Tuzuk: A LegalTech Platform Built from Real Legal Practice

Q: Tell us about yourself in a professional sense. What experience do you have? Is there a book, film, interview or person that has influenced you and your worldview?

I am a practising lawyer and hold a PhD in Law. I have seventeen years of professional experience, including eight years in legal practice as an advocate. I began my career while still a student, first working in a criminal court and later moving into the bar. I am currently engaged in legal consulting for Japanese companies.

As for outside influences, there are no particular books or films that changed my worldview in a dramatic way. My outlook developed through experience. Real cases, daily work and my interactions with people shaped me the most. My professional practice has been my main teacher.

Q: Please tell us how your project was founded and what idea stood behind it. Was there a moment, an event or a person that encouraged you to launch it?

To be honest, I did not initially think about artificial intelligence at all. Lawyers tend to be conservative, so I had not paid much attention to new technologies. The turning point came when I was invited to work on a project related to legal AI. Once I immersed myself in the subject, I immediately saw many ways to streamline the routine tasks of legal work and reduce the inefficiencies that are common in the profession.

Q: What was the most difficult part for you at the beginning of your journey? Was it doubt, resources or the reaction of people around you?

The hardest challenge was building a team. It was not easy to find people with the right skills and the right mindset. There was also the issue of setting priorities. I needed to understand what should be done first and whether the market even needed such a product.

Mistakes are unavoidable at the start and the first steps are often the wrong ones. This is a natural process. A clear sense of the product and its value emerges gradually through practice and testing different ideas.

Q: If we simplify it, what problem were you trying to solve when you started?

The core problem we focused on was the difficulty and time-consuming nature of finding up to date legal norms. We wanted to create a tool that would spare lawyers from manually going through large volumes of information and provide fast access to the relevant legislative context.

Q: You are an entrepreneur working in a region where law and technology evolve quickly but unevenly. Does this context give you an advantage or create additional challenges?

It has two sides. On one hand, the instability and rapid pace of change in the legal system create difficulties. AI needs more advanced algorithms to keep up with constant updates.

On the other hand, this environment offers significant advantages and becomes a strong driver of growth. The sheer volume of regulatory changes is already beyond what a person can process. The need for AI increases many times over, and it turns from an optional tool into an essential one.

Q: What unexpected barriers did you encounter? Not technical ones, but human, cultural or institutional.

We did not face notable institutional or cultural barriers. The real obstacles were human. The main issue was the different levels of commitment. I understood this in theory, but practice made it clear. Many people on a team may feel indifferent to the project itself and work only for money or out of a sense of obligation.

Finding those who genuinely care about the idea and are willing to dedicate themselves to the product is uncommon. The human factor is the most challenging barrier, and questions of motivation need to be addressed at the very beginning.

Q: What turned out to be the most difficult when working with the state, lawyers and IT specialists?

Each group has its own challenges.

Lawyers: It is very difficult to offer them a new product because of their professional conservatism. The main point of resistance is data confidentiality. Knowing this, we built information protection features into the product architecture from the very beginning. Another issue is that lawyers often do not want to take on a sales role and many do not know how to do it, which creates a shortage of people who can sell the product.

The state: The key difficulty is the bureaucracy surrounding public procurement. Selling a product to the public sector requires enormous effort and involves navigating many formal barriers.

IT specialists: While working on Tuzuk, I realised that developers form a distinct group. They often work as executors. They complete a clearly defined task very well but rarely propose ideas on their own. Every step needs to be described in detail. They are implementers rather than visionaries, and this way of thinking is very different from the legal mindset.

We are witnessing a real boom. Countries in the region, especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are adopting state programs for AI development, investing in computing power and data centres and trying to build their own language models.

There will certainly be progress, but I look at it pragmatically. I think local technologies will eventually struggle to compete in capacity with global giants such as Gemini or OpenAI. The technical and financial advantage of these companies will continue to grow, and it is more reasonable for Central Asian states to learn how to use these capabilities effectively rather than try to surpass them.

Q: Does the region have its own path in digital law, or will it follow the EU or US model?

At the moment I do not see a distinct independent path and I do not think this is a problem. In essence we are repeating the steps already taken by Western countries. This is logical because all legal systems are based on two major traditions, the civil law and the common law models. There is no real need to invent a unique digital framework. It is more effective to adapt the best global practices.

Q: How do you assess the current regulatory environment in Uzbekistan for the development of digital law and LegalTech?

I view it very positively. The state is adopting many legal acts aimed at integrating AI into the public sector. This will help streamline bureaucratic processes and improve the quality of public services. My only wish is for greater involvement of private companies in these initiatives, so that businesses can introduce their solutions more actively into the state ecosystem.

Q: How do you think the legal profession will change in the coming years?

The core of the profession will not change dramatically. AI will not be able to replace lawyers completely. It will instead become a powerful assistant that reduces routine work and saves budgets previously spent on support staff.

One important development is that the gap in service quality will become smaller. With AI, a lawyer of average qualification will be able to handle complex tasks at a much higher level. LegalTech platforms will also make quality legal services more accessible to ordinary citizens and will help democratise legal assistance.

Q: What skills would you describe as the new legal literacy for young professionals?

In the new reality it is essential not only to know the law but also to understand how AI works. Prompt engineering becomes a key skill. It is the ability to frame queries for neural models in a precise and effective way. There is a need for courses that teach lawyers how to formulate tasks for algorithms so that the results are accurate and useful.

Q: What kind of people are you looking for to join your team? What matters more to you, experience or mindset?

Given the high turnover typical for startups, our priority is attitude toward the work. We are looking not just for executors but for responsible people who see their future with the project and share our values. Mindset and commitment are more important now than experience on its own.

Q: Do you have your own management principles, something you never compromise on?

Our principle is autonomy combined with a focus on results. We set the task and expect it to be carried out without micromanagement. If someone needs advice, we are always ready to help. But we do not babysit people. We do not criticise, drag someone along or force them to work. We work with mature professionals.

Q: What would you like people to say about Tuzuk years from now?

Tuzuk is a Turkic word that means code, law or order. We would like our project to become a symbol of solving legal issues. We hope that people will one day say they cannot imagine their work or their daily life without Tuzuk, just as they cannot imagine it without the internet today.

Q: What is the one piece of advice you would give to young people who want to launch their own LegalTech projects?

Starting any startup is a demanding process that requires enormous effort. For a technological project to succeed, it is essential, in my view, to combine two types of expertise. One is a solid command of programming and the other is deep knowledge of the subject matter, in our case the law. A project can succeed only at the intersection of these two worlds.