<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LawNextDirectoryHomePage-10-25-22-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Eight months ago, we launched the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/">LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>, aiming to develop it into the most trusted source available for information and resources on legal technology products. Now, we are taking the next step forward with the launch of version 2.0 of the directory that brings new features and functionality.
As I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/02/i-am-proud-to-announce-the-launch-of-the-lawnext-legal-technology-directory.html">wrote at the time of the launch</a>, our goal is to develop this into a comprehensive directory of products, reviews, learning resources, and more, where buyers can find trusted information to guide their purchases, and where vendors can help their products be discovered and distinguished.
Here is some of what&#8217;s new.
<h3>Resource Library of Practical Articles</h3>
Something I hear repeatedly from legal professionals, as I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/09/an-invitation-to-authors-share-your-legal-tech-insights-experiences-and-expertise-on-lawnext.html">wrote here last month</a>, is that it is difficult to find articles that provide practical guidance on choosing, deploying and using legal tech. To address that gap, we are building a freely accessible resource center of practical articles on legal tech – articles written to help lawyers choose and use tech products, written by experts in technology as well as by those who’ve used the tech in the trenches of legal practice.
<div id="attachment_41803" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41803" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-41803" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LNdirectory-ResourceArticle-HotDocs-1024x662.png" alt="" width="1024" height="662" />A resource center article offers a review of HotDocs.</div>
The beginnings of that resource center are now live. Now, when you go to one of our tech centers, you&#8217;ll see a selection of related resources. These are articles that relate to the types of technology covered in that tech center.
For example, in the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/legal-technology-centers/document-technology/">Document Technology Tech Center</a>, you will now find articles such as:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/hot-docs-the-next-generation-author-and-advance/">HotDocs, The Next Generation: Author and Advance</a>, by Marc Lauritsen and Bart Earle, president and vice president of Capstone Systems.</li>
<li><a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/document-assembly-what-it-is-and-how-to-evaluate-competing-programs/">Document Assembly: What It Is and How to Evaluate Competing Programs</a>, by Barron Henley, partner, Affinity Consulting Group.</li>
</ul>
Relevant articles will also appear on category pages. For example, on the category page for <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/categories/law-practice-management-suites/">Law Practice Management Suites</a>, click the Buyer Resources tab to find articles such as <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/the-ins-and-outs-of-choosing-legal-software-for-your-solo-or-small-law-firm/">The Ins and Outs of Choosing Legal Software for Your Solo or Small Firm</a>, by <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/authors/nicole-black/">Nicole Black</a>, legal technology evangelist at MyCase.
Each author also gets a profile page with biographical information and a list of all articles they have contributed. For example, here is <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/authors/barron-henley/">Barron Henley&#8217;s</a>.
We are actively seeking new authors to contribute to this library, whether to contribute a single piece, several pieces, or an entire series of pieces. All we ask is that you be either:
<ul>
<li>Someone with expertise in legal tech, such as a consultant, advisor, developer, educator, vendor, or otherwise, or</li>
<li>A user of legal tech with hands-on experience with the tech you write about.</li>
</ul>
We&#8217;ve even made it easy for you to sign up as a writer using our <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">LawNext Author Application</a>.
<h3>Feeds of Relevant Legal Tech News</h3>
<div id="attachment_41802" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41802" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-41802" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/resources-articles-and-news-feed-in-lpm-tech-center-1024x539.png" alt="" width="1024" height="539" />Tech centers now include both resource articles and relevant news stories.</div>
We are aggregating legal tech news from multiple sources and displaying relevant stories on appropriate pages:
<ul>
<li>On a tech center page, we show all recent news stories related to that tech center. For example, on the Discovery Tech Center, see the column labeled Latest News for recent stories related to the topic of discovery.</li>
<li>On a category page, we show all recent news stories related to that category of technology. Click the Press tab to see those stories. For example, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/categories/law-practice-management-suites/news">here is the news feed</a> on the category page for Law Practice Management Suites.</li>
<li>On product pages, we show two types of news feeds pertinent to that specific product or the company that makes it. For standard product listings (which are free to vendors), we show the news feed from my LawSites blog. For example, here is the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/blackboiler/">news feed for Blackboiler</a>. For enhanced (paid) product listings, we show the aggregated news feed from all sources. For example, see the news feed on <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/clio-manage/">this page for Clio Manage</a>.</li>
</ul>
I am looking to expand the range of blogs that we aggregate in our feed. If you write a blog that you would like to include, please email me and let me know (ambrogi-at-gmail).
<h3>Redesigned Listing Pages</h3>
<div id="attachment_41806" style="width: 925px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41806" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-41806" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LawMatics-product-listing-page.png" alt="" width="915" height="777" />Product listing page for LawMatics.</div>
We have redesigned the product listing pages with a less-cluttered layout. Among the changes, for companies with premium listings, they can add their own blog feed and it gets a new sidebar widget. If the company has a How It Works demo video, that also displays in a dedicated sidebar widget.
<h3>Reviews Get A Makeover</h3>
<div id="attachment_41804" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41804" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-41804" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ProductReviewDocumate-1024x621.png" alt="" width="1024" height="621" />A user review of Documate.</div>
From the start, we have considered it essential to include user reviews. With this release, we have made several changes to how reviews get submitted and displayed:
<ul>
<li>Reviewers can now share private feedback with vendors (premium listings only).</li>
<li>Reviews now feature open review, pros, cons, and feature ratings.</li>
<li>A user can now leave reviews directly from a product listing.</li>
</ul>
Want to review a product you&#8217;ve used? You can <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/write-a-review">start here</a>.
<h3>New Ranking Algorithm within Categories</h3>
We have changed the algorithm for the order in which products are displayed within a category to take into account a greater variety of factors. We believe this will drive more relevant results.
Among the factors that the algorithm considers: primary listing category, secondary listing category, ratings and reviews, and listing completion percentage. Each category can have one sponsor that will appear first in the listing.
<h3>Huge Thanks to Our Team</h3>
I am extremely fortunate to have as my cofounder <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/benambrogi/">Ben Ambrogi</a>, who has worked extremely hard at both evolving the vision for this directory and then making it happen.
We are also extremely fortunate to have been able to partner with the folks at <a href="https://www.justia.com/">Justia</a> to make this all happen. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tstanley/">Tim Stanley</a>, cofounder and CEO, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasukappettu/">Vasu Kappettu</a>, COO and CTO, have been generous and patient with their time and advice, as have many others on their team, most notably <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrecaceros/">Andre Caceros</a>, account manager.
Finally, a huge shout-out to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturkubalski/">Artur Kubalski</a>, the engineer who transformed the directory over the past few months from a WordPress site to this more stable and functional version you see today.
<h3>More on How You Can Contribute</h3>
The LawNext Legal Technology Directory is intended to be a resource for the entire legal community. Here is how you can be part of it:
<ul>
<li>If you are a legal professional, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/write-a-review">write a review</a> of a product you use or <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">contribute a longer article</a> about your experiences with legal tech for our resource directory.</li>
<li>If you are a legal tech consultant or expert, <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">contribute an article</a> for our resource center.</li>
<li>If you are a legal tech blogger or publisher of a legal tech news site, add your stories to our news aggregation feed. (Email me, ambrogi-at-gmail.)</li>
<li>If you are a legal tech vendor, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/sell-on-lawnext">add your product</a> to our directory. Basic listings are 100% free.</li>
</ul>
Last but not least, so many people have taken the time to speak with Ben and me and share their ideas, advice, feedback and critiques. We are indebted to you.

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LawNextDirectoryHomePage-10-25-22-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Eight months ago, we launched the LawNext Legal Technology Directory, aiming to develop it into the most trusted source available for information and resources on legal technology products. Now, we are taking the next step forward with the launch of version 2.0 of the directory that brings new features and functionality. As I wrote at [&#8230;]

Tracking new and intriguing websites and products for the legal profession.

Clio Manage

Review

Clio Grow

MyCase

Blackboiler

Lawyaw

HotDocs

Documate

Thrilled to Announce the &#8216;New and Improved&#8217; Version 2.0 of the LawNext Legal Technology Directory

Bob Ambrogi

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ricca-engstrom-featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/24795204/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
Among the most divisive issues facing the legal profession today is that of revising the rules that regulate law practice – and more specifically the questions of whether to liberalize the rules to allow those who are not licensed lawyers to own law practices or to engage in the practice of law. Two states, Arizona and Utah, have implemented regulatory schemes loosening restrictions on law practice, and other states are considering similar revisions to their rules. 
Now, Stanford Law School’s <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-center-on-the-legal-profession/">Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession</a> has published a <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SLS-CLP-Regulatory-Reform-REPORTExecSum-9.19.pdf">comprehensive study of the data</a> coming out of Arizona and Utah, giving us what may be the first real evidence-based look at this issue. It finds that the reforms in those states are spurring substantial innovation, that they are critical to serving lower-income populations, and that they do not pose any substantial risk of consumer harm. 
On today’s LawNext, we are joined by the two principal authors of that study: <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/david-freeman-engstrom/">David Freeman Engstrom</a>, co-director of the Rhode Center, and <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/lucy-ricca/">Lucy Ricca</a>, director, policy and programs, at the Rhode Center, and formerly executive director of the Utah Office of Legal Services Innovation — the office that oversees the so-called regulatory sandbox in that state. They walk us through how they conducted the study, what they found, and what they would like to see come of the findings. 
Read the report: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SLS-CLP-Regulatory-Reform-REPORTExecSum-9.19.pdf">Legal Innovation After Reform: Evidence from Regulatory Change</a>.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, and <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a>, and e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. 
LawNext is recorded using <a href="https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_2&amp;utm_medium=affiliate&amp;utm_source=rewardful&amp;via=bob-ambrogi">Riverside.fm</a>.

Among the most divisive issues facing the legal profession today is that of revising the rules that regulate law practice – and more specifically the questions of whether to liberalize the rules to allow those who are not licensed lawyers to own law practices or to engage in the practice of law. Two states, Arizona […]

LawNext Podcast: A Deep Dive into the First Comprehensive Study of Reg Reforms in Arizona and Utah with Stanford’s David Engstrom and Lucy Ricca

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ricca-engstrom-featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/24795204/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
Among the most divisive issues facing the legal profession today is that of revising the rules that regulate law practice – and more specifically the questions of whether to liberalize the rules to allow those who are not licensed lawyers to own law practices or to engage in the practice of law. Two states, Arizona and Utah, have implemented regulatory schemes loosening restrictions on law practice, and other states are considering similar revisions to their rules. 
Now, Stanford Law School’s <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-center-on-the-legal-profession/">Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession</a> has published a <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SLS-CLP-Regulatory-Reform-REPORTExecSum-9.19.pdf">comprehensive study of the data</a> coming out of Arizona and Utah, giving us what may be the first real evidence-based look at this issue. It finds that the reforms in those states are spurring substantial innovation, that they are critical to serving lower-income populations, and that they do not pose any substantial risk of consumer harm. 
On today’s LawNext, we are joined by the two principal authors of that study: <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/david-freeman-engstrom/">David Freeman Engstrom</a>, co-director of the Rhode Center, and <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/lucy-ricca/">Lucy Ricca</a>, director, policy and programs, at the Rhode Center, and formerly executive director of the Utah Office of Legal Services Innovation — the office that oversees the so-called regulatory sandbox in that state. They walk us through how they conducted the study, what they found, and what they would like to see come of the findings. 
Read the report: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SLS-CLP-Regulatory-Reform-REPORTExecSum-9.19.pdf">Legal Innovation After Reform: Evidence from Regulatory Change</a>.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, and <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a>, and e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. 
LawNext is recorded using <a href="https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_2&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=bob-ambrogi">Riverside.fm</a>.

