Brian Lee’s mind is always churning with ideas on how to make things simple.

Some of the end goals seem a bit insipid — how to create a better napkin holder, for example — and most haven’t materialized into anything at all, but he can’t help but constantly think about ways to streamline inefficient processes.

Out of the hundreds of ideas that have crossed Lee’s mind, one hatched into something ingenious.

That was more than seven years ago when Lee and his friend Brian Liu, both recent graduates of UCLA School of Law, co-founded LegalZoom, an online self-help legal document service. The two wanted to create a business that would allow a client to prepare legal documents online without incurring the exorbitant costs an attorney would charge.

“I realized most people have legal issues, but they don’t know where to go,” said Lee, 36, who grew up in Huntington Beach.

“There are so many people out there who don’t have time or money to see an attorney.”

The idea stemmed from family members and friends who called the two budding attorneys for help in creating wills, incorporating businesses and establishing trademarks. Liu and Lee didn’t have the answers to all of the questions, but vowed to somehow figure out a way to help. Plus, they saw a need for something that was not yet on the market.

After carving out the idea a little more, a meeting was set up with a venture capitalist, who could potentially secure $10 million to launch the company. Five weeks of preparing a presentation were for naught when on the day of the meeting, the stock market crashed. It was April 2000, and LegalZoom’s financial backing fell through.

But Lee and Liu stayed the course. They had gone too far with the process, and both had left their former positions as attorneys for high-profile firms, despite family members urging them to maintain a stable career.

Lee took out a second mortgage on his condominium. He and Liu pooled their credit cards, and family and friends contributed money.

In sum, the pair had $200,000 to get the company off of the ground.

What the start-up also needed was a well-known attorney to represent the company. One evening, Lee cold-called Robert Shapiro, the high-profile attorney who was known for being part of the legal team that defended O.J. Simpson in the mid-90’s. He expected to leave a message, but heard a voice on the other line.

It was Shapiro, and an astounded Lee, replied: “What? The Robert Shapiro?”

Shapiro asked Lee if the two knew each other. Lee started his pitch about LegalZoom’s business plan, and Shapiro told him he wasn’t interested. Lee, who could sense that Shapiro was about to hang up, said, “How do you know you’re not interested if you don’t hear me out?”