Content warning: This article discusses domestic and family violence and family court proceedings. If you need support, please refer to the resources listed at the end of this article.
For many women navigating the legal system mid-separation, there’s a daunting task waiting amongst the chaos. Years of scrolling back through text messages, many they would rather forget – and screenshotting them one by one, hoping they haven’t missed something crucial.
Jenny Rudd, founder of Dispute Buddy, knows that feeling well.
In 2021, she spent 20 hours screenshotting and organising texts for a Family Court application, and still walked away with a $10,000 legal bill.
“I just assumed [my lawyer] had some platform that would suck out my texts and give her what she needed,” Jenny tells us. There wasn’t. So she built one.
Dispute Buddy is used as a desktop app to download texts for court and analyse years of messages into a lawyer-ready report. It’s a one-off fee, and you can use it for life.
Users select the relevant contacts and date ranges, and within one to two hours they have a structured document ready to hand to their solicitor, complete with attachments.
We spoke with Jenny about Dispute Buddy, the realities of gathering evidence under pressure, and why she believes getting organised is the first step back to solid ground in a legal system often working against victim-survivors.
Q&A With Jenny Rudd, Founder of Dispute Buddy
“I Thought There Must Be Some Magic Platform”
You’ve been open about the personal experience that led you to create Dispute Buddy. Was there a specific moment when you realised there had to be a better way?
“In 2020, I had to make an emergency application to Family Court to make my children safe. My ex was [drug dependent on Methamphetamine, (Meth)].
My lawyer said, “Send me your texts and messages so I can prepare your affidavit.” I was like, um, send them how? Which texts?
I just assumed she had some platform that would suck out my texts and give her what she needed to build my case.
There was no magical text-sucking platform, though! I had to screenshot hundreds of texts and guess which ones were important. Not ideal given how high the stakes were.
So I built what I needed back then. We now have Dispute Buddy customers in the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand using our app to download texts for court, and analyse years of messages into a lawyer-ready report.
It’s an insanely special feeling to know your day job is helping people to navigate the same terrifying ordeal I went through.
The last year has been wild. Dispute Buddy won the Airwallex Global Growth Grant, raised an oversubscribed pre-seed round to bring our product to market, and most importantly, has helped hundreds of people download texts for court without reading a single painful one.”
Removing The Cognitive Load
Dispute Buddy analyses patterns of behaviour like control or threats – sometimes ones people might not even be aware of. How did you decide what the AI should look for, and how hands-off can someone be with the content when using it?
“Our users arrive on our website overwhelmed and frightened. They have no idea what they need to give their lawyer. Most of them have never done this before.
We’ve designed Dispute Buddy to remove cognitive load with a very simple design and step-by-step instructions. Most importantly, you can get a PDF report with your message history and a behaviour analysis without doing anything apart from a couple of clicks.”
“We’ve developed our analysis with input from hundreds of users and lawyers. It’s like the first mile in evidence gathering.
Our analysis groups behaviours into themes like manipulation, or putting children at risk, or financial control, and then provides links to texts in the message history that support it.
Users and lawyers absolutely love it. Our live chat is full of love heart emojis.”
What Lawyers Actually Think
Legal fees can escalate quickly. What have you heard from lawyers about how this changes their workflow?
“The interesting conversations I have are with attorneys who are using Dispute Buddy for their own personal use.
They have such a clear understanding of the benefit to both lawyer and user. Katherine Baker, a criminal attorney in Washington and Oregon, told us she could see it saving up to a whopping 15 hours of legal bills.
Not to mention saving your sanity.
And honestly, no lawyer goes to law school to learn how to format huge documents of text messages, so they all love it too. It frees up time for lawyers to do lawyering.”
Privacy First, Always
Privacy is understandably a huge concern when the content is so intimate and difficult. How did you design the product to prioritise user security from day one?
“We don’t see, read, collect, or keep any of our users’ message data. Our system does the work – searching and organising messages – locally on our user’s computer. Then the behaviour analysis is done in our secure cloud, after which that portion of data is immediately deleted.
The only personally identifiable information we keep is the user’s name and email address so they can log in.
It’s not good for anyone if we hold their data. It makes them and us vulnerable. And – it doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to them.
When you make business decisions with your values at the core, they are easy to make.”
“People Arrive Overwhelmed and Leave Feeling in Control”
What surprised you most when you had your very first Dispute Buddy user?
“We get daily messages of thanks, which makes us feel amazing to know we have genuinely helped these incredibly brave people.
I thought the job would feel “heavy” with the stories of coercion and abuse, but actually it’s also very uplifting. People arrive at our website overwhelmed and daunted. Within an hour they feel in control – often for the first time in years – and ready to take the next step to freedom.”
Building a Business on Lived Experience
What has fundraising and navigating the venture capital investment space been like as a female founder?
“One of the enormous benefits of being a 50-year-old tech founder is experience.
I have built and sold a business before, hired and managed a team, built systems so our business could scale, learned how to read a profit and loss sheet, and figured out how to sell.
By the time Dispute Buddy came to life, I had a very clear idea of what I was good and bad at.”
“I have built a business that leans hard into my unfair advantages – like the fact I have lived experience of what my users are going through.
Part of the reason we were able to sell our previous business (which I built with my gorgeous and talented husband Matty) for such a great multiple was the systems and processes I had built in.
I also learned that I am great at making people feel excited about what we’re doing, but I don’t really enjoy managing teams of people.
So my business has a tiny team – basically me and Seth Bell, my CTO – a lot of AI embedded in our workflows, an insanely talented CFO, Candice Tait, and a few contractors who come in and out.
We like working with contractors rather than hiring employees. I like the reciprocal nature of an agreement with a contractor rather than the hierarchical nature of employer and employee.”
If You’re Reading This And You’re Overwhelmed
If someone is reading this who has left a bad relationship, needs to record a timeline of what happened, and is feeling overwhelmed – what would you say to them directly?
“Start by creating a timeline of your texts using Dispute Buddy. And also – YOU CAN DO IT! I BELIEVE IN YOU!”
How Dispute Buddy Works
For anyone who’s wondering what the process actually looks like step by step:
- Purchase Dispute Buddy at disputebuddy.co and download it to your Mac or PC
- Connect your iPhone to your computer using an Apple cable
- Enter the names of relevant contacts and select your date range
- Leave the phone connected for 20 minutes to two hours while the app searches and organises messages
- Choose whether to export just the message history, or include the AI behaviour analysis report
- Save your PDF
- When you close the app, all temporary message files are deleted from your computer
The app currently supports iPhone and iPad. Android compatibility is coming. Group chats and messages in other languages are both supported.
You can learn more about Dispute Buddy and download the app at disputebuddy.co.
Next Steps
You’re not alone – here are some places you can turn to for support:
1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) – National counselling service for sexual assault, domestic and family violence. There’s also an anonymous online chat you can access at 1800respect.org.au, with a quick exit feature.
Did you know? Centrelink offers a Crisis Payment for family and domestic violence. Important: Contact Centrelink or make a claim within seven days of your living arrangements changing.
Leave a Reply