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ricca-engstrom-featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Among the most divisive issues facing the legal profession today is that of revising the rules that regulate law practice – and more specifically the questions of whether to liberalize the rules to allow those who are not licensed lawyers to own law practices or to engage in the practice of law. Two states, Arizona [&#8230;]

Bill4Time

MerusCase

PracticePanther

LawNext Podcast: A Deep Dive into the First Comprehensive Study of Reg Reforms in Arizona and Utah with Stanford&#8217;s David Engstrom and Lucy Ricca

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MyCaseLTBintegration-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />An integration announced today makes the court-calendaring software <a href="https://www.lawtoolbox.com/">LawToolBox</a> available within the <a href="https://www.mycase.com/">MyCase</a> law practice management platform, enabling lawyers who use MyCase to automatically calculate key court dates and deadlines and add them to their MyCase calendars.
The integration will enable MyCase users to automatically calculate deadlines and add them to their MyCase calendar. Users will be able to create and manage deadlines from directly within the MyCase platform.
The companies say the integration will provide an all-in-one solution for lawyers to manage their cases and keep track of important deadlines.
<hr />
Read more on the LawNext Legal Technology Directory:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/lawtoolbox-court-rules-calendaring-integration-for-partner-platforms/">LawToolBox Court Rules Calendaring Integration for Partner Platforms</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/mycase/">MyCase</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
&#8220;We are excited to partner with MyCase and offer our shared customers an integrated solution for managing their legal practice,&#8221; said LawToolBox COO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/carollynngrow/">Carol Lynn Grow</a>. &#8220;Integrating with one of the fastest growing legal practice management solutions will provide our customers with a leading, all-inclusive solution to help increase firm efficiency. &#8221;
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dru-armstrong-371a032/">Dru Armstrong</a>, CEO of MyCase, said, &#8220;Integrating LawToolBox into the MyCase platform is something we&#8217;re very excited about for the legal industry. This integration will automate calendaring right in the MyCase platform, allowing our users to save time and reduce risk.&#8221;
To take advantage of the integration, users will require subscriptions to both products. A LawToolBox subscription ranges in price from $16 to $29 per user per month, based on the number of users. A MyCase subscription starts at $39 per user per month, but to take advantage of third-party integrations, the cost is $59 per user per month.
LawToolBox provides rule sets for most courts in the United States. Here is a <a href="https://www.lawtoolbox.com/rule-sets/">full list of its rule sets</a>.
More information about the integration is available on the <a href="https://www.mycase.com/blog/general/mycase-lawtoolbox-integration-never-miss-another-deadline/">MyCase blog</a>.

An integration announced today makes the court-calendaring software LawToolBox available within the MyCase law practice management platform, enabling lawyers who use MyCase to automatically calculate key court dates and deadlines and add them to their MyCase calendars. The integration will enable MyCase users to automatically calculate deadlines and add them to their MyCase calendar. Users […]

LawToolBox Court Rules Calendaring Integration for Partner Platforms

MyCase Now Integrates with LawToolBox for Rules-Based Court Calendaring

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/balloons-874837_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Today on our live Legaltech Week roundtable at 3 p.m. ET, we are joined by guest panelist <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-horrigan-3a482a6/">David Horrigan</a>, discovery counsel and legal education director at <a href="https://relativity.com/">Relativity</a>, for an advance look at <a href="https://relativityfest.com/">RelativityFest</a>, which convenes next week in Chicago.
<div id="attachment_41766" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41766" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-41766" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/DavidHorrigan.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="200" />David Horrigan</div>
Our panel of legal tech journalists and bloggers will also discuss the week&#8217;s top stories in legal tech and legal innovation, including the <a href="https://www.netdocuments.com/">NetDocuments</a> acquisition of <a href="https://www.worldox.com/">Worldox</a>.
Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you need to register, <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ylahkY_aTZOr8G8HuxMcuQ">which you can do here</a>. Register once and you are signed up for all future sessions.
Our lineup changes from week to week, but our regular panelists include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikiblack/">Nicole Black</a>, legal technology columnist and legaltech evangelist at MyCase.</li>
<li>Stephen Embry, publisher, <a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/">TechLaw Crossroads</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/legalitnews/">Caroline Hill</a>, editor in chief, Legal IT Insider.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.abajournal.com/authors/27587">Victor Li</a>, assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal.</li>
<li>Jean O’Grady, publisher of the blog <a href="https://www.deweybstrategic.com/">Dewey B Strategic</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patrice-32398a/">Joe Patrice</a>, editor, Above the Law.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-wilkins/">Stephanie Wilkins</a>, editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News and the ALM Global Newsroom’s Legal Technology Desk.</li>
</ul>
Hope you will join us.

Today on our live Legaltech Week roundtable at 3 p.m. ET, we are joined by guest panelist David Horrigan, discovery counsel and legal education director at Relativity, for an advance look at RelativityFest, which convenes next week in Chicago. Our panel of legal tech journalists and bloggers will also discuss the week’s top stories in […]

Today on Legaltech Week: We’re Joined by Relativity’s David Horrigan for A Preview of RelativityFest

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/balloons-874837_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Today on our live Legaltech Week roundtable at 3 p.m. ET, we are joined by guest panelist David Horrigan, discovery counsel and legal education director at Relativity, for an advance look at RelativityFest, which convenes next week in Chicago. Our panel of legal tech journalists and bloggers will also discuss the week&#8217;s top stories in [&#8230;]

NetDocuments PROTECT Solution

RelativityOne

NetDocuments LEARN Solution

NetDocuments DELIVER Solution

NetDocuments PLAN Solution

NetDocuments: ORGANIZE

Worldox

Today on Legaltech Week: We&#8217;re Joined by Relativity&#8217;s David Horrigan for A Preview of RelativityFest

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Curt-Sigfstead-Crop-169-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/24752145/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
At the 2022 <a href="https://cliocloudconference.com/">Clio Cloud Conference</a> held recently in Nashville, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down for a series of brief, in-person interviews with Clio executives. In this episode, he speaks with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtsigfstead/">Curt Sigfstead</a>, chief financial officer. He is responsible for managing Clio’s financial affairs, including finance, accounting, capital, treasury, taxation, and corporate development.
With over two decades of technology finance experience, Sigfstead has held numerous senior finance leadership roles at companies including Clearco and J.P. Morgan. He sits on multiple nonprofit boards including C100, which supports Canadian technology entrepreneurs through investment and mentorship. When he’s not disrupting the status quo through mission-driven work he can be found running the trails of Northern California, mapping out a route for his first Clio virtual 10km.

At the 2022 Clio Cloud Conference held recently in Nashville, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down for a series of brief, in-person interviews with Clio executives. In this episode, he speaks with Curt Sigfstead, chief financial officer. He is responsible for managing Clio’s financial affairs, including finance, accounting, capital, treasury, taxation, and corporate development. With over […]

LawNext #ClioCon Bonus Episode: Curt Sigfstead, Clio’s Chief Financial Officer

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<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Theory-and-Principle-Studio-Launch-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />As the legal technology design and development company <a href="https://www.theoryandprinciple.com/">Theory and Principle</a> marks its fifth anniversary this month, it is launching a new business arm to co-develop legal tech products in partnership with legal industry organizations or individuals.
The new business, T&amp;P Studio, will work with partners in the legal industry who have ideas for products but who may not have the product team, budget or other elements needed to bring a product to market, according to T&amp;P&#8217;s founder and CEO, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-bradick-30161121/">Nicole Bradick</a>.
T&amp;P will validate partner ideas and then manage all areas of product strategy, design, development, and launch, she said. Depending on the terms of the partnership, the T&amp;P team will also participate in ownership, go-to-market strategy, sales and marketing.
(Note: Bradick discusses both the anniversary and the new business on the episode of my <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/category/lawnext">LawNext podcast</a> that will post tomorrow.)
When <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2018/01/former-curolegal-partner-nicole-bradick-forms-legal-tech-design-development-firm.html">it launched in 2018</a>, T&amp;P was the only company focused solely on custom software design and development for law firms, legal tech companies, legal aid organizations, and others in the legal industry.
Some of the custom design and development work the company has done includes a <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/03/with-platform-redesign-blackboiler-adds-playbook-builder-that-makes-it-easy-to-create-contract-playbooks.html">user interface redesign</a> for the contract review company BlackBoiler and a <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/09/nicole-bradick-and-andy-wishart-on-why-ui-and-ux-matter-in-legal-tech-adoption.html">redesign of the UI and UX</a> for the contract lifecycle management company Agiloft.
<div id="attachment_42723" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/map-engine-1-3.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42723" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-42723" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/map-engine-1-3-1024x768.png" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a>Map Engine creates multijurisdictional maps.</div>
While it will continue that work, it has more recently begun co-developing legal tech products, starting in 2021, when it <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/04/new-product-makes-it-easy-for-firms-to-map-multijurisdictional-surveys.html">launched its first co-developed product</a>, <a href="https://www.mapengine.io/">Map Engine</a>, which it built and brought to market in a partnership with <a href="https://www.senteadvisors.com/">Sente Advisors</a>, a legal tech innovation consultancy. Map Engine makes it easy and economical for law firms to create attractive and interactive maps to visualize multijurisdictional data. 
(They have continued to expand the Map Engine product, as I have reported <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/03/map-engine-app-for-creating-multijurisdictional-surveys-now-spans-the-globe.html">here</a> and <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/08/map-engine-tool-for-firms-to-map-multijurisdictional-legal-data-adds-new-features-and-new-maps.html">here</a>.)
Last year, T&amp;P <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/04/virtual-law-clinic-soon-to-launch-provides-platform-for-law-firms-and-legal-organizations-to-manage-their-pro-bono-matters.html">unveiled its second co-developed product</a>, <a href="https://www.virtuallawclinic.com/">Virtual Law Clinic</a>, which it developed in conjunction with he law firm <a href="https://www.stblaw.com/">Simpson Thacher &amp; Bartlett</a>. The product is designed to make it easier for law firms and legal organizations to manage their pro bono matters, enabling them to assign matters to lawyers, monitor case statuses, document outcomes, and provide training materials and forms. Last Setpember, T&amp;P <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/09/new-release-of-virtual-law-clinic-adds-timekeeping-case-management-integration-chat-and-more.html">rolled out a major upgrade</a> to that product.
Now, with the formal launch of T&amp;P Studio, the company is making a greater commitment to co-developing SaaS products and possibly even developing products on its own. It already has one new co-developed product in development, Bradick said.
&#8220;As a company, we design, build, and deploy modern, beautiful legal technology products rapidly — we’ve simply had our hands in more legal tech products than any company out there,&#8221; said Bradick. &#8220;As a result, we have the team, infrastructure, experience, and processes to partner with organizations who have ideas but not the resources to move their concepts forward.
&#8220;This model is a win for us, our partners, and the industry. We want to see more innovative SaaS products get to market faster by de-risking the effort for anyone with a great idea.&#8221;
The nature and terms of the partnerships will vary depending on the partner and the project, Bradick said, but can involve some combination of cost-sharing, task-sharing, revenue-sharing, or something else.
&#8220;For example, some partners may want a product to exist, but want no part in the ownership, sales and marketing, while other partners may want all of the rights to own, market, and sell the product, but cannot afford the initial build.&#8221;

As the legal technology design and development company Theory and Principle marks its fifth anniversary this month, it is launching a new business arm to co-develop legal tech products in partnership with legal industry organizations or individuals. The new business, T&P Studio, will work with partners in the legal industry who have ideas for products […]

On Its 5th Anniversary, Legal Tech Dev Firm Theory & Principle Launches Product Co-Development Studio

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Catherine-Kemnitz-headshot-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25713771/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<a href="https://www.axiomlaw.com/">Axiom</a>, a company that is one of the longest-running alternative legal services providers, this week <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2023/01/alsp-axiom-opens-law-firm-in-arizona-under-alternative-business-structure-license.html">stepped into the world of regulated legal services</a> as it formally launched <a href="https://www.axiomadviceandcounsel.com/">Axiom Advice &amp; Counsel</a>, an Arizona law firm. The move was enabled by the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision last May to grant Axiom a license as an alternative business structure. 
That follows from Arizona’s historic decision in 2020 to become the first U.S. state to eliminate the ban on non-lawyer ownership of law firms – a development we’ve discussed several times on this podcast, including when our guest was Arizona Supreme Court Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer, who was not only among the justices who approved the changes, but who chaired the task force that recommended them. (See previoiusly on LawNext: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/05/supreme-court-justice-ann-timmer-on-arizonas-sweeping-regulatory-reforms.html">Supreme Court Justice Ann Timmer on Arizona&#8217;s Sweeping Regulatory Reforms</a>.)
How will this new corporate-owned law firm differ from traditional firms? What types of clients will it serve and what should they expect? And what does this mean for the future of Axiom? Joining host Bob Ambrogi to discuss the launch of Axiom Advice &amp; Counsel is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinekemnitz/">Catherine Kemnitz</a>, chief strategy and development officer at Axiom, as well as its chief legal officer. 
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
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Axiom, a company that is one of the longest-running alternative legal services providers, this week stepped into the world of regulated legal services as it formally launched Axiom Advice & Counsel, an Arizona law firm. The move was enabled by the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision last May to grant Axiom a license as an alternative […]

On LawNext Podcast: As ALSP Axiom Opens A Law Firm in Arizona, Its Chief Strategy and Legal Officer Catherine Kemnitz Shares Details

