to build technology.
Alongside my legal studies, I was taking online computer-science courses, including courses from Harvard. I was drawn to entrepreneurship and imagined a future in Silicon Valley. Applying for the MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at LSE was a step towards that ambition.
On 20 June 2017, the answer arrived. I had not been accepted.
I went into legal practice. The ambition to build stayed with me.
What practice taught me
In my first articling role, three lawyers were supported by eight staff. I saw what a team around counsel made possible. I later worked in a larger firm, then came to understand the demands of building and running a practice myself.
My work took me through high-conflict family litigation, urgent proceedings and appeals before the Alberta Court of Appeal. I learned how much depends on preparation: knowing the record, understanding what has changed and being ready to exercise judgment when a client needs it.
I also learned how much work surrounds that judgment.
There were court dates, deadlines and client meetings to balance. Running the firm meant taking responsibility for staffing, administration, finances and everything else that allowed the legal work to happen. While I was focused on one matter, every other file kept moving.
The information was usually somewhere: an email, an attachment, a calendar entry, a conversation or a legal pad. Keeping it connected—and remembering what still had to happen—was another job entirely.
I could leave the office and still be thinking about the reply we were waiting for, the instruction that had changed or the file I needed to return to. Too much of the practice came home with me.
The responsibility was mine. Holding the entire practice in my head should not have been.
The support was gone. The responsibility was not.
The introduction of Alberta’s Family Focused Protocol brought another period of adjustment. I was learning new procedures and changing how we prepared and advanced matters, alongside the daily work of running the firm.
Then, at the end of May, I lost my assistant and support staff.
The clients, court dates and obligations were still there, just like the endless rainfall. I had to keep the work moving while working out how to run the firm without the support I had relied on. I knew how to work hard. In that period, I did not know where to turn.
I found myself thinking about my father’s boat.
Determination had carried me a long way. But I could see the limits of relying on more hours, more checking and more things to remember. A practice needed continuity that did not depend so heavily on one person holding everything together.
A strong team matters. So does a system that supports the team: one that keeps context and unfinished work visible when someone is away, an urgent matter takes over or the day stops going to plan.
That was where NISI began.
I once thought a future in technology would take me away from law. Years in practice showed me what I had to build.
Judgment remains yours. You stay in control.
NISI is a legal operating platform we are developing inside my Alberta family-law practice. We are building it around the lawyer and the live state of each matter: what has happened, what remains unresolved and what needs attention next.
The purpose is to create dependable support around counsel: connecting communications, evidence, documents and deadlines; helping prepare substantive legal work; and following approved steps through to completion.
I want a lawyer to return from court and understand what needs them, without having to reconstruct the whole practice first. I want a quieter file to remain visible. I want the next step to stay connected to the decision that created it, and to know whether it actually happened.
That only works if counsel can inspect the sources, understand the uncertainty and control consequential action. Privilege, confidentiality and professional judgment are requirements the product has to meet.
We are building NISI to work across the systems a firm uses, without tying its purpose to one AI model or software provider. The technology underneath will change. The lawyer’s need for dependable support will remain.
The standard is practical: does this help counsel understand the matter, do the work and see it through?
Why NISI
The name comes from decree nisi—a conditional decree, not yet final.
For me, it captures the importance of what remains to be done. There are conditions to satisfy and steps to complete. Preparing something is not the same as finishing it.
We are building NISI to preserve that connection between a decision and its follow-through, with counsel remaining in control.
More room to practice. More room to flourish.
We are starting with Alberta family law because that is where I practice, and where NISI must first earn its place.
The ambition is to give lawyers more room for the work that called them to this profession: understanding a difficult case, preparing an argument, advising a client and helping someone find a way forward. And to make it easier to leave the office without carrying every unfinished detail home.
Behind every matter is a person whose life continues while the file is waiting. Keeping the work moving matters to them. Having the support to do it well matters to us.
My father taught me to keep going. I still carry that lesson.
I am building NISI so that keeping going does not have to mean carrying it all alone.
That is how we let lawyers keep lawyering—and keep every matter moving forward.