# Drafty AI

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/draftyai/ · added 2026-11-05 · updated 2026-11-06

**In short.** Drafty AI (AI drafting workspace for immigration attorneys, USA): Dozens of paying law firms, January 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 3 co-founders (an immigration attorney and two engineers); total headcount not published. Launched June 2023; still running, revenue growing.

AI drafting workspace for immigration attorneys · USA · AI-native · team of 2 to 10 · still running, revenue growing · group: Legal and law firms

- Outcome: Dozens of paying law firms, January 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: E; no revenue figure)
- Launch: June 2023; months from launch to the outcome: 31
- Team: 3 co-founders (an immigration attorney and two engineers); total headcount not published
- Outside funding: Less than US$1M in outside funding (company statement, January 2026)
- Main factor: A practicing attorney as co-founder
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 2
- Tags: AI-native, Small team, Funded, Running, B2B, Legal

Links:

- Visit draftyai.com: https://www.draftyai.com/

**The product.** A web workspace in which a US immigration attorney uploads a client's evidence or answers a guided questionnaire, and the software writes a first draft of the petition brief, motion, RFE response, expert letter, exhibit list or translation. The attorney edits each section and exports it in the firm's own template. Sign-up asks for a valid US bar license number.

**Why it worked.** Immigration practice is heavy with long written filings, and one of the three co-founders runs an immigration practice herself. The team showed a first asylum-brief tool at the national conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in June 2023, added case types from attorney feedback, and sells through conferences, education sessions and referrals.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

Drafty AI is a legal drafting assistant, software that writes the first version of a legal document for a lawyer to review, built only for US immigration law. An attorney opens one matter, the law-firm word for one client case, uploads the evidence, and gets drafts of the brief, the response to a USCIS RFE (Request for Evidence, a letter in which the immigration agency asks for more proof) or an exhibit list. The company says it masks client details before any text reaches its AI providers.

Nadine Navarro, a Florida immigration attorney who runs her own practice, is CEO; Antuan Vazquez (COO) and Javier Garcia (CTO), two engineers who earlier ran a cloud consulting firm together, are the other co-founders. The company told LawNext it was founded on 13 April 2023; it showed its first tool in June 2023. In January 2026 it told LawNext that it had "dozens of active paying law firms" and less than US$1M in outside funding.

No revenue figure was found. The evidence is grade E: a live product with public prices and the company's own statements about customers.

## Pricing

Drafty AI prices in November 2026, read from the company's pricing page (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base plan: 1 seat, 10 matters | 208.33 | 250 | all six studios; unlimited drafts per matter |
| Each extra seat | 83.33 | 100 | one user login; matters are a shared firm pool |
| Each matter above 10 |  | 10 | page example: 35 matters cost US$500 a month |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | volume pricing, SSO, account manager; about 10 users or 100 matters a month and up |

The base plan of US$250 a month includes one seat and ten matters. Each extra seat is US$100 a month. Matters cost US$25 each for the first ten and US$10 each above ten; overage, off by default, is US$20 a matter. The page says yearly billing gives two months free; the yearly column is calculated as ten months' price spread over twelve. Drafts inside a matter are not metered. A 4-day Starter Trial with 2 matters needs no card.

## How much revenue does Drafty AI make? The numbers, graded

A live product with published prices and, by the company's own count, dozens of paying law firms in January 2026; no revenue figure published

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paying customers, January 2026 | "dozens of active paying law firms" | C | Company's own entry on the LawNext Startup Alley ballot, 12 January 2026. LawNext says the descriptions were provided by each company. No exact count. | [1] |
| Founded | 13 April 2023, Coral Gables, Florida | C | Company's LawNext entry. The footer of the site names Drafty AI Inc.; the terms of service use Delaware law. | [1, 3, 8] |
| First public showing | AILA National Conference, Orlando, end of June 2023, with one tool, the asylum brief | C | Nadine Navarro on the Docketwise podcast, November 2023: "We first unveiled our product at the Aila National Conference in Orlando this year." | [5] |
| Founding team | 3 co-founders: CEO, COO and CTO | C | Company's founder pages. The LawNext entry describes a woman immigration attorney as leader, built "alongside two co-founders who are also immigrants". Total headcount is not published. | [4, 1] |
| Outside funding | less than US$1M | C | Company's LawNext entry, January 2026, choosing a range on the form. No round or investor is named. | [1] |
| List price | from US$250 a month (1 seat, 10 matters) | C | Pricing page, read 5 November 2026. The LawNext entry of January 2026 said "Various monthly plans starting at $250 per person." | [2, 1] |
| Who may sign up | US-licensed attorneys with a valid bar license number | C | Terms of service: "Drafty AI is designed specifically for use by attorneys licensed within the United States." | [8] |
| AI models | OpenAI's GPT-4 in November 2023; "AI providers via APIs" today, not named | C | Docketwise podcast transcript: the product is "powered by Open AI's Chat GPT" and on "the latest Chat GPT four model", with other models in testing. The current FAQ does not name the providers. | [5, 9] |
| Customer claim on time saved | "up to 60%" of drafting time | C | Company's LawNext entry and home page ("verified by customers"). Not checked by any outside party. | [1, 3] |
| How customers are found | founder-led education, referrals and conference exposure | C | Company's LawNext entry, January 2026. | [1] |
| Time from first showing to the headline fact | 31 months | calc | Calculated: June 2023 to January 2026. | [5, 1] |

