Page 20 - NC Triangle Vol 7 No 1

Legal Innovators
Upstate: Tracking Legislation in Real Time
BY BOB FRIEDMAN
SPONSORED BY LAWYERS MUTUAL
Kelly Garvy was doing research in 2016, for a master’s degree in Environmental Management and Economic Policy Duke.
“I was headed towards a career in sci- enti c research studying the environ- ment,” said Garvy. “I was really drawn to economics and policy classes.”
“I was just trying to learn more about what sort of things we could do in North Carolina to protect the en- vironment. As I started to try to nd out how the NC General Assembly worked, I found it was really hard for me as someone with a masters in pol- icy to navigate it. e more I dug, the more I thought there should be a better way to do this.”
In 2016, the idea for Upstate was born and beta testing began last year. Upstate is an app that lets users track legislation through the NC General Assembly in real time.
e rst step for Garvy was learning the legislative path. “I asked a former environmental law professor of mine if he knew how to navigate state legisla- tion in North Carolina. He put me in touch with a former lobbyist who sat down with me for well over an hour, breaking down the rules, customs, and generally how everything works. I was blown away by how di cult it was to navigate and how inaccessible it was.
“We spent a lot of time designing noti cations so that they would strike the right balance, where important updates would interrupt you, but less important updates wouldn’t annoy you or ood your inbox,” said Garvy. “In my opinion, important text up- dates right to your phone in real time is a game changer. I use the tracker for certain bills and topics that I’m inter- ested in, and getting that text is much more convenient than having to si through an inbox. I also don’t check my email all day every day - I prefer to work for long periods of times with- out distractions. But there are some issues that are important enough to interrupt work and that’s where text
updates are really convenient.” Companies, lobbyists and non- pro ts that subscribe to Upstate iden- tify the speci c bills or issues they want to track then keywords are then identi ed. For instance, Democracy NC is tracking keywords like gerry-
mandering and voter suppression. Proposed legislation is tracked from its introduction in the Gen- eral Assembly until it is approved or killed. e legislation is not tracked if it goes to the judicial or executive
branches.
Big Ideas
Upstate was launched in 2016 with angel capital. It was one of several
companies that made presentations at the recent Duke Law Tech Lab’s sec- ond annual Big Ideas Demo Day. “We were excited not only about Kelly’s ap- proach to hearing from a broad range of voices as she builds her company but also about Upstate’s aim to de- mocratize involvement in state civic processes.” said Je Ward, director of Duke’s Center on Law & Technology which hosted the event.
Garvy said the event has generated interest in Upstate and might attract new capital in the future.
Upstate hopes to expand its app be- yond North Carolina in the future. In the interim, Garvy is the only employ- ee and says she is vigilant about costs.
“We are still working on what is the best pricing model for users and what also allows for the public to have ac- cess, but we believe that we’ll keep the in-app noti cations for bill tracking free forever,” said Garvy. “ ere are also a lot of ideas we have for creat- ing more value for both the premium users and the free users that may be communicating with premium us- ers, and we’re excited to beta some of these ideas this session, as well.” UPSTATE
[email protected] (919) 701-9644
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