Built by someone who’s been there — for everyone still in it.

Start My Claim is a calm, AI-powered tool for anyone in the UK who is owed money, has been dismissed, pushed out, harassed, scammed, evicted, or treated in a way they know isn’t right — across employment tribunals, the small claims court, bank scam refund complaints, and Renters’ Rights Act claims at the First-tier Tribunal. Our founder has been where you are — three times. He built the tool he wished had existed.

About Start My Claim

Built by someone who’s been there — for everyone still in it.

Three times I needed it. Three times it didn’t exist.

I didn’t set out to build a legal tech company. I built Start My Claim because I needed it three times, and it didn’t exist any of those times.

The first time was about twelve years ago. A company owed me money and refused to pay. I filed in the small claims court, won, and when they still wouldn’t pay I instructed enforcement agents. They arrived, assessed the goods on site, and the payment cleared before they’d finished loading. The whole thing was filmed and broadcast on BBC One’s

The Sheriffs Are Coming

. The system works — if you know how to use it. Most people don’t, because no one explains it to them.

The second time was in 2018. I represented myself through my own divorce in the family court — without a solicitor, against one. That was when I first learned what it felt like to face the legal system alone: reading procedure rules at midnight, working out what each form was actually asking, and absorbing how much of the law quietly assumes there’s a lawyer beside you catching the details you can’t.

The third time was harder. A couple of years ago I went through my own employment tribunal. I started with a solicitor; then the bills started coming and, with no income, I couldn’t keep paying. So I made the decision most people in that situation make: I stopped.

What followed frightened me. I was alone on the other side of a process I didn’t understand, reading formal emails from the other side’s lawyers, filling in forms that assumed I already knew the answers, and reading case law at 3am with the constant low anxiety that I was about to miss the deadline that ended my case. It was one of the loneliest things I’ve ever done.

“What if there had been something that could read those emails for me and tell me what they meant? Something that could draft a response and quietly tell me what to do next — in plain English, without a bill at the end of it?”

So I built it. Start My Claim is an AI trained on the actual law of UK employment tribunals, small claims court, scam refund complaints, and the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 — not a general-purpose chatbot, but something that knows the specific language, deadlines and tactics of each. It reads the other side’s letters and tells you what they mean. It drafts your claim, your grievance, your witness statement. It watches the clock. It sits with you late at night when the worry kicks in.

I got through it. The outcome matters less than what I came away with: the system is navigable. Not easy, not fair — but navigable. Both small claims court and the employment tribunal are designed for self-representation. There are cases where you’ll still need a solicitor — an appeal, exceptional complexity — and if yours is one of them we’ll tell you. But for the journey most people face, this is, I hope, a calmer, clearer, kinder companion than what most people currently have: which is nothing at all.

“I’ve done this three times. Different courts, different circumstances, same feeling at the start — that you’re on your own in a system built for someone else. You’re not. Start with the calculator. You don’t have to decide anything yet.”

Paul Keene — Founder

Founder, Start My Claim — navigated his 2018 divorce, small claims court and employment tribunal as a self-represented claimant. Built the tool he wished had existed.

Why Start My Claim exists

“If the law is on your side, you should have the tools to use it — whether you can afford a solicitor or not.”

Most workers with a viable case never file one.

We want that to change.

Paul has previously appeared on

(2013), a UK consumer-debt enforcement series.

A companion, not a courtroom.

Start My Claim tries to do four things well. It doesn’t replace a solicitor — it just makes sure no one has to sit there at 3am without one, either.

Winnie is our miniature dachshund. The breeder sold her at half price because she was born without a tail — apparently nobody wants a tailless dog.

did. 50% off a perfect dog. A lot of the people we help got the same treatment from the system: written off for something small, something not their fault. Winnie keeps us honest about who we built this for.

She also turned up in the brand uninvited. That line you see on every page is her route — quiet, then choppy, quiet again, and a sun at the end. She has no time for deadlines, no opinion about paperwork, and her only real plan is the warm bit. You could probably do worse than follow her.

Honest about what we are

What Start My Claim is — and isn’t.

We’ll never over-promise. If your situation calls for a qualified solicitor, we’ll point you at one rather than pretend a tool is a substitute. We won’t pretend to be certain when we’re not. You deserve straight answers.

Start My Claim is not: