Imagine you get a speeding ticket and wanted to hire a lawyer to fight it (not exactly sure if traffic tickets in the UK what they are in the US...basically a tax on the populace).
Here is the problem: to hire a lawyer, you must discuss your case with a human from the law firm who can evaluate the facts and generate a fee. In other words for a legal fee to be competitive you obviously can't charge the same for a seat belt ticket as a accident with a fatality. But, probably the real truth of the legal industry, especially tickets, is that fees are more often based on what they think a client can and will pay without calling another firm to compare prices.
As far as I can tell this is why the YC company needed to raise funding, so they could hire a staff to evaluate the tickets, act as a middle man between potential client and the lawyer, and then deliver the fee/retain the client. My belief is they are trying to experiment with a single flat fee across a jurisdiction (i.e. $150 for any ticket in California), again a problem because not all cases are the same and such a model is not fair to the client or the lawyer.
What we did was invent a business method to automatically calculate a legal fee for individual cases. Our method allowed clients to calculate their own fees (transparent pricing) and hire a lawyer 24/7 without the need for staff (automation).