The Albanian woman who makes contracts click

Efficient support to entrepreneurs comes through automation 

As a young lawyer who had studied corporate law in Albania and abroad, Kristiana was growing frustrated by spending time on simple legal services that kept her focus away from more important issues.

“I came to realise that many legal services can be automated, but that this service did not exist in Albania. During lockdown, I had time to think and come up with ideas on how to fix this problem,” she says.

Legit, the start-up Kristiana founded, is a digital platform that aims to provide high-quality, fast and easily accessible legal services for Albanian entrepreneurs. The platform enables the creation of legal documents such as an employment contract, an authorisation, or a property lease. Users are asked to respond to a short questionnaire and then their personalised legal document is ready in just a few minutes. The other key feature of the platform is its matchmaking function for contracting legal professionals.

“Legit’s digital services are unique in Albania and, I believe, in the whole Western Balkans region.” Kristiana says with enthusiasm of her approach that is based on western market models. From the start, she has also targeted the Kosovo market, where there are similar laws and Albanian spoken as a primary language.

Kristiana’s platform also has a section dedicated to informing young entrepreneurs and founders about incubation, acceleration and funding opportunities, and legal guidance is provided in Legit’s blog posts.

Go for what you believe in

Born as an idea during lockdown, Legit has progressed to now being ready for launch. The process of setting up the business was not easy, and Kristiana has published all the challenges in an eBook to set out all the legal elements required. A grant through the EU for Innovation initiative in 2021, provided capacity development and the technical expertise to develop and promote the platform in March 2022.

“The EU support is really welcome since it fills a gap left by the market and the institutions who are yet to put in place a special fund for start-ups,” explains Kristiana.

She sees the need for continuous work to improve unmet legal needs more effectively so her learning and ideas for improving the Legit platform do not end here. The start-up aims to grow together with experts who will develop its products further. Kristiana says that she is inclined to invite women to join her in the start-up journey, despite her acknowledgement that she grew as a lawyer and entrepreneur by learning mostly from men.

Kristiana’s advice for young women who want to engage in business or further develop their careers: “Just go for what you believe in! #NoRegrets.”