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Valid8Financial-VFI-Software-Platform-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />In what it is calling a new category of software for attorneys and CPAs involved in financial investigations, <a href="https://www.valid8financial.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.valid8financial.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1674608765308000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3P4J4WFAgS2S2xqxVN1GoB">Valid8 Financial</a>, a developer of forensic accounting software, today is introducing <a href="https://www.valid8financial.com/solutions/verified-financial-intelligence-vfi">Verified Financial Intelligence</a> (VFI), an automated solution for extracting and verifying financial evidence.
The software extracts transaction evidence from various sources, including client accounting systems, bank statements, brokerage statements, check images, wire details and transaction lists, and then applies algorithms to compare that evidence with accounting records and trace the flow of funds among accounts and entities.
The software, which could be considered an e-discovery point solution for financial evidence, has an array of applications for high-value financial investigations such as high net worth divorces, Chapter 11 bankruptcies, mergers and investigations, fraud investigations, and government investigations, the company says.
<div id="attachment_42642" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Chris-McCall-Pic-crop.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42642" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-42642" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Chris-McCall-Pic-crop-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a>Chris McCall</div>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmccall/">Chris McCall</a>, co-founder and CEO of Valid8 Financial told me that the product was developed to address the lack of integration among different sources of financial data, which limits the data&#8217;s usefulness.
Although there has been an explosion of FinTech investment into products that simplify access to financial information such as bank statements, check images, broker statements, and financial statements, the process of integrating that data can be cumbersome and time consuming, eating up as much as 80-90% of a diligence engagement.
The VFI product collects financial data from multiple sources — including client accounting systems and independently sourced accounting evidence — and enriches and verifies it so that users can visualize the full cash flow, or &#8220;follow the money,&#8221; as McCall said.
&#8220;In the last 10 years, there’s been an explosion of fintech investment into new solutions that simplify access to accounting evidence and financial data, but they lack the integration between different sources, limiting their usefulness for CPAs and attorneys,&#8221; McCall said. &#8220;Our approach addresses this data gap, helping customers measure risk in financial statements, allowing them to narrow their focus to the most critical areas — drastically increasing the speed to opinion.&#8221;
The software could be used, for example, by a family lawyer to find undisclosed assets or analyze a spouse&#8217;s lifestyle. It could be used in an M&amp;A transaction to verify revenue or to automate proof of cash.
<h3>Key Features</h3>
Key features of the VFI software platform, the company said, include:
<ul>
<li>Client accounting system extraction that provides streamlined data extraction from more than 30 types of systems. Matching algorithms compare banking activity to accounting entries to achieve full population verification; compress time to execute proof of cash, subsequent AR, and revenue verification; and eliminate sample risk.</li>
<li>A process-driven user experience that displays a self-guiding process map (pictured above), live progress bars for each step and one-click navigation to any view or task. A firm can leverage a single evidence-collection process and user experience, eliminate manual data work, accelerate data preparation, reduce training time and standardize procedures across the firm.</li>
<li>Improved cash flow visualization that includes Sankey diagrams showing the flow of funds between accounts, legal entities and financial statement accounts. It allows users to quickly understand and explain complex data sets with left-to-right storytelling. All nodes and flows have relative size accuracy, are fully interactive and provide one-click export of transactions. These data visualizations simplify the exploration of large data sets.</li>
</ul>
McCall describes the product as drawing on two types of data. One is the accounting evidence that includes items such as bank statements, brokerage statements, loan statements, check images, deposit slip images, wire details, transaction lists, and the like. The other is the accounting data — sourced from QuickBooks, Sage and other accounting systems — that puts the evidence into context.
All of that comes into the VFI platform, where it is enriched, enhanced and verified, and then transformed into process maps and Sankey diagrams for showing the flow of funds between accounts, legal entities, and financial statement accounts.
McCall said there is no other product on the market like this with the ability to associate financial data horizontally across transactions and systems, rather than vertically by silos of transactions. &#8220;The only way you can do that is by doing what&#8217;s called tracing the accounting cycle.&#8221;
Until now, that has been a completely manual procedure, by which you are trying to understand a network of associated transactions, so you can see that money flow across financial statement accounts over time and eventually hit the bank account.
&#8220;The only way you can do that is to understand the data associations,&#8221; McCall said. &#8220;So you need to understand the transactions in your cash journal, in your accounting system, and how they relate to the bank account activity. Then you need to understand how your cash journal interacts with payments. And then you need to understand invoices and payments. And then you need to understand how invoices are related to revenue.
&#8220;That&#8217;s what our patent is. It&#8217;s creating all of these associations and stitching all of this information together so that we can give you that horizontal view of what happened over time.&#8221;
&nbsp;

In what it is calling a new category of software for attorneys and CPAs involved in financial investigations, Valid8 Financial, a developer of forensic accounting software, today is introducing Verified Financial Intelligence (VFI), an automated solution for extracting and verifying financial evidence. The software extracts transaction evidence from various sources, including client accounting systems, bank statements, […]

This New Category of Legal Software Lets You ‘Follow the Money’ through Financial Evidence Data

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/predicatahome-7-7-22-169-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Last June, the seven-year-old litigation analytics company Gavelytics shut down, seemingly overnight, with founder and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-merrill-a2727a13/">Rick Merrill</a> announcing the news by an email on June 29 that he “recently made the difficult decision to close Gavelytics effective June 30,” as <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/06/litigation-analytics-company-gavelytics-is-shutting-down-tomorrow.html">I reported at the time</a>. 
Now, Gavelytics is rising from the ashes, in a sense, with the announcement that a relative newcomer to the legal analytics space, <a href="https://www.pre-dicta.com/">Pre/Dicta</a>, has acquired the Gavelytics platform.
Pre/Dicta, which launched within just a few days of Gavelytics&#8217; closure, claims to predict how a judge will rule on a motion to dismiss in federal with an accuracy rate of 86.7%.
As I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/07/new-judicial-analytics-product-predicts-motion-outcomes-with-claimed-86-7-accuracy.html">wrote when it launched</a>:
<blockquote>&#8220;What distinguishes Pre/Dicta from other litigation analytics products is that its algorithms consider not just docket data, but also a range of available biographical and financial data on federal judges – such as net worth, education, work experience, political affiliation, and more – to uncover hidden patterns in their decision-making.&#8221;</blockquote>
This acquisition of Gavelytics, the company says, will dramatically shorten its timeline for offering the same sorts of predictions for matters in state courts.
Merrill, a former biglaw litigator who started Gavelytics after becoming frustrated with his inability to get meaningful information about the judges before whom he was appearing, is joining Pre/Dicta as its strategic advisor.
“Pre/Dicta created what I always dreamed of for Gavelytics: a litigation analytics platform that was forward-looking rather than backward-looking, that could make predictions and not just provide generic descriptive statistics,” Merrill said in a statement.
Pre/Dicta cofounder and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danrabinowitz1/">Dan Rabinowitz</a> said that he believe the deal is a major milestone both for Pre/Dicta and the entire field of predictive litigation analytics.
&#8220;With the acquisition of Gavelytics’ state court assets, Pre/Dicta is suddenly in reach of building the litigator’s holy grail: a product that generates predictions for every lawsuit nationwide,” he said. “We’re honored to inherit the legacy of Gavelytics, which performed groundbreaking work in judicial analytics, and still more honored that Rick Merrill will continue that work at Pre/Dicta.”
Rabinowitz is a lawyer who practiced as an associate in Sidley LLP’s Supreme Court &amp; Appellate and Mass Tort Litigation groups. Later, he served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice; general counsel to a Washington, D.C. data science company; and associate general counsel, chief privacy officer, and director of fraud analytics for WellPoint Military Care.
For a more detailed description of Pre/Dicta&#8217;s technology and how it works, see my earlier post: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/07/new-judicial-analytics-product-predicts-motion-outcomes-with-claimed-86-7-accuracy.html">New Judicial Analytics Product Predicts Motion Outcomes with Claimed 86.7% Accuracy</a>.

Last June, the seven-year-old litigation analytics company Gavelytics shut down, seemingly overnight, with founder and CEO Rick Merrill announcing the news by an email on June 29 that he “recently made the difficult decision to close Gavelytics effective June 30,” as I reported at the time.  Now, Gavelytics is rising from the ashes, in a sense, with […]

Shuttered Legal Analytics Company Gavelytics Is Acquired By Recently Launched Analytics Company Pre/Dicta

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/deadline-g6d754ac46_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />We are extending the deadline to submit applications for a spot in the 2023 Startup Alley competition at <a href="https://www.techshow.com/">ABA TECHSHOW</a>. The deadline, which was set for today, is now Jan. 13, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.
Several potential applicants requested more time due to the proximity to the holidays.
To apply, you must <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2023-aba-techshow-startup-alley-application">complete this application form</a>. 
Many more details are available <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/attention-startups-applications-now-open-for-the-aba-techshow-2023-startup-alley-and-pitch-competition.html">in this previous post</a>.
Now in its seventh year, Startup Alley has helped catapult the success of a long list of legal technology startups and has become the signature opening-night event of TECHSHOW, which will be in Chicago March 1-4, 2023.
Out of all the entries received, 15 startups will be selected to participate in a live pitch competition that will be the opening event of TECHSHOW. In addition, the 15 finalists will be highlighted as exhibitors in a special Startup Alley section of the conference exhibit hall. 
But you cannot be selected if you do not apply. The deadline for applications to be received is 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.
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Featured image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/absolutvision-6158753/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2636259">Gino Crescoli</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2636259">Pixabay</a>.

We are extending the deadline to submit applications for a spot in the 2023 Startup Alley competition at ABA TECHSHOW. The deadline, which was set for today, is now Jan. 13, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Several potential applicants requested more time due to the proximity to the holidays. To apply, you must complete this application form.  […]

Deadline Extended: Applications for Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW Now Close Jan. 13

