Every American pays into systems that are built to protect them when a crisis strikes. Our payroll taxes fund social safety net programs, our monthly premiums fund insurance coverage, and our employer contributions fund various benefits.
As a result, when something awful happens — a disabling illness, a workplace accident, a military injury — most theoretically have access to life-changing aid. Today, though, many never get it. Red tape, bureaucratic incompetence, and adversarial systems mean that millions of qualified people give up, get turned away, or simply never learn that they’re eligible.
Since 2021, we’ve partnered closely with Atticus on their simple yet powerful mission: to tear down barriers between Americans in crisis and the aid they need.
A win-win model for clients and attorneys
Atticus is a digitally native public-interest law firm. They offer clients a no-brainer deal: Atticus will help them figure out if they qualify for aid, get a top-quality lawyer to represent them, and do all the legwork to prove they’re eligible and win benefits. Clients pay nothing up front, and nothing if they lose; if they win, Atticus gets a regulated share of what they earn, paid directly by government or insurers.
The space Atticus works in is massive: safety net and insurance programs pay out more than $1 trillion to individuals annually — more than 4% of GDP. But the field has seen little innovation, even as other complex consumer spaces have launched category-defining companies.
Atticus’s founder and CEO Sam Byker spent years working in government and as a field organizer. He heard again and again from constituents whose families had spent years fighting red tape after an illness or accident. Later, while pursuing a JD/MBA at Stanford, he studied the systems they were fighting, and got to know existing players in the space: small law firms and nonprofits, some great and some awful — with clients rarely able to tell the difference.
Atticus pursued a unique model: It focused intensely on regulatory compliance (becoming a licensed law firm), and built partnerships with top established local lawyers. By offering them high-quality software, a steady stream of vetted clients, and an attractive revenue-sharing model, the company managed to get many of the best and longest-established law firms in the country on its platform quickly.
Re-imagining a legal system that works for everyone
As a result, growth has been fast: since its launch in 2019, Atticus has grown to be the #1 firm in the country helping disabled Americans get benefits. In 2023, it will help 25,000 clients — who as a result of its work will get more than $3 billion in lifetime aid. Its 80-person cross-discipline team includes lawyers, software engineers, product managers, marketers, and client experience agents — each role required to deliver the comprehensive experience.
The company’s first vertical was Social Security Disability, and it’s since expanded to workers’ compensation and a handful of other programs. The core focus today is on scaling its technology to create a seamless journey for clients, and to empower lawyers with better tools to scale their practice and effectively win more cases.
As we at Forerunner think about some of the biggest opportunities ahead, we come back to consumers’ core life needs still largely unmet despite so many tech-driven advancements over the past decade.
When we look around, we see a society that’s grappling with how to maintain their personal health and wellbeing (both mentally and physically), grasping for financial security and career fulfillment amid increased economic uncertainty, and generally struggling to live contented, purposeful lives.
Some of the most profound opportunities for entrepreneurship lie in rebuilding these core life foundations to work for today’s increasingly complex set of consumers. Atticus fits squarely into this nexus by arming people with an easy, powerful entrypoint to getting rightful aid in a crisis — a problem that disproportionately impacts middle and lower socioeconomic populations.
Since Forerunner led Atticus’ series A in 2021, the team has executed with great speed and intention. We were eager to deepen our support in their series B fundraise earlier this year, and are proud to continue to closely partner as they expand to provide great representation for all Americans.