David Lawrence left Harvard Law because an on-campus shooting involving a police officer highlighted how policing errors often stem from a lack of instant access to department rules. He founded Blue Voice with co-founders Amit Patankar and Michael Gropman to provide real-time policy guidance to officers using AI. The Boston-based startup has now secured $6 million in funding led by SignalFire and Las Olas VC.
Blue Voice is emerging from stealth after three years. Officers at 225 county agencies across 25 states use the tool daily to ensure their actions follow protocol. Lawrence compares the platform to Harvey, the AI tool widely used by lawyers, or OpenEvidence, which serves doctors. The system answers a question every minute.
The problem with current methods
Before Blue Voice, an officer who could not recall a specific protocol had limited options. They could flip through a 15,000-page manual, wake a supervisor in the middle of the night, or search generic tools like Google or ChatGPT. Lawrence noted that consumer AI models delivered incorrect answers up to 30% of the time. Traditional methods also took too much time.
Blue Voice addresses this by training on department-specific laws, local ordinances, and guidelines that general-purpose tools cannot access on the public internet. The platform also provides instant access to detailed school maps on phones during active-shooter emergencies. Officers receive confidence because the tool points directly to original regulations rather than generating answers on its own. The system leaves the final decision to the officers, who combine the information with their own field experience.
Real-world applications
Lawrence says the customer base grew elevenfold over the last year because departments see concrete results, including reduced crime and fewer operational controversies.
“When an officer makes a decision, they do so from memory or best guess, based on thousands of pages of law, policy, municipal ordinances, and state laws that they’ve internalized and keep in their head,” Lawrence told TechCrunch.
Recently, Blue Voice helped prevent a kidnapping. A rookie officer spotted a man pressuring a young girl to enter his vehicle. Unsure whether he had legal grounds to intervene, the officer consulted the app. It instantly confirmed that the situation met the legal criteria for “child enticement,” giving him the immediate authority to act.
In another case, the system reminded a department chief that he could not return an officer to active-duty following a shooting without first obtaining a third-party mental health evaluation.
Competition and criticism
Blue Voice competes with Lexipol, a PE-backed company that recently developed functionality to help detectives solve cold cases. At a time when police use of AI, such as Flock Safety’s license plate surveillance systems, draws growing criticism, Lawrence hopes Blue Voice proves that properly deployed AI can deliver public safety benefits without sacrificing civil rights.
What it means
Lawrence, who previously worked for Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, says he has no regrets about leaving law school. He believes this is the best thing he could do with his career and the most impact he could potentially make.