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Robot-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />So the publicity stunt of the robot lawyer sneaking into court is no more, as <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-browder-b0b573116/">Joshua Browder</a>, founder and CEO of the self-help legal site <a href="https://donotpay.com/">DoNotPay</a>, yesterday pulled the plug on the prank, saying he had received threats from bar officials of prosecution and even imprisonment.
That news followed a scathing series of tweets by a woman who tried out several of DoNotPay&#8217;s self-help tools, only to conclude that they were effectively smoke and mirrors, in some cases getting the law wrong, in others failing even to deliver the promised product.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
On February 22nd at 1.30PM, history will be made. For the first time ever, a robot will represent someone in a US courtroom.
DoNotPay A.I will whisper in someone&#8217;s ear exactly what to say. We will release the results and share more after it happens. Wish us luck!
— Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1616628244840579074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In the case of the robot lawyer, it is hard to fathom how Browder could have been surprised to receive threats from bar officials. After all, the plan to send an unrepresented litigant into court wearing AirPods through which the litigant would receive instructions on what to say almost certainly would have violated court rules. Most courts ban electronic devices in courtrooms, and it would have been hard to overlook a litigant wearing AirPods.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Good morning! Bad news: after receiving threats from State Bar prosecutors, it seems likely they will put me in jail for 6 months if I follow through with bringing a robot lawyer into a physical courtroom. DoNotPay is postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights:
— Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1618265395986857984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2023</a></blockquote>
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And then there were the impractical logistics of the stunt. No judge I&#8217;ve ever appeared before would sit by patiently during the time delay as the litigant awaited the next set of instructions from the robot lawyer. I envision a TV news live broadcast where the anchor asks a question and there is a 20-second delay as the satellite relays the question to the reporter in the field.
And then, of course, there was the whole issue of unauthorized practice of law, which apparently <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/1151435033/a-robot-was-scheduled-to-argue-in-court-then-came-the-jail-threats">came as a surprise to Browder</a>.
To be clear, Browder has not provided any details about these threats or identified their source. I messaged him yesterday asking for details on which state&#8217;s prosecutors made the threats and the nature of what they said. He has not responded.
All we know is that yesterday he tweeted that he was pulling the plug on the prank.
Perhaps even worse news for DoNotPay came in the form of a scathing series of tweets from a woman named Kathryn Tewson, who I believe is a commercial litigation paralegal at a boutique law firm (if this <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-tewson-0b252124/">LinkedIn profile</a> is the same person).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I&#8217;ve been going in pretty hard on <a href="https://twitter.com/donotpay?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DoNotPay</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/jbrowder1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jbrowder1</a> for the past couple of days, and I&#8217;ve had a lot of people defending the service, saying that it could be a real boon to those who can&#8217;t otherwise afford legal aid.
— Kathryn Tewson (@KathrynTewson) <a href="https://twitter.com/KathrynTewson/status/1617917837879963648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Having been critical of DoNotPay and having heard from others defending the company, she wanted to &#8220;give it a fair shake,&#8221; she tweeted. So she signed up and &#8220;took the service for a little whirl.&#8221;
I encourage  you to read her full thread, but, suffice to say, the results were not pretty. She tried three DoNotPay servies: Defamation Demand Letter, Divorce Settlement Agreement, and Sue Anyone in Small Claims Court.
Starting with the Defamation Demand Letter, she filled out the required information and pressed &#8220;next&#8221; to see the letter, only to receive nothing but a progress bar saying that her demand letter would be ready in an hour.
&#8220;That . . . seems a little slow for something that is supposed to be able to respond to a judge and give instructions in real time,&#8221; she wrote.
She then tried the Divorce Settlement Agreement. This time, after providing the required information, she got a progress bar that said the agreement would be ready in eight hours.
&#8220;Y&#8217;all, eight hours seems like a really, really long time for an AI to need to generate a document,&#8221; she accurately observed.
Finally, she tried the app for suing someone in small claims court. She was put off right away by the app&#8217;s promise to generate court filings and give her a script to read in court. &#8220;I mean, that&#8217;s the practice of law,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;It just is.&#8221;
She encountered numerous UX issues and nonsensical prompts as she moved through the app, this time actually ending up with a PDF. But her evaluation: &#8220;There is literally nothing AI about this at all. This is a straight-up plug-and-chug document wizard, and it is not well done at all.&#8221;
As for the other documents she purchased. When they hit their one- and eight-hour time limits, the clock icon flipped and said it would need more time.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
There is literally nothing AI about this at all. This is a straight-up plug-and-chug document wizard, and it is not well done at all. <a href="https://t.co/CCjn1FgPr6">pic.twitter.com/CCjn1FgPr6</a>
— Kathryn Tewson (@KathrynTewson) <a href="https://twitter.com/KathrynTewson/status/1617930994346250240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
Her conclusion from all this: Either the tools are badly broken or &#8220;this isn&#8217;t AI at all,&#8221; but an app that collects information &#8220;and then hands it to a human to go find the relevant law.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The second, though &#8212; and I find this much more likely based on the one-hour and eight-hour timelines given &#8212; is that this isn&#8217;t AI at all; that <a href="https://twitter.com/donotpay?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DoNotPay</a> collects the information from the prompt and then hands it to a human to go find the relevant law and customize the doc.
— Kathryn Tewson (@KathrynTewson) <a href="https://twitter.com/KathrynTewson/status/1617937290252423169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Soon after Tewson posted these tweets, Browder took to Twitter to announce he was removing the three apps she tested from DoNotPay.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I think decisiveness when one is taking the wrong direction is key.
We are removing them from DoNotPay, effective immediately, to focus solely on consumer rights. We are also dramatically improving the UX and are working 18 hour days to make it happen.
— Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1618265416635420673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I have realized that non-consumer rights legal products (e.g defamation demand letters, divorce agreements and others), which have very little usage, are a distraction,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We are removing them from DoNotPay, effective immediately, to focus solely on consumer rights. We are also dramatically improving the UX and are working 18 hour days to make it happen.&#8221;
<h3>The Implications for Self-Help Legal Tech</h3>
I do not know what&#8217;s really going on behind the curtain at DoNotPay. I interviewed Browder way back in 2018 <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2018/10/lawnext-episode-14-donotpay-founder-joshua-browder-replacing-lawyers-bots.html">for my LawNext podcast</a> and found him to be sincere in his mission to use technology to help consumers solve common legal problems. Perhaps his pivot to focusing on consumer rights is the best move, and I hope he continues to develop products that help consumers get results.
However, my concern is that this whole series of episodes has made Browder come across as a sort of P.T. Barnum of legal self-help tools and that it has provided critics of these tools with fodder to proclaim, &#8220;We told you so.&#8221;
Whatever Browder was thinking when he promised to send a robot lawyer to court, the fact is it was little more than a publicity stunt that would have had little impact on the very real need to develop tools to address the access-to-justice crisis in law.
And, further, the fact is that there are many companies and organizations that are developing very real and viable tools to help self-represented litigants and others who do not have access to legal help.
There is a very real crisis in the United States (and, for that matter, in virtually every country) of people who are not able to get help with legal problems. In many cases, these problems are severe, threatening loss of housing or danger from domestic abuse.
The only way we will ever address that crisis is with the assistance of tech. Let&#8217;s hope the whole robot lawyer sideshow does not create a diversion from that goal.

So the publicity stunt of the robot lawyer sneaking into court is no more, as Joshua Browder, founder and CEO of the self-help legal site DoNotPay, yesterday pulled the plug on the prank, saying he had received threats from bar officials of prosecution and even imprisonment. That news followed a scathing series of tweets by […]

A Bad Week for DoNotPay and Its Robot Lawyer, But It Should Not Reflect on Self-Help Legal Tech

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/metaverse-g619c3e243_1280-169-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />It has been just over a year since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049813246/facebook-new-name-meta-mark-zuckerberg">changing its name to Meta</a>, revealing his vision for the future of online interaction.
In the wake of that news, it seemed all anyone could talk about was the metaverse, and that extended to the legal industry, and even to <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/12/personal-injury-law-firm-claims-to-be-first-to-set-up-office-in-the-metaverse.html">law firms forming metaverse offices</a> on virtual reality platforms such as Decentraland.
But is the metaverse something that law firms really should be considering?
In his article, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/should-lawyers-consider-practicing-law-in-the-metaverse/">Should Lawyers Consider Practicing Law in the Metaverse?</a>, Jason Broughton, chief design officer at LexisNexis, argues against law firms rushing into virtual reality.
&#8220;From a product design perspective, the metaverse may not be ready for the legal industry for quite a long time,&#8221; he writes.
Read <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/should-lawyers-consider-practicing-law-in-the-metaverse/">the full article</a> in the resources library of the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/">LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
If you are a legal technology author who would like to contribute an article to the LawNext resources library, let us know by <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">signing up here</a>.

It has been just over a year since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company was changing its name to Meta, revealing his vision for the future of online interaction. In the wake of that news, it seemed all anyone could talk about was the metaverse, and that extended to the legal industry, and even to […]

Should Your Law Firm Set Up Shop In The Metaverse?

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Exterro-Zapproved-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Among the things the two e-discovery companies <a href="https://exterro.com/">Exterro</a> and <a href="https://zapproved.com/">Zapproved</a> have in common is that they were both founded in the same year, 2008, and in the same city, Portland, Ore. Now they have something else in common, as they announce today that Exterro has acquired Zapproved.
While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, Exterro said that the acquisition accelerates its mission to empower its customers &#8220;to proactively and defensibly manage their legal governance, risk and compliance (GRC) obligations.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_42411" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/MonicaEnand.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42411" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-42411" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/MonicaEnand.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="200" /></a>Monica Enand</div>
For Zapproved, the deal represents a major exit for a legal technology company that was founded and run by a woman, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicaenand/">Monica Enand</a>, who formed the company in 2008 and remained CEO throughout its existence. She and her entire team will join Exterro.
The deal is also a notable exit for Zapproved&#8217;s largest investor, <a href="https://k1im.com/">K1 Investment Management</a>, an investment firm focused on high-growth enterprise software companies, which led a $15 million Series C funding round in Zapproved in 2015. K1 will roll a portion of the proceeds back into Zapproved, retaining a minority stake in the business.
(K1 has been a major investor in legal tech, having previously invested in a portfolio of companies that include $200 million in Reveal in 2021, $200 million in Onit in 2019, and $100 million in Litera in 2016, from which it exited in 2018).
&#8220;K1 was my first institutional investor, and we shared a passion for building successful businesses and having a positive impact on our communities,&#8221; Enand said in a statement. &#8220;K1 supported both our 10x growth, and our focus of building a culture of belonging and inclusion, with an employee base that reflects its community.&#8221;
<h3>Eyeing An IPO</h3>
In an interview yesterday, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/exterro/">Bobby Balachandran</a>, Exterro&#8217;s CEO and president, told me that this acquisition will strengthen the company in its mission to enable organizations to use the power of their data while reducing the associated risks around legal governance and compliance.
<div id="attachment_41078" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/bobby-balanchdran-headshot-2021-d.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-41078" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-41078" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/bobby-balanchdran-headshot-2021-d-300x288.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="192" /></a>Bobby Balanchdran</div>
The acquisition will also strengthen the company&#8217;s preparedness for an IPO when the market recovers from its current volatility. In previous interviews with Balachandran <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/12/on-lawnext-exterros-bobby-balachandran-legaltech-ceo-of-the-year-on-leadership-growth-and-plans-for-an-ipo.html">on my podcast in 2021</a> and when the company <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/07/strategic-recapitalization-of-several-hundred-million-values-exterro-at-over-1-billion.html">underwent a major recapitalization</a> last July, he said that an IPO was on the horizon, and yesterday he reiterated that goal for when the market gets better.
Today&#8217;s news follows Exterro&#8217;s news last July that it <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/07/strategic-recapitalization-of-several-hundred-million-values-exterro-at-over-1-billion.html">had completed a strategic recapitalization</a> and secured additional committed equity capital as part of a deal that provided it with “several hundred million” in new funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion. As part of that deal, <a href="https://www.leedsequity.com/">Leeds Equity Partners</a>, which invested more than $100 million in Exterro in 2018, made a new equity commitment to the company. 
Balachandran said at that time that the money would be used to grow Exterro&#8217;s portfolio of legal GRC software products through acquisitions and product development, and he said yesterday that today&#8217;s acquisition follows through on that promise.
Exterro&#8217;s last major acquisition was 2020, when <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2020/12/exterro-acquires-accessdata-in-nine-figure-deal-expanding-its-platform-and-setting-stage-for-possible-ipo.html">it acquired AccessData</a>, then one of the leading providers of digital forensic investigation technology, in a deal valued at more than $100 million.
<h3>Neighbors with a Common Vision</h3>
Balachandran and Monica Enand, Zapproved&#8217;s CEO and president, said they have known each other and frequently spoken since both companies&#8217; early days.
&#8220;Over the years we have faced each other many times and pushed each other to innovate, to challenge the status quo and to create compelling solutions that meet the ever-increasing demands placed on our customers,&#8221; Balachandran said. &#8220;Most importantly, we share a common vision for providing market-leading support for our clients and partners. Today, we come together to raise the bar for the industry and deliver the most comprehensive legal GRC solution on the market.&#8221;
<hr />
Related: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/12/on-lawnext-exterros-bobby-balachandran-legaltech-ceo-of-the-year-on-leadership-growth-and-plans-for-an-ipo.html">On LawNext: Exterro’s Bobby Balachandran, ‘LegalTech CEO of the Year,’ On Leadership, Growth and Plans for an IPO</a>.
<hr />
Exterro provides a range of software products through a unified platform for e-discovery, forensic investigations, governance, risk and compliance, and serves the legal market broadly, including law firms, corporate legal departments, government and law enforcement. Zapproved focuses its market more narrowly on corporate legal departments and provides a platform for legal holds, data collection, and data review.
<hr />
Learn more about Exterro products on the LawNext Legal Tech Directory: <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/exterro-e-discovery-data-management/">Exterro E-Discovery Data Management</a>, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/exterro-legal-hold/">Exterro Legal Hold</a>, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/exterro-review/">Exterro Review</a>.
<hr />
Highlights of the acquisition, the companies say, include:
<ul>
<li>Exterro’s comprehensive platform will combine with Zapproved’s world-class customer experience to form one powerful and easy-to-use solution to defensibly manage legal GRC obligations.</li>
<li>The acquisition will strengthen Exterro&#8217;s e-discovery suite and will deliver compelling value to organizations looking to bring all or part of the e-discovery process in house.</li>
<li>Exterro’s AI-driven early case assessment, its smart labeling capabilities, and its broad set of enterprise connectors will help organizations drive down review costs by reducing the set of data needed for review.</li>
<li>Exterro’s embedded process-orchestration capabilities will help customers get the facts of every matter more quickly, defensively and at lower costs.</li>
<li>The acquisition provides a path for Zapproved customers to adopt a seamless approach to incorporating forensic collection and review capabilities into their e-discovery process when required.</li>
</ul>
&#8220;Bobby Balachandran and I have spoken extensively over the years and have a unique understanding of the pressures our industry is under to decrease costs while improving productivity, efficiency and end results,&#8221; said Enand. &#8220;We are confident that this acquisition is the right solution to address those critical business challenges.&#8221;
<h3>Best of Both Worlds</h3>
All of Zapproved&#8217;s roughly 130 executives and employees are remaining with the company, including Enand, for a combined workforce of some 750 employees, Balachandran said.
The two companies have formed an integration team that will consider how best to combine the strengths of each company&#8217;s products and culture.
Zapproved&#8217;s strengths, he said, includes world-class customer service and a unique set of software to serve its enterprise customers. Exterro&#8217;s strengths include its innovation-focused research and development team and a platform that offers enterprise customers broader options for GRC and forensics.
&#8220;We will look at the best of both worlds, take a very customer-centric approach to looking at what we’ve done and what they’ve done, and then decide based on that what&#8217;s best for our clients,&#8221; Balachandran said.