How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the company on its own pages, in its LawNext entry or in a podcast. A "calc" value was computed on this page. No value is grade A or B, and no money outcome exists.

## When did Drafty AI launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From one asylum-brief tool shown at a conference to six drafting studios sold per matter, in about two and a half years. Each entry carries its grade.

- **13 April 2023** (grade C [1, 5]): Founding date given by the company. The idea came when Vazquez showed Navarro a demo of ChatGPT writing a visa brief.
- **June 2023** (grade C [5]): First showing at the AILA National Conference in Orlando, with the asylum brief in testing.
- **November 2023** (grade C [5, 7]): On the Docketwise podcast the founders describe a beta asylum brief, a preview of I-601A waiver drafts not yet charged for, and GPT-4 inside the product.
- **2025** (grade C [7]): Press page lists a Clio blog mention (28 April), an ABA Journal tools list (23 June) and AILA's Innovators' Spotlight (5 August).
- **12 January 2026** (grade C [1]): Drafty AI is one of 25 semifinalists on the LawNext Startup Alley ballot and says it has dozens of paying law firms.
- **November 2026** (grade C [2, 3]): Live with six drafting studios, per-matter prices from US$250 a month and a free trial.

## Why did Drafty AI work?

### A practicing attorney as co-founder

Navarro still ran her own immigration practice in November 2023. Her work on talent-based petitions, which need long written briefs, set what the product drafts first, and her place in AILA conferences gave the first audience.

### One narrow practice area

The product covers US immigration only: asylum, waivers, removal defense, family and employment petitions, RFE responses. The prompts, templates and legal research are built for those filings, which the company uses as its argument against general chat tools.

### Price per case, not per draft

A firm pays for seats and for matters; every draft inside a matter is included. This ties the price to the unit a law firm already bills, one client case.

### Selling through the profession

Conference talks, education sessions, webinars and free tools for attorneys, then a trial without a card. The company told LawNext that most growth came from founder-led education, referrals and conferences.

## How it was built

These details come from the company's own pages and a podcast with two co-founders. They are grade C.

- A web application that calls AI models through providers' APIs. In November 2023 the founders described OpenAI's GPT-4 with many curated prompts, not one; the current pages do not name the providers.
- Client and attorney names are masked before a prompt goes to the AI provider; the company says its contracts stop the providers from training on customer inputs.
- Built-in legal research and jurisdiction-specific formatting; output is an editable Word document in the firm's own template.
- The CTO is a former MITRE engineer and a Y Combinator alumnus of an earlier company; the COO's background is biomedical and cloud engineering. The company says it built security in from the start.
- Three free AI chatbots for attorneys (a translator with a translation certificate, a growth advisor, a marketing advisor) bring visitors to the site.

Sources: [5, 9, 3, 4, 10]

## Who tried this before Drafty AI, and why did they fail?

Three companies in our database of failed startups promised to automate legal work with software and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Atrium (2017 to 2021; funding US$75M; cause: Product/Tech Failure)

- Promise: Automate legal work for startups, faster and cheaper than a large law firm.
- Why it died: The automation could not handle real legal complexity, so costs stayed high while quality did not match established firms.
- Record: 

### ROSS Intelligence (2015 to 2018; funding US$13M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: AI legal research that finds relevant case law faster than the old databases.
- Why it died: Lawyers stayed with Westlaw and LexisNexis, whose data and integrations were hard to leave.
- Record: 

### jEugene (2015 to 2018; funding US$120K; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A checker that finds errors and inconsistencies in contract drafts.
- Why it died: Broader AI contract tools arrived, law firms adopted slowly, and it needed custom work for each client type.
- Record: 

## What changed

The three predecessors tried to automate legal work before language models could write long, fluent text. Atrium tried to replace the law firm itself; Drafty AI leaves the attorney in charge and only writes the first draft, which the attorney must review and sign.

Drafty AI also chose one practice area with many repeated, long filings and sells to the small firms that do them. Whether that is a durable business is not shown: no revenue figure is published, and many other immigration AI tools sell the same promise.

