Mirra Levitt and Basha Rubin were operating a new online platform connecting small businesses with legal counsel a few years ago when a client requested help finding an intellectual property lawyer. But not just any IP lawyer. The client wanted an emoji specialist.

“We thought that was a little silly,” Rubin says. “But they were insistent.”

Levitt and Rubin, both Yale Law School graduates, tracked down an emoji lawyer with relative ease. A seed was planted: What if they tweaked their business model and focused on helping corporate counsel find outside lawyers who were superspecialists?