Among the things the two e-discovery companies Exterro and Zapproved have in common is that they were both founded in the same year, 2008, and in the same city, Portland, Ore. Now they have something else in common, as they announce today that Exterro has acquired Zapproved. While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, Exterro […]

Major E-Discovery News, As Exterro, Eyeing IPO, Acquires Zapproved for Undisclosed Amount

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/arizona-gc4f9b4cb9_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://www.axiomlaw.com/">Axiom</a>, one of the longest-running alternative legal services providers, today joins the ranks of licensed legal services providers as it opens <a href="https://www.axiomadviceandcounsel.com/">Axiom Advice &amp; Counsel LLC</a> (AA&amp;C), a law firm in Arizona, where it plans to provide corporate legal services to businesses.
Last May, the Supreme Court of Arizona <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2022-52.pdf">granted AA&amp;C a license</a> to operate as an alternative business structure (ABS), following Arizona&#8217;s <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2020/08/arizona-is-first-state-to-eliminate-ban-on-nonlawyer-ownership-of-law-firms.html">historic move in August 2020</a> to become the first U.S. state to eliminate the long-standing ban on non-lawyer ownership of law firms. In its place, the state created a new class of authorized practitioners, <a href="https://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/admcode/pdfcurrentcode/7-209%20Amended%207_13_22.pdf?ver=U0e16ry0d6dSkHPeGBdgng%3d%3d">alternative business structures</a>, that must be licensed by the court.
In January 2022, Arizona <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/01/arizona-licenses-elevate-as-alternative-business-structure-making-it-first-non-lawyer-owned-law-company-with-affiliated-law-firm-in-u-s.html">granted an ABS license</a> to law company <a href="https://elevateservices.com/">Elevate</a>, enabling it and its affiliated law firm, ElevateNext, to operate as a single entity in that state, and making Elevate the first non-lawyer-owned ALSP in the U.S. to operate with an integrated law firm.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Axiom-Advice-and-Counsel-Logo_Original-1.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignright wp-image-42590" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Axiom-Advice-and-Counsel-Logo_Original-1-300x84.png" alt="" width="399" height="112" /></a>In Axiom&#8217;s case, the company and the law firm are separate businesses, but the law firm is owned by Axiom, according to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinekemnitz/">Catherine Kemnitz</a>, Axiom&#8217;s chief strategy and development officer and chief legal officer.
(Kemnitz discusses the new firm in greater detail in a LawNext podcast episode that will air tomorrow.)
The firm is being led by Scottsdale lawyer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblevine/">Matthew Levine</a> as managing partner. In practice for 27 years, Levine since 1998 has been co-managing and co-founding partner of the commercial law firm <a href="https://www.tbl-law.com/">Titus Brueckner &amp; Levine</a>.
Joining Levine as a partner at the firm is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdharris2018/">Jeffrey Harris</a>, who had also been a partner at Titus Brueckner and who focuses on civil and commercial litigation.
Arizona&#8217;s rules require that an ABS appoint a compliance lawyer who is responsible for ensuring that the ABS complies with the states ABS rules and regulations. For this role, AA&amp;C has named <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynda-shely-5b93b29/">Lynda Shely</a>, a Scottsdale ethics lawyer who is 2020-2023 chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and a member of the Arizona Supreme Court’s Alternative Business Structure Committee.
Shely will not be a partner in the firm and will continue to maintain her own practice.
<h3>Reinvent the Archetype</h3>
Levine, the managing partner, said in a statement that he is looking forward to the opportunity to &#8220;reinvent the archetype of the modern firm.&#8221;
&#8220;By creating a firm unencumbered by billable hours and the traditional partner pyramid, AA&amp;C’s lawyers are freed from prioritizing firm economics over client-centric values,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Instead, our attorneys can place their singular focus on providing clients with the practical, commercial-oriented legal advice that best serves their strategic goals. Equally important, the model responds to the growing client outcry for high-quality, flexible, cost-efficient counsel.&#8221;
AA&amp;C says it will support a diverse set of clients ranging from growing businesses to multinationals. It will initially focus on corporate law, including complex real estate, labor and employment, mergers and acquisitions, data privacy, intellectual property, and regulatory matters, with plans to expand over time into other practice areas and sectors.
In <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AXIOM-Board-Packet-Redacted-1.pdf">its ABS application</a> to the Arizona Supreme Court, Axiom said the firm would focus on providing legal help to smaller businesses that do not have in-house legal departments.
&#8220;Businesses that lack in-house teams are more likely to ignore issues or unintentionally permit them to get out of control before seeking appropriate advice. Axiom Global is setting up the Applicant to fill that gap by offering both new and established businesses a new cost-effective way to proactively control risk through access to affordable legal services,&#8221; the application said.
&#8220;Leveraging Axiom Global’s legal industry and operations knowledge, the Applicant will deliver savings to clients by operating without the inefficiencies of minimum billable hours, high overhead, partner equity-based bonuses, and pyramid structure, all legacies of the traditional law firm model.&#8221;
Axiom&#8217;s Kemnitz said the launch of AA&amp;C is the next important step in the company&#8217;s continuing transformation of the legal industry.
&#8220;Under Matt’s leadership, we approach the practice of law with unmatched modernity – prioritizing clients and the lawyer experience, and leveraging the right legal talent, data, and practice-specific technology for each legal matter. AA&amp;C’s reimagined law firm model delivers uniquely effective and efficient outcomes for every dollar spent on outside counsel.&#8221;
Related:
<ul>
<li>LawNext Podcast: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/05/supreme-court-justice-ann-timmer-on-arizonas-sweeping-regulatory-reforms.html">Supreme Court Justice Ann Timmer on Arizona’s Sweeping Regulatory Reforms</a>.</li>
<li>LawNext Podcast: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/10/lawnext-podcast-a-deep-dive-into-the-first-comprehensive-study-of-reg-reforms-in-arizona-and-utah-with-stanfords-david-engstrom-and-lucy-ricca.html">A Deep Dive into the First Comprehensive Study of Reg Reforms in Arizona and Utah with Stanford’s David Engstrom and Lucy Ricca</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
Featured image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/127071-127071/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=277021">Frauke Feind</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=277021">Pixabay</a>.

Axiom, one of the longest-running alternative legal services providers, today joins the ranks of licensed legal services providers as it opens Axiom Advice & Counsel LLC (AA&C), a law firm in Arizona, where it plans to provide corporate legal services to businesses. Last May, the Supreme Court of Arizona granted AA&C a license to operate as […]

ALSP Axiom Opens Law Firm in Arizona Under Alternative Business Structure License

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-page-169-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />A new tool soon to be released by the no-code bot development company <a href="https://lawdroid.com/">LawDroid</a> uses the artificial intelligence of GPT-3.5 to serve as a lawyer&#8217;s virtual legal assistant, able to help with researching legal issues, drafting emails and letters, summarizing documents, brainstorming blog ideas, and even just conversational chatting.
Called <a href="https://lawdroid.com/copilot/">LawDroid Copilot</a>, it is currently available only by request on an early-access basis, but will be generally available later this year.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Main-options.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignright wp-image-42661" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Main-options.png" alt="" width="499" height="417" /></a>
Unlike LawDroid&#8217;s other product, <a href="https://lawdroid.com/builder/">Builder</a>, a no-code development platform law firms can use to build chat bots, Copilot is an attorney-facing tool that can assist lawyers in performing a variety of tasks. Currently, it is able to perform eight types of functions:
<ul>
<li>Research a legal issue.</li>
<li>Provide simple summary.</li>
<li>Correct my grammar.</li>
<li>Draft an email.</li>
<li>Brainstorm blog ideas.</li>
<li>Chat about anything.</li>
<li>Translate into another language.</li>
<li>Something else.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/lawdroid-builder/">Learn more about LawDroid in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
Recently, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgmartin/">Tom Martin</a>, LawDroid&#8217;s founder and CEO, walked me through a demonstration of some of these features. For anyone who has tried ChatGPT, the interface will look familiar, except that it has been fine-tuned to perform the specific functions I described above.
<hr />
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Research-a-legal-issue.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-42662" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Research-a-legal-issue.png" alt="" width="599" height="494" /></a>
<hr />
Legal research. In the example you see above of using Copilot for legal research, the lawyer asks for the leading U.S. case on privacy. It provides a straightforward answer of what is perhaps the oldest case on privacy, Griswold v. Connecticut. Martin said the lawyer could then ask follow-up questions to get more information, such as, &#8220;What is the case about?&#8221;, or, &#8220;Who were the justices in the majority?&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of like talking to a well-read law clerk versus doing LexisNexis Boolean searches,&#8221; Martin said.
As of yet, Copilot does not directly integrate with any legal research database. But Martin sees the possibility for that on the horizon.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Summary.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42669" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Summary.png" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></a>
Simple summary. A lawyer would use this to create a summary of legal language, such as in a contract, perhaps to send to a client. In the example above, Copilot is asked to provide a summary of language from a non-disclosure agreement. Simply copy the language and paste it into Copilot, and it creates a simple summary.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Email.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42671" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Email.png" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></a>
Draft email. In this example, the attorney is asking Copilot to draft an email to a client explaining the attorney-client privilege and including a citation to the California rules of professional conduct. In just a few seconds, it generates an email that gives the lawyer a template to use in writing to the client.
Martin emphasized that this is not a &#8220;set it and forget it&#8221; technology in that it is creating a finished product. &#8220;The mindset should be one of creative collaboration. If you have that mindset, you can make great use of this.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Brainstorm-content-ideas.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-42672" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Brainstorm-content-ideas.png" alt="" width="600" height="501" /></a>
Brainstorm blog ideas. Martin said this feature could be useful to a lawyer who is trying to come up with ideas for a blog post or podcast — particularly a solo who has no one to bounce ideas off of. The idea is not for Copilot to write the post, but to help the lawyer get past that initial writer&#8217;s block.
So, as shown above, the lawyer might tell Copilot to come up with ideas for a post about the ethical implications for lawyers of using generative AI. Copilot comes back with a title and enough text to perhaps get the lawyer started on the post.
Translate into another language. Copilot has the ability to perform basic translation, which is so far limited to Italian and Spanish. Additional languages will be added, Martin said. Copy and past any test into Copilot, and it will translate into the requested language.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Chat.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42670" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawDroid-Copilot-Chat.png" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></a>
Chat about anything. This feature, Martin says, is for that lawyer who perhaps is having a tough day and needs a bit of emotional support. The lawyer can unload a bit onto Copilot, and it will respond. The lawyer can keep going in a casual back and forth, and Copilot will continue to engage.
While this early-access version comes with these eight specified functions, Martin said later versions will allow lawyers to build their own customized versions. It will also include the ability to generate documents.
Copilot is developed on top of the same no-code platform that powers LawDroid&#8217;s Builder platform. That will enable lawyers to go into the back end and do their own customization.
Also on the roadmap is to allow law firms with a specific need, such as for discovery, to provide document sets that LawDroid can use to further train and fine tune Copilot.
So far, the only public-facing application that has already been built using the Copilot technology is the <a href="https://www.onlinejudge.us/bot-dev">digital assistant for criminal defendants</a> being used by <a href="https://www.onlinejudge.us/bio">Judge Scott Schlegel</a>, the Louisiana judge who has been widely lauded for his use of technology in his court. (He also has one for civil cases.)
While this could have been built using Builder alone, it would have required developing the complex set of &#8220;intents&#8221; — or user goals — that would be required for criminal cases. Using Copilot and GPT, the judge was instead able to effectively &#8220;dump&#8221; a knowledge base of anything a criminal defendant might want to know, creating what is basically one intent that is able to answer most any question.
Martin said he has not decided on pricing for Copilot, but he said that he plans to keep it affordable. He thinks it will be particularly useful for lawyers practicing in areas such as personal injury or family law where lawyers need assistants but may not want to spend that extra money on hiring.
For now, anyone interested in trying Copilot can request access through Lawdroid&#8217;s website.