## Can one person copy Drafty AI now?

**Verdict: Yes, with a licensed professional on the team.**

The method is open to a small team: pair a working professional with engineers, pick one practice area with long repeated documents, price per case, and sell where that profession already meets. The hard part to copy is trust: a lawyer must accept the drafts and the data handling.

1. Find a co-founder who does the work every week and will test the drafts on real cases.
2. Start with the one document type that takes the most writing, and add the next from user requests.
3. Mask client data before it reaches a model provider, and say so in plain words.
4. Show the product at the profession's own conferences and education sessions.

**What is still open.** Other practice areas with long, repeated filings for small firms: Social Security disability appeals, bankruptcy, workers' compensation, patent office responses.

## What could go wrong for Drafty AI?

- **What is not verified.** No revenue figure was found. I looked for a payment-processor profile, a revenue figure in the LawNext entry and the Docketwise podcast, and a funding announcement. The only customer figure is the company's own "dozens of active paying law firms" in January 2026, with no exact count. The trend "growing" rests on the same entry's words "steady month-over-month growth in users and engagement". A reader could look for a later interview with a firm count or revenue, or a disclosed funding round.
- **Startup Alley finalist claim.** The company's press page says Drafty AI "was selected as one of 15 finalists for the 2026 ABA TECHSHOW Startup Alley competition" and links to LawNext's article of 16 February 2026. That article's list of the 15 finalists, downloaded on 5 November 2026, does not include Drafty AI; LawNext's ballot of 12 January 2026 lists it among the 25 semifinalists.
- **Competition.** In its LawNext entry the company named its own competitors: "CaseBlink, Visalaw.ai, Parley, Imagility, and Visas.ai, as well as general legal drafting tools embedded in platforms like Clio or Filevine." The same Startup Alley ballot had a second immigration case-preparation product that made the finalist list.
- **Dependence on model providers.** The drafts come from outside AI models: GPT-4 from OpenAI in November 2023, and unnamed "AI providers via APIs" in the current FAQ. A change in a provider's price, terms or model behaviour reaches the product directly; the founders said in 2023 that they were testing other models to run in tandem.
- **Legal-ethics responsibility.** The terms say users must make sure AI-generated documents meet their professional ethical standards and that Drafty AI is not responsible for that. Sign-up is limited to licensed US attorneys, so the product is not sold to people who file their own petitions.

## Sources

1. LawNext (Bob Ambrogi), 12 January 2026: Voting Is Now Open! Pick the 15 Finalists to Compete At Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW 2026 in March — https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/voting-is-now-open-pick-the-15-finalists-to-compete-at-startup-alley-at-aba-techshow-2026-in-march.html (grade C). Read the DraftyAI entry. The text was written by the company. Source for the founding date, paying firms, funding range, price, channels and competitors.
2. Drafty AI pricing page, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/pricing/ (grade C). Read in full. Source for the price table and the trial.
3. Drafty AI home page, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/ (grade C). Read in full. Source for the product, the case types, the time-saved claim and the data masking.
4. Drafty AI About Us and founder pages (Nadine Navarro, Antuan Vazquez, Javier Garcia), read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/about-us/ (grade C). Read in full, with the three founder pages under /about-us/. Source for the founders, their roles and backgrounds.
5. Docketwise, Immigration Uncovered podcast: AI Revolutionizing Immigration Practices with Nadine Navarro and Antuan Vazquez (November 2023) — https://www.docketwise.com/podcast/ai-revolutionizing-immigration-practice-with-co-founder-of-drafty-ai-nadine-navarro/ (grade C). Read the full transcript. It is an automatic transcript with mixed-up speaker labels. Source for the origin, the first showing, the product stage and GPT-4.
6. LawNext (Bob Ambrogi), 16 February 2026: The Votes Are In! Here Are the 15 Legal Tech Startups Selected for the 2026 Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW — https://www.lawnext.com/2026/02/the-votes-are-in-here-are-the-15-legal-tech-startups-selected-for-the-2026-startup-alley-at-aba-techshow.html (grade B). Read in full. Journalist's list of the 15 finalists; Drafty AI is not on it.
7. Drafty AI press page and its Docketwise, Bloomberg Law and Startup Alley press pages, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/press/ (grade C). Read in full. Company's own list of press mentions with dates. The Bloomberg Law article was not fetched because its robots.txt blocks Claude agents.
8. Drafty AI terms of service, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/terms-of-service/ (grade C). Read the sections on eligibility and compliance with laws and ethical standards.
9. Drafty AI FAQ, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/faq/ (grade C). Read in full. Source for the AI-provider data handling and masking.
10. Drafty AI free AI tools for immigration attorneys, read 5 November 2026 — https://www.draftyai.com/free-ai-tools-for-immigration-attorneys/ (grade C). Read in full. Source for the three free chatbots.
11. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run Drafty AI? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: Drafty AI).