Charley Moore saw how difficult it was for most people to access the legal system during his time as a Silicon Valley attorney. He responded by founding Rocket Lawyer, a website that connects people and businesses with simple, affordable legal services.
Early Life and Education
Charley Moore had his first exposure to entrepreneurship as a young man growing up in the St. Louis area. His father owned a chain of gas stations, and working for them taught young Charley about the challenges of owning a business.
Moore says he aspired to be a lawyer from an early age. As a high-school student in Missouri, he was a member of a mock trial team that won the state championship. It was an experience that he would carry into adulthood.
After graduating from high school, Moore attended the US Naval Academy, where he completed his undergraduate degree in history in 1989. When the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait the following year, he left his job as a Naval research assistant to volunteer as an officer in the first Gulf War.
Following the completion of his service, Moore continued his education, first earning a master’s degree in business administration from San Francisco State University. During his final year there, he began studying at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Early Career
Moore went on to earn his juris doctorate in 1996, and he earned admittance to the California Bar later that year. His first job as an attorney came with the successful firm the Venture Law Group, where he represented several technology startups, including Yahoo.
Along with serving as an attorney for Yahoo as the company went public, Moore represented other Silicon Valley startups, including ones that were later purchased by Microsoft and Cisco Systems. Moore says that, through this work, he quickly fell in love with the field of internet law.
Moore spent 2 1/2 years with the Venture Law Group. He left at the end of 1998, his experience giving him an understanding of how precarious success in Silicon Valley could be. His old firm, for instance, ended up falling on tough times after the tech bubble collapse of the early 2000s, and by 2008 it ceased to exist.
By this time, Moore had gone into business for himself. He had established Onstation immediately after leaving the Venture Law Group, leading the automotive-industry company as CEO through early 2002. In 2006 he and his investors sold Onstation to a digital marketing firm.
Moore subsequently spent a year serving on the finance committee for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. In 2008 he turned his attention back to entrepreneurship, combining his unique experience in business, technology, and law to establish the company for which he is now best known.
Rocket Lawyer
The impetus for founding Rocket Lawyer came when Moore identified a gap in the legal market. As he told the California legal publication Daily Journal in 2014, there were not any cloud-based resources designed to help the average person or business owner navigate common legal issues.
Moore says he knew immediately that providing this service would be his new business. So strong was his belief in his idea that, after persuading his wife, he risked his family’s finances to launch the company.
Rocket Lawyer went online in 2008. Its first resource was an online form to create a living will. From the start, the company made attorneys available on its website, allowing members to consult with these legal professionals as they navigated their specific legal issues. This feature separated Rocket Lawyer from its competitors.
Moore patented his business idea, and within the company’s first year, Rocket Lawyer earned $1 million in revenue. The success was enough to attract $2.1 million in funding from LexisNexis in 2009, followed by a combined $18.5 million in funding from three separate investment firms in 2011.
The company has had several additional funding rounds over the intervening years. Most recently, it raised $223 million in 2021. Based in San Francisco, Rocket Lawyer has already expanded outside of the United States and into parts of Europe, and Moore says he intends to use the funding to continue its international growth.
Through this growth, Rocket Lawyer hopes to likewise grow its membership base, which as of 2023 sits at more than 25 million users. With the company’s help, these individuals and businesses enjoy access to more than 1,000 legal documents online as well as the expertise of a team of licensed on-call attorneys. In providing these services, Moore and his Rocket Lawyer team are committed to making quality legal representation affordable to everyone.
Charity
Charley Moore has given back over the years to his San Francisco community. Local organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco, EDFUND, and the Episcopal church Grace Cathedral have benefited from his leadership as a board member and trustee.
Moore has likewise supported his San Francisco community through Rocket Lawyer. Partnering with the Golden State Warriors, Rocket Lawyer donated $250,000 over the 2022-23 NBA season as part of the Defend Confidently campaign. The donation will benefit Generation Thrive, an organization that works on behalf of underserved young people.