How Vizlegal was built: a conversation with José Alberto Suárez López, co-founder and CTO

Legal information has always existed. The challenge has never been its existence. It has been making it genuinely accessible, structured, and usable for the professionals who need it most.

That is the problem José Alberto Suárez López and Gavin Sheridan set out to solve when they founded Vizlegal in 2015. More than a decade later, the platform serves thousands of legal professionals across Ireland and the UK, processing hundreds of thousands of new documents every day. José Alberto recently joined Teresa Suárez on Eureka: Historias andaluzas de éxito empresarial, a Canal Sur podcast celebrating Andalusian business success stories, where he reflected on the origins of Vizlegal and what building closely with practitioners has taught the team.

The founding idea emerged from a simple observation. An early client was visiting four or five websites every morning just to stay across case developments, checking where he had left off the day before and searching for any new mentions of his clients.

The first version of Vizlegal automated that one task for that one user. He stopped logging in after a few weeks. The day after access was cut off, he called to ask why his daily email had not arrived.

That moment shaped how Vizlegal approached product development from that point forward. The goal was never to build features. It was to remove friction from tasks that legal professionals had become so accustomed to doing manually that they had stopped noticing the cost.

Built with practitioners, not just for them

Neither founder came from a legal background. That made early conversations with practitioners essential. The approach has remained consistent throughout Vizlegal’s growth: sit with clients, understand their daily workflows, and build only what genuinely makes those workflows easier.

Onboarding is handled personally for every client, regardless of firm size, with as many sessions as needed to ensure the platform is being used effectively. This proximity to clients has shaped a product that is intentionally simple, while remaining flexible enough to serve very different practitioner profiles, from legal librarians conducting broad research to litigators tracking specific cases through multiple hearings.

Technology as a means, not a message

Vizlegal has used machine learning and artificial intelligence in its platform for years, well before AI became a standard feature claim in legal technology. The team has been deliberate about not leading with it.

Clients are not buying AI. They are buying time back, and confidence in the information they rely on. The platform currently processes around five to six million documents, with hundreds of thousands added daily. AI tools are used to manage that volume efficiently, rather than as visible features that require practitioners to change how they work.

What makes clients stay

The legal sector is more cautious about adopting new tools than most industries. That caution cuts both ways: winning a new client takes longer, but losing one is also less common.

Vizlegal’s retention comes down to two things. First, the platform solves a real problem in a way that becomes quickly indispensable. The pattern established with that very first user has repeated itself across thousands of practitioners since. Second, the team pays close attention to how clients are actually using the platform, reaching out proactively when something looks off rather than waiting for a support request.

The platform continues to expand its coverage, with recent additions including Unified Patent Court records and deeper integration of European legal sources alongside Irish and UK court decisions. If you would like to see what Vizlegal can do for your practice, book a demo today or get in touch at vizlegal.com/contact.