A new tool soon to be released by the no-code bot development company LawDroid uses the artificial intelligence of GPT-3.5 to serve as a lawyer’s virtual legal assistant, able to help with researching legal issues, drafting emails and letters, summarizing documents, brainstorming blog ideas, and even just conversational chatting. Called LawDroid Copilot, it is currently […]

New GPT-Based Chat App from LawDroid Is A Lawyer’s ‘Copilot’ for Research, Drafting, Brainstorming and More

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gavel-logo-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://www.documate.org/">Documate</a>, a company whose no-code automation platform is used by law firms and legal organizations to automate the creation of legal documents, is rebranding under a new name, <a href="https://www.gavel.io/">Gavel</a>, to better reflect its continuing expansion into serving as the platform on which law firms, legal organizations, and legal tech startups can build online legal products.
&#8220;There&#8217;s an estimate that within the next 10 years, 90% of legal services are going to be delivered online,&#8221; founder and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/documentautomation/">Dorna Moini</a> told me ahead of today&#8217;s announcement. &#8220;We want to be the infrastructure on which that is built and that&#8217;s the direction in which we&#8217;re building all of our features.&#8221;
In conjunction with the rebrand, the company is also announcing that it has hired a new chief technology officer, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pnmartin7/">Pierre Martin</a>, who has 15 years of technology leadership experience. Prior to joining Documate last November, Martin co-founded and scaled logistics software company Beacon. Earlier, he served in software development and engineering leadership roles at both Amazon and Microsoft.
<div id="attachment_42752" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dorna-Moini-Headshot-scaled.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42752" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-42752" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dorna-Moini-Headshot-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>Dorna Moini</div>
While the company will continue to offer and support its core document automation product, the rebrand is intended to reaffirm its commitment to serving as the infrastructure for legal professionals to &#8220;automate their expertise&#8221; by creating online legal products, and it will now focus on continuing to add features that enable that. Already, Gavel has added such components as a client portal and product billing, and it will soon be integrating more communication features.
Several companies and law firms were already using the Documate platform to build legal products, including the companies <a href="https://hellodivorce.com/">Hello Divorce</a> and <a href="https://www.landlordlegalteam.com/">Landlord Legal</a> and the law firm Wilson Sonsini, Moini told me. &#8220;What we&#8217;ve noticed is that there are so many of our customers who are building things that are so much more than just document automation — building full end-to-end legal products that really help scale their practices.&#8221;
In fact, she said, in recent years, startups that have built their products on Gavel have raised over $25 million in venture funding, and the company has customers building products on its platform in at least 23 different countries and 18 different languages.
Like a no-code platform such as <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/">Squarespace</a> does for building websites, the Gavel platform allows legal professionals with no coding background to build products ranging from tools that will be used only internally, to hybrid tools that combine DIY features with hands-on legal help, to tools that are entirely DIY, Moini said.
&#8220;Attorneys are able to scale their practices beyond what they ever would have been able to if they were doing one-to-one services. And they&#8217;re able to serve this huge underserved middle class that actually has some form of disposable income to spend.&#8221;
<h3>Trusted Process</h3>
Given this increasing use of the platform for creating products, the company began to see its name as limiting, Moini said. &#8220;It refers to the document automation piece, but it doesn&#8217;t paint the picture for legal professionals of what they can build long term.&#8221;
The company chose the name Gavel because, for centuries, gavels have been used to express finality in decision-making and a trusted process.
&#8220;That&#8217;s exactly what our customers are building on our platform,&#8221; Moini said. &#8220;They&#8217;re building these workflows and these legal products into which they have put all of their expertise and that their clients or their customers can also, in turn, trust to give them a process to get to the resolution in a particular matter, whether that&#8217;s a transactional matter or litigation matter.
&#8220;We want to be the platform on which you&#8217;re building these tools, and wherever along the spectrum of productization you fit, we want to provide you the tool set you need.&#8221;
Moini said this latest evolution of her company takes her almost full circle back to the company she originally founded. As I wrote <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2017/12/startup-launching-today-provides-automated-legal-help-low-moderate-incomes-starting-domestic-violence.html">when she launched the company in 2017</a>, it was originally called HelpSelf Legal and it was an automated platform to help to women obtain domestic violence restraining orders. The document automation technology underlying that site was so successful that it became the company&#8217;s focus.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve now gone almost full circle to allowing people to build that whole platform, like what I had built in 2017 in that domestic violence platform,&#8221; Moini said. &#8220;We now want to allow legal professionals to build that whole suite — not just the document automation, but login, payments, multiple ways of billing, unbundled services, in-app messaging, document automaton, information storage, and more.&#8221;
By &#8220;information storage,&#8221; Moini is referring to the ability of clients to create profiles on the platform and store their profile information. She sees the potential for allowing clients to authorize the platform to share their data with other attorneys who are also on the platform. For example, maybe a client worked with an attorney on the platform one year to create an estate plan, and then, the next year, is getting a divorce. If the client uses an attorney who is on the platform, the client can authorize the data to be transferred.
<h3>Where Legal Is Going</h3>
Gavel charges for use of its platform on a SaaS subscription basis. All of the pricing is <a href="https://www.gavel.io/pricing">listed on its website</a>. Customers can be transparent about their use of the platform or white label their products to hide any mention of the company. That said, Moini&#8217;s vision is that the Gavel platform becomes so trusted among both legal professionals and legal consumers that developers would benefit from saying their product is on Gavel.
The company&#8217;s customers include law firms of all sizes, but Moini sees a difference in how different sized firms use the platform.
Larger firms tend to use Gavel more for internal-facing projects and document automation, whereas small firms are more likely to use it to build client-facing products.
&#8220;Smaller firms are really going head first into making their tools client facing. Whether or not they&#8217;re fully making a legal product, they&#8217;re at least making the tools that they do develop be client facing.&#8221;
Gavel has also launched a <a href="https://www.gavel.io/marketplace">Marketplace</a> where visitors can find and use applications created using the Gavel platform. Some can be used for free, others require a payment.
Several of the apps have been created by legal services agencies, such as a group of Social Security forms created by Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services.
&#8220;This rebrand is a symbol of our focus and commitment to this area, because I think some people have thought of some of these features as being ancillary to the document automation platform, but they are very much our focus in the direction of our company and our North Star. We believe that this is the direction in which the legal profession is going.&#8221;
&nbsp;

Documate, a company whose no-code automation platform is used by law firms and legal organizations to automate the creation of legal documents, is rebranding under a new name, Gavel, to better reflect its continuing expansion into serving as the platform on which law firms, legal organizations, and legal tech startups can build online legal products. […]

Documate Rebrands As Gavel As It Expands Beyond Document Automation Into Providing A Platform for Building Online Legal Products

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Borstein-Flaherty-LawNext-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25634856/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Over the course of 2022, the principals of <a href="https://www.lexfusion.com/">LexFusion</a> conferred with 435 law departments and 250 law firms. Why? Simply put, because that is what the company does. It is a go-to-market company that defines its purpose as “to grease the gears of commerce and rapidly increase the adoption of legal innovation.” On behalf of a group of curated legal innovation companies, it works with legal departments and law firms to help them understand how innovative products can benefit them.
As a result of those conversations, they came out of 2022 with a unique perspective on the legal market. In a recent post <a href="https://www.legalevolution.org/2023/01/lexfusions-second-annual-legal-market-year-in-review-348/">at the Legal Evolution blog</a>, they discussed their take-aways from those conversations and shared some of what they have been telling law departments and lawyers.
“We executed NDAs with multiple law departments and law firms so we could dig beneath surface-level discussions of practical innovation into the painful realities of budgets and politics,” they wrote. “We uncovered far more chronic pain than even we anticipated.”
What was the source of that chronic pain and what advice did LexFusion offer? In this episode of LawNext, two of the cofounders of LexFusion, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-b-a00b35/">Joseph Borstein</a>, CEO, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcaseyflaherty/">Casey Flaherty</a>, chief strategy officer, join host Bob Ambrogi to discuss the year that just ended and what it portends for the year ahead.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
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<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
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Over the course of 2022, the principals of LexFusion conferred with 435 law departments and 250 law firms. Why? Simply put, because that is what the company does. It is a go-to-market company that defines its purpose as “to grease the gears of commerce and rapidly increase the adoption of legal innovation.” On behalf of […]

On LawNext Podcast: LexFusion’s Joe Borstein and Casey Flaherty on the 2022 Legal Market in Review

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ApperioDashboardFeatured-169-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />The London-based company <a href="https://www.apperio.com/">Apperio</a>, which provides legal spend analytics and matter tracking software, said today it has raised a $7 million growth round of venture capital funding. It will use the funding to further develop its product for corporate counsel, meet growing demand from law firms for new functionality, and accelerate its expansion to the U.S. market.
The announcement today brings the total funding Apperio has raised to date to $19.9 million.
The investment was led by <a href="https://www.moltenventures.com/">Molten Ventures</a> (formerly Draper Esprit), with participation from <a href="https://www.notion.vc/">Notion Capital</a>, <a href="https://iqcapital.vc/">IQ Capital</a>, <a href="https://www.nextlawventures.vc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="&quot;https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nextlawventures.vc/">Nextlaw Ventures</a>, <a href="https://volution.vc/">Volution</a> and <a href="https://www.hambroperks.com/news/2022/11/hambro-perks-announces-first-close-of-new-venture-debt-fund#:~:text=2%20November%2C%20London%2C%20UK%3A,by%20sector%20expert%20David%20Hayers">Hambro Perks</a>, which provided venture debt. Both Volution and Hambro Perks are new investors in this round.
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/apperio/">Learn more about Apperio in the LawNext Legal Tech Directory</a>.
<div id="attachment_42346" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Nicholas-dAdhemar-founder-and-CEO-Apperio-2-scaled.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42346" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-42346" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Nicholas-dAdhemar-founder-and-CEO-Apperio-2-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>CEO Nicholas d&#8217;Adhemar</div>
“It’s no secret venture funding has slowed across technology sectors,” said Apperio Non-Executive Chairman <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/djeldridge/">David Eldridge</a>. “That Apperio closed on funding with both new and existing investors, in this environment, speaks volumes to the company’s unique position in the legal technology sector, the value the company is delivering to customers and the significant opportunities ahead.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshr/">Richard Marsh</a>, chief portfolio officer at Molten Ventures, said that Apperio is impressive for its focus on where and how its technology delivers value to customers and how to expand that.
“Over the past year, product development has expanded Apperio’s remit from legal expenditure into other major professional services relationships, including accounting and audit,&#8221; Marsh said. &#8220;This has significantly grown the value potential for customers and the globally addressable market for the company.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/08/in-defense-of-the-billable-hour-a-lawnext-interview-with-apperio-ceo-nicholas-dadhemar.html">In Defense of the Billable Hour: A LawNext Interview with Apperio CEO Nicholas d’Adhemar</a>.
Apperio&#8217;s founder and CEO, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dadhemar/">Nicholas d’Adhemar</a>, is a lawyer turned private equity investment manager who got the idea for the company when he noticed his PE firm was often surprised by the size of law firm invoices. Fees charged by outside legal service providers would frequently exceed the cost of the estimate given at the outset, with little to no visibility that this had occurred until the invoice landed.
Having worked in a law firm previously, d’Adhemar knew that, given the pace and intensity of the work around deals, both the client and the firm can lose track of just how much time the firm had booked. Believing there was a better way, he founded Apperio.
Apperio&#8217;s product provides in-house counsel with a comprehensive view of their legal spending on a single dashboard. The platform aggregates and analyzes both historical and current legal spend, including work-in-progress, and provides a streamlined invoice approval workflow. The software does this, in part, by connecting directly to the practice management systems of law firms.
With that view, legal departments can see in real-time when the budget for a legal matter meets a certain threshold and then decide whether to raise the issue with the law firm.
Apperio says it has more than 60 corporate counsel customers, including Network Rail, Cornerstone, Phoenix Group and Royal London, and more than 250 global law firms connected to the Apperio platform.
“We’re deeply grateful to our investors whose commitment has enabled Apperio to think differently about this enduring problem of transparency in the business of law,” said d’Adhemar. “We’re looking forward to their continued collaboration in this next chapter as we build out our legal spend management software and strive to strengthen the relationship between corporate counsel and their law firms.”

