While listening to the WNYC food podcast Sporkful, George Simons isn’t just inspired by learning about exotic foods and exploring new cuisines. At first glance, legal documents and food might not seem to have much in common, but in fact, they share one similar element: both are hard to send in the mail. Simons, a BYU Marriott School of Business MBA alum and co-founder and CEO of Solosuit, recognized the difficulty of sending responses to lawsuits through the mail, so he set out to make the process easier.
The idea for SoloSuit started during Simons’ studies at BYU, where he earned his JD/MBA. “According to the World Justice Report, only 74 percent of people know where to find legal advice,” Simons says. “The reality is that corporations can afford an attorney, but people can’t.”
At BYU Marriott, Simons participated in the Ballard Center’s Social Venture Academy and was also mentored by Aaron Miller, a professor at BYU Marriott’s Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics. Miller was interested in Simons’ idea because of its impact on social injustice, an issue that SoloSuit strives to fix. “I felt fortunate to have someone with such great experience believing in and supporting the product,” Simons says. “Professor Miller was aware that for many people, hiring an attorney is a financial hardship.”
Simons recalls during one of their meetings that Miller helped him see the impact that could come from SoloSuit. “Professor Miller’s validation of my idea was meaningful. He understood that we're not just focused on making a profit: we work to provide a valuable service to the people who need it most,” says Simons.
That idea has now become a reality for Simons as SoloSuit provides assistance for individuals to respond to lawsuits using an automated software that helps people navigate the often-complicated process of handling legal documents related to debt collection.
Before earning his JD/MBA from BYU and BYU Marriott in 2020, Simons received his undergraduate degree in political science from BYU–Idaho in 2013. After graduation Simons moved to Alaska to work for the United States’ Republican National Committee, where he helped create an application that mapped voter geography throughout the states. During his time in Alaska, Simons realized that technology in politics was not user friendly. “Political technology is so bad it is practically unusable,” Simons says. “When I came to law school, I saw similarly archaic and poorly-designed technology in use. That’s why I made the decision to grow SoloSuit.”
When Simons is not working, he enjoys cooking. As he listens to Sporkful, Simons learns more about foods and places he has yet to explore. “I recently listened to an episode about Taylor Ham, a controversial food item known for its exclusivity to New Jersey,” Simons says. “At the same time that I was listening to the podcast, I was assisting a customer who lives in New Jersey.”
The client offered to send a Taylor Ham in the mail from New Jersey to Utah, but he couldn’t send it because of trouble at the post office. “The post office is super hard to use. That’s why customers pay SoloSuit to send their legal documents for them,” Simons says.
Ultimately, Simons never received his ham because sending the package was so difficult. “If you can’t send a Taylor Ham in the mail, you probably can’t send a legal document either,” he says. Simons hopes one day he will be able to get a Taylor Ham in the mail with ease, just as he hopes to make delivering court documents more seamless.
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Writer: Madi Wickham