The London-based company Apperio, which provides legal spend analytics and matter tracking software, said today it has raised a $7 million growth round of venture capital funding. It will use the funding to further develop its product for corporate counsel, meet growing demand from law firms for new functionality, and accelerate its expansion to the […]

Eyeing U.S. Expansion, Legal Spend Management Company Apperio Raises $7M Growth Round

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Rabinowtiz-Merrill-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Earlier this week, <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2023/01/shuttered-legal-analytics-company-gavelytics-is-acquired-by-recently-launched-analytics-company-pre-dicta.html">I reported here</a> that the litigation analytics company Gavelytics, which shut down operations in June, has been acquired by a relative newcomer to the legal analytics space, <a href="https://www.pre-dicta.com/">Pre/Dicta</a>, which launched its product in July after two years of development.
Yesterday, I met via Zoom with the CEOs of the two companies, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danrabinowitz1/">Dan Rabinowitz</a> of Pre/Dicta and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-merrill-a2727a13/">Rick Merrill</a> of Gavelytics, to learn more about what led to the deal and what it might mean for the field of litigation analytics.
What follows is a transcript of that conversation, which I have condensed and edited for style and continuity.
<hr />
BOB: Congratulations to both of you. Let me start by asking each of you why you wanted to do this deal and why you think it makes sense.
DAN: When I decided to launch Pre/Dicta, I wanted to make sure that whatever we did was comprehensive. So we elected to go the federal route and have total coverage of all the federal judges, all the federal jurisdictions, and to cover all the types of suits, rather than limiting it to a particular case type. But at the same time, we also recognized that, at the end of the day, for our continued success, we would ultimately have to have state coverage. The vast majority of cases are in state court – just in terms of potential clients, that obviously opens it up to a substantial number more than just those that practice in federal court. So we had already been contemplating how we might attack that.
As Rick can speak to, it&#8217;s a fairly complex problem to get state court data. Every jurisdiction has its own system of record. When it comes to the federal system, whatever limitations PACER has, there&#8217;s still a singular system that you can work with. But when it comes to state court data, we were going to have to make a strategic decision about which jurisdictions to begin with. We understood it would be a limited rollout, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. And then there also would be a lot of work up front in terms of cleaning the data classifications, categorizations and the like.
So we understood it was going to be a longer-term project. At the same time, it was critical to our success. So when Rick reached out to me and we started talking, we saw the opportunity for us to leapfrog over all of that. And once we get set up – which shouldn&#8217;t take that long, because we&#8217;re essentially applying the same approach that we did at the federal level, focusing on judges in order to create our predictions – this would be exponential for our growth. Rick had 25-state coverage and some 200-plus local jurisdictions.
There were two aspects of this that were really appealing. Number one, Rick and Gavelytics had done such a great job of pulling that data together in a meaningful way – not just high level, but really getting more granular. When our team took a look at it, they were thrilled – the state of the data was wonderful. Then the second piece was the IP, that we would also gain the technology to not only work with the data that Gavelytics had already gathered, but that would also allow us to continue on the path, continue to be able to scrape data, continue to be able to classify and process that data.
So it wasn&#8217;t simply getting the data set and leaving us to figure out how we are going to keep this updated. It gave us both components that would enable us to move very quickly into state court predictions.
BOB: Rick, what about you?
RICK: We were all very saddened by what happened to Gavelytics, of course, and frankly, I think we just got a little unlucky. Upon the closing of the business, we received a great outpouring of comments, most of it very kind, from clients, from other companies, from partners, from lots of different folks around the industry. And when it became clear that we had closed, we received 15 or more different offers to buy our assets. The offer that was by far the most interesting came from Dan and his team. And the reason for that was the vision about predictions.
As a reminder, Bob, in the analytics space, there are generally deemed to be three different types of analytics. You&#8217;ve got descriptive analytics that are merely describing things. Think of baseball statistics, or what Gavelytics or other companies in this space all do. Everyone is describing the past. The concept with descriptive analytics is that you can make an inference about what may happen in the future on the basis of what happened in the past. The next type of analytics would be prescriptive analytics. Those would be analytics that might make a recommendation of some kind – because X happened in the past, you might consider taking action Y.
But the crown jewel of all of this, the Holy Grail, are predictive analytics. Weather reports are predictive analytics. They tell you it&#8217;s going to rain on Tuesday, whereas descriptive analytics would be much more like an almanac, to say, in January it tends to rain. You can see how one is fantastically more valuable than the other. If descriptive is all you can do, that&#8217;s great, there is genuine value there. And I&#8217;m proud of what we did at Gavelytics in descriptive analytics. But we didn&#8217;t even try to predict things, nor did we ever claim that we could.
So when I heard from Dan and heard that they wanted to make high-quality, scientifically sound, statistically sound predictions, I was intrigued. And, I have to admit, I was skeptical at first. But as I learned more about it and saw the product, understood some of the behind-the-scenes technology, I was really impressed. I think that the combination of industry-leading federal motion practice predictions coupled with state court coverage that can do much of the same thing is an unmatched product offering in the industry. Nobody&#8217;s doing that anywhere that I&#8217;m aware of. For that reason, choosing to go with Dan and his team was a very easy decision.
BOB: Dan, when I spoke to you back when you launched, you made the point that part of the reason you&#8217;re able to do this kind of predictive analytics is that you&#8217;re drawing on a greater body of data than just the docket data. So as you look to state courts, you get the docket data here from Gavelytics, but how do you get the rest of that picture, the rest of the data you&#8217;ve been using to distinguish your analytics?
DAN: First of all, Gavelytics has more than simply the high-level docket data. So a lot of that is critical to our algorithmic models. Even when it comes to federal data, none of this, unfortunately, resides in a single repository. For the federal data, we had to go to a number of different sources in order to build our database, in order to build our judicial information. Some of them are very easy to get and some of them, frankly, are very difficult to get. At the state court level, there are similar challenges, and for each jurisdiction, there are challenges specific to that jurisdiction.
We are very interested in biographical information as well as docket information, as well as past history of decisions. As you would imagine, in a state that elects judges versus a state that appoints judges, there&#8217;s going to be a certain amount of information that&#8217;s going to be in the public space, and in other states it is not going to be as obvious. That certainly is a challenge for us, but we&#8217;re well on the way to addressing that. But that is inherent in creating a system, creating predictive modeling that&#8217;s predicated on information and data that no one else has thought to look at. Inevitably, because no one&#8217;s thought to look at it, no one&#8217;s gathered it up into a single repository. That was something that was put on us because of our particular needs. But our particular needs are, frankly, what gets us to those predictive models, what goes well beyond the status quo and really enables you to arrive at those predictions.
BOB: What kind of a timeline you&#8217;re looking to in terms of beginning to roll out some of these state analytics?
DAN: We&#8217;re hopeful that we can get this out in the next three to four months because, again, there are two aspects to this. One is obtaining the data, and what Gavelytics had is still in such a great condition that it allows us to compress the timeline. And then the other piece, in building out the federal system, we had to do a lot of analysis as to which criteria, which data points, are the most relevant, are the most impactful. We&#8217;ve done a lot of that work as it relates to the federal system, and now it&#8217;s simply transferring that. While there is some nuance around that, a lot of the heavy lift has already been done. It&#8217;s simply now applying it to the states.
BOB: Will that be on a rolling basis, state by state?
DAN: We’ll launch with as many as we can. Our team is already hard at work at this. While you can imagine there are certain states that have priority, we&#8217;re not interested in a slow rollout. Much like on the federal side, we recognize that there are many smaller firms that are regional, and a lot of them litigate cases in many different jurisdictions. For us to provide true value for our clients, we at rollout would like to hit as many of the 25 as possible.
BOB: Rick, you&#8217;re joining as a strategic advisor. What does that mean? What&#8217;s your role going to be going forward?
RICK: I am going to help in the adaptation of the Gavelytics assets into the predictive schema. There will be certain technology help that I will provide in a senior-guidance type role. I will help with general strategy, sales and marketing. I would like to think of myself as the, I don&#8217;t know, the guy who&#8217;s been there and done that a little bit. We launched our product in September of 2017, so we&#8217;ve done a lot of this stuff and we know a lot of people and firms and corporate legal departments and insurance and all that. So I would humbly suggest that I&#8217;m an experienced voice in this slice of our industry.
Certainly, I can help the team avoid some of the many mistakes that I made and that we made at Gavelytics, but then also try to focus on some of the things that we did very well and try to do that. I&#8217;m sure I will wear many hats and I&#8217;ll probably be on a plane a whole lot, since I&#8217;m here in sunny, rainy California and Dan&#8217;s all the way out east.
Bob, I&#8217;ve known you for a number of years now. I&#8217;m very excited to say that I&#8217;m proud to be a small part of this team. Dan&#8217;s really built something great. I think they&#8217;re onto something here that&#8217;s not true with lots of other legal tech companies that are out there. This one, I think, is a real gem and has a very bright future in front of it.
BOB: Dan, have you taken in any investment or are you bootstrapping or how are you funding all of this?
DAN: I have a partner, just one partner. There&#8217;s no need for me to do any sort of capital raise. We&#8217;re well capitalized. That&#8217;s why you haven&#8217;t seen any news announcements that we&#8217;ve needed to raise millions of dollars. We&#8217;re already well on the way to that. We don&#8217;t have any outside money. It&#8217;s just the two of us.
BOB: What else might we expect to see from you over the next six months to a year or so? What else are you thinking about or working on?
DAN: Our approach, we believe, is one that can be applied to a number of different docket events that we&#8217;re also going to be exploring. While we kicked off with motions to dismiss and now we&#8217;re expanding it to the state level, there are any number of different types of motions or outcomes of cases that are driven ultimately by the judge. Knowing the judge is really what both differentiates us from everyone else, but then also really allows for predictions.
The way I like to think about it is like Google. Their capability to predict our buying patterns or the future of what we&#8217;re going to buy is because they have deep knowledge about who we are. They understand who we are, where we live, who our friends are, what our relationships are, how much money we make, where went to school, et cetera. Once you have that information, you really can apply it anywhere. That&#8217;s what big data means. Having a large data set and effectively using and mining those data allows you to apply predictions in any number of different spaces.
You have it in commerce and now we have it at the judge level. So anywhere else that we can apply predictions throughout the litigation lifecycle, those are areas that we&#8217;re exploring. The obvious ones would be summary judgment, expert motions, discovery motions, and the like. But each of those are really just docket events – events that a judge is critical to, that their decision is critical to. If we can understand who they are and their preferences, biases, et cetera, that enables us to make our verifiable predictions.
BOB: When you roll out state analytics, is that also going to remain focused on motions to dismiss to begin with, or will it be a different set of motions?
DAN: For us to roll this out as quickly as possible, yes, we are just going to focus on motions to dismiss – do what we do well right now. But, again, this is not a dead end. We&#8217;re looking to keep going through all of the litigation lifecycle.
BOB: When you launched, you spoke of an 86.7% accuracy rate. Is that still the number, or have you gotten better?
DAN: It really depends. The way that we arrived at that number was that we back-tested it through 50,000 motions. But we always get asked the questions, Have you continued to test it? What has been the effect of deploying it in the real world? I was recently on a panel with a federal judge. Before we got on the panel, I went ahead and applied our predictive models to all his cases. In that instance, we were at 88%. Admittedly it was a smaller data set, but it depends.
Hopefully, we will continue to improve our models as we get more information, both in terms of docket information as well as judge information. And, frankly, this is a learning process for us as well. We&#8217;re always interested in improving this and refining this. The hope is that, over time, we absolutely will keep pushing the envelope.
BOB: What&#8217;s been the reception from the legal market.
DAN: It&#8217;s been very positive. We&#8217;ve gotten terrific feedback, from defense firms, from plaintiffs’ firms, from insurance companies, from litigation funders – really, across the board, it&#8217;s been very positive. At the same time, the reality of the sales cycle is what it is. Especially with new technology, people always want to fully understand that and make sure that they have buy-in across the organization, which makes sense to me. So, yeah, overall, incredibly positive.
RICK: I think it will take a little bit of time. Gavelytics saw this early in our lifecycle when no one knew what analytics was. Think back five, six years, it was unthinkable that you could do what Gavelytics first did. I think it will take a little bit of time for people to understand how this can have a tremendous effect on litigation practice, both from the perspective of law firms, big and small, plaintiff and defense, to insurance companies, to corporate legal departments, and, in particular, to litigation finance. I think they&#8217;re going to eat this thing up once they understand it.
This is one of the few pieces of technology out there that could genuinely change how litigators do their jobs. I&#8217;m so excited for this year. Once the state court stuff is cooking and added to all the great federal things that the Pre/Dicta already doing, I think it could, over time, literally revolutionize how lawyers do their job.
BOB: You&#8217;re preaching to the choir on that point. But I continue to hear from lawyers, ‘I don&#8217;t care what the analytics say, my judge is going to hear my brilliance as a lawyer and read this brilliant brief I&#8217;ve written and it’s going to come out my way.’
RICK: Dan and I both were big firm litigators, and we felt the same way. We all think that we&#8217;re special snowflakes, and our case is the real special one. What I found with Gavelytics when we first started pitching law firms was that there was a generational divide. I hate to say it, but the younger partners, the senior associates, the folks that are a little more technologically comfortable, were the ones that got it much more immediately. The longer-time practitioners who say, ‘I know every judge in New York or wherever,’ you&#8217;re not necessarily going to be able to change their minds, and that&#8217;s okay.
But I think that the more forward-thinking people, the people that are already into this stuff and recognize its power, I think they&#8217;re the ones that are going to get it.
BOB: Anything else that you guys want to mention that I haven&#8217;t asked you about?
RICK: It&#8217;s going to be a good year. I&#8217;m not sure I fully believe that globally, but I think in this context, for predictive analytics, it&#8217;s going to be a brilliant year.
DAN: I want to echo that. I have to say that when we initially had our discussions with Rick about the data and we had our team look at it, it was incredibly exciting. The developers and the data scientists were like, ‘This is an amazing data set.’ They were thrilled to have access to it.
For me, that was exciting, and understanding that we can expand to this space was certainly exciting. But I got to spend a couple of days with Rick out in LA, just talking with him. Understanding his appreciation of our technology, with him having been in the space for the amount of time he was and the deep knowledge that he has, and still really respecting what we do, and the fact that he would join us, that it wouldn&#8217;t simply be that we would buy it and then he would go to the wayside, was perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the transaction for me.
RICK: I must say, Dan shared none of this with me during the negotiations. I now feel that Dan underpaid.
Just kidding. But, yeah, we had a great time, and there&#8217;s a lot that we can do together, so it&#8217;s going to be a bright future.
BOB: Thanks a lot for speaking with me. Appreciate it.

Earlier this week, I reported here that the litigation analytics company Gavelytics, which shut down operations in June, has been acquired by a relative newcomer to the legal analytics space, Pre/Dicta, which launched its product in July after two years of development. Yesterday, I met via Zoom with the CEOs of the two companies, Dan […]

Following Pre/Dicta’s Acquisition of Gavelytics, The Two Companies’ CEO Discuss What The Deal Means for Legal Analytics

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AderantHandshakeConnectXFeatured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />What do you get when you combine one of the leading intranet portals for larger law firms with the expertise of a consulting firm that has been building and implementing intranets for decades?
The answer, according to an announcement today, is a pre-designed, state-of-the-art intranet portal that can be deployed in just weeks, either as an enhancement to a firm&#8217;s existing portal or as a replacement for a legacy portal.
The new product, <a href="https://www.aderant.com/solutions-handshake-new/">Handshake ConnectX</a>, has been developed through a partnership between <a href="http://www.aderant.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.aderant.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1632321583130000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHA1AMFJA6Q-4Zn-FdAKAzjs94-ZQ">Aderant</a>, a global provider of business management software for law firms, and <a href="https://fireman.company/">Fireman &amp; Company</a>, a legal-industry management consulting firm that was <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/03/epiq-acquires-legal-industry-management-consulting-firm-fireman-company.html">acquired last March</a> by Epiq, a global company that provides technology-enabled services to the legal industry and corporations. 
Handshake ConnextX is built on Aderant&#8217;s Handshake platform while leveraging Fireman &amp; Company’s decades of experience building some of the legal industry’s most innovative and award-winning intranets, the companies say.
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/aderant-handshake/">Read more about Aderant Handshake in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
They describe Handshake ConnectX as a next-level extension of Aderant’s out-of-the-box Handshake Connect intranet solution, and they say it can be deployed to create a new firm intranet in weeks versus months. It can also be deployed as an add-on enhancement for current Handshake customers or as a full replacement of a firm’s legacy intranet.
According to the announcement, Handshake ConnectX combines the features of the Handshake toolkit, which includes an extensive line of business integrations, with Fireman &amp; Company’s state-of-the-art intranet designs and expertise.
&#8220;The product will provide firms with an accelerated, high-performance intranet platform that features the leading practices from both companies,&#8221; the announcement says. &#8220;Handshake ConnectX allows firms to take advantage of decades of learned best practices from Fireman &amp; Company while surfacing data from disparate business systems through Handshake technology.&#8221;
Aderant President and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscartrett/">Chris Cartrett</a> said that Fireman &amp; Company&#8217;s designs are the gold standard when it comes to creating customized legal portals.
&#8220;Many law firms want intranets built their way, but they don’t have the resources to build expensive, fully customized portals,&#8221; Cartrett said. &#8220;Handshake ConnectX combines Aderant’s proven Handshake technology with Fireman’s substantial knowledge of law firms and client relationships. We are excited for the speed and cost benefits this brings to the legal market.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombaldwin/">Tom Baldwin</a>, managing director at Fireman &amp; Company, said, &#8220;We recognize the growing need for an intranet offering that allows firms to take advantage of our best practices, where they don’t have the resources for a fully custom solution. Handshake ConnectX is the best of both worlds – designed by Fireman, powered by Handshake.&#8221;

What do you get when you combine one of the leading intranet portals for larger law firms with the expertise of a consulting firm that has been building and implementing intranets for decades? The answer, according to an announcement today, is a pre-designed, state-of-the-art intranet portal that can be deployed in just weeks, either as […]

Aderant Teams Up with Fireman & Company to Launch Pre-Designed Intranet Portal Based on Handshake

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Affinity-Lawyerist-Merger-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Kicking off the new year with a bang, two of the best-known companies in the United States providing business coaching and technology consulting to law firms have merged, creating a combined entity of nearly 100 people with expertise across virtually all sectors of law, particularly small- and mid-sized law firms.
<a href="https://lawyerist.com/">Lawyerist Media LLC</a>, which started as a blog in 2008 and evolved into a leading business coaching and training company for small law firms, is merging with <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/">Affinity Consulting Group LLC</a>, one of the top companies in the U.S. providing strategic business and tech-implementation consulting for law firms and legal departments.
Describing the merger as “two brands, one team, healthier firms,” the companies say that, together, they are better positioned to provide a range of industry experts capable of helping law firms and organizations of all sizes and at every stage of business build healthier companies. This includes working with legal teams to:
<ul>
<li>Define their businesses through strategic consulting and teaching.</li>
<li>Build their businesses through business and technology implementation.</li>
<li>Perfect their businesses through ongoing training and business coaching.</li>
</ul>
“We see tremendous opportunity,” said Affinity cofounder and managing partner <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbiefoster/">Debbie Foster</a>, who will become CEO of the merged company. “We are excited about the exceptional services both brands offer the legal community.
“This merger allows us to meet every firm where they are, dissect their issues, and provide them with the exact level of service they need — whether it&#8217;s developing a business strategy, implementing technology, or ongoing coaching and business support.”
<h3>Brands will Continue</h3>
While Lawyerist will remain as a standalone brand and continue to offer its existing services, all nine of its employees will join Affinity, including <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieaeverett/">Stephanie Everett</a>, who has been with Lawyerist since 2018 and who became its CEO last year. In addition, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronstreet/">Aaron Street</a>, Lawyerist’s cofounder and former CEO, who stepped down from that role last year, is returning.
Both Everett and Street will join Affinity as partner-owners and members of the leadership team, with Everett focusing on future development of product and service offerings and Street serving in a CFO-type role focused on strategy and growth.
“It might not look like much has changed for many of the lawyers in our community, but they will all benefit from the additional expertise and resources the Affinity team brings to the table,” said Everett. “Affinity’s resources will allow us to build more tools and services to help small firms build future-focused firms.”
Lawyerist started as a blog created in 2008 by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-glover-80a872254/">Sam Glover</a>, then a practicing lawyer in Minneapolis. After originally focusing his blog on technology for solo and small law firms, he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090216063217/http://lawyerist.com/2008/08/24/new-name-new-look">relaunched it as Lawyerist</a> on Aug. 24, 2008, explaining at the time that a “lawyerist” is “one who lawyers,” and that the blog was intended to serve as “a lawyering manual — or survival guide, depending on how you look at it.”
In 2009, Street joined the company, later serving as its CEO from 2016 to 2021. He was instrumental in helping develop Lawyerist into a full-fledged coaching and resources company for solo and small firms. The business includes Lawyerist Lab, a paid coaching community; the Lawyerist website, a leading destination for small firm resources and articles; a popular weekly podcast; and the book, <a href="https://amzn.to/3WIBB3k">The Small Firm Roadmap</a>.
Glover left the company in 2020 and Street stepped down as CEO last year, when Everett moved into that role.
Affinity Consulting Group was founded in 2000 by Foster and three other law firm consultants, <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/team/steven-best/">Steven Best</a>, <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/team/barron-henley/">Barron Henley</a> and <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/team/paul-unger-esq/">Paul Unger</a>, who met at a software conference in Toronto. Today, Affinity’s <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/team/">roster of consultants and partners</a> includes a who’s who of names whose frequent speaking and writing makes them familiar to anyone who follows legal tech.
<h3>Doubling Down</h3>
In an interview last week, Foster and Everett declined to disclose the financial terms of the merger, except to say that both Everett and Street will join the merged company as owners.
“Aaron and I have a vested interest in the company going forward,” Everett said. “This isn&#8217;t a deal where we&#8217;re getting some cash and leaving. It&#8217;s just the opposite, where we&#8217;re doubling down and really excited about building the company for the future.”
She said that Lawyerist has always been a “small but mighty team,” but the merger means they will have more resources and expertise available to them to do much more.
“There are so many things we want to do, and we often felt that with more help, we could do more. This is growing our team ten times stronger, overnight, we’re going from ten to 100.”
Both Foster and Everett see this merger as enabling multiple opportunities to better serve their clients. For Lawyerist, those clients are primarily solo and small firms. For Affinity, its clients are most typically firms of 10 to 50 lawyers, but span solos to large firms, government agencies, and corporate legal departments.
Even before the merger, Foster said, Affinity was considering ways to expand the services it offers to include more of the kind of coaching that Lawyerist was already providing.
Certain of Affinity’s services, such as a technology implementation for a law firm, are often provided on a “drop in and then leave” basis, Foster explained. But Affinity wanted to find ways to “really get in there with them to help them be able to create the healthy firm that they’re really proud of.”
With this merger, both Foster and Everett see opportunities to expand that kind of coaching to a broader range of firms.
“We do so much project work for our clients and we don&#8217;t always have the opportunity to offer them the longer term, longer tail, relationship that they need to help them make the changes they need to make to get where they want to go,” Foster said. “Lawyerist has perfected that and their people have perfected that and have put together something that I think so many of our clients are hungry for – that methodology for what makes up a successful firm.”
Even as the merger enables Affinity to expand Lawyerist&#8217;s coaching model into a broader range of firms, it also allows Lawyerist to use its experience in delivering services at scale to bring Affinity’s expertise to solo and small firms in new ways.
“We can take some of the knowledge and expertise that Affinity has in tech implementation, for example, and take what Lawyerist does really well, which is deliver services at scale, and now we can marry those and help small firms who don&#8217;t need or can&#8217;t invest thousands of dollars with an implementation package,” Everett said.
<h3>Two Imminent Launches</h3>
For the immediate term, the company will focus on integrating the two teams and planning for the future, so their clients should not expect any product or service announcements until at least the second quarter of the year.
However, they do have two projects that had already been in the works that they are announcing this month.
One is a new podcast, Powerful Leaders, No Apologies, that will launch this week. Hosted by Foster and <a href="https://www.affinityconsulting.com/team/beth-thompson-2/">Beth Thompson</a>, Affinity&#8217;s director of client engagement, it will focus on women in legal &#8220;owning their power and changing the world.&#8221;
The other is the release of The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited, the second edition of Lawyerist&#8217;s book on building a successful law firm.
<h3>Depth and Scale</h3>
For Everett, the bottom line of the merger is that it adds even greater depth to what she describes as “two powerhouses” of experts in the legal industry.
“We&#8217;re now going to be able to say to our community, ‘Learn even more, learn more of the things you didn&#8217;t know.’ If I look at my expertise, it&#8217;s more in business strategy. But now we&#8217;re going to be able to offer everything down to how to use Word the right way.”
For Foster, that depth presents opportunities to scale.
“You hear, I&#8217;m sure, the same stories that I hear about the struggles that people are having running their firms these days,” Foster said. “They need a process, they need a methodology, they need a system – whatever you want to call it, every firm needs that. So if we can scale the products and services that we have and the Lawyerist&#8217;s products and services can be scaled, we really can meet everyone where they are. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re hoping that we do.”

Kicking off the new year with a bang, two of the best-known companies in the United States providing business coaching and technology consulting to law firms have merged, creating a combined entity of nearly 100 people with expertise across virtually all sectors of law, particularly small- and mid-sized law firms. Lawyerist Media LLC, which started […]

Kicking Off the New Year with A Bang, Two Top Law Firm Consulting Businesses, Lawyerist and Affinity, Announce Merger

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LawNext-NetDocsFiresideChat-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25493766/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
On Nov. 7, 2022, at the <a href="https://www.netdocuments.com/inspire#inspire-2022-agenda">NetDocuments Inspire 2022</a> conference for its customers and partners, I had the privilege of moderating a fireside chat with four legal innovation leaders. Our topic was the trends driving their organizations and legal teams and how they are addressing current challenges in order to tee up their organizations for the next decade of success. NetDocuments and the four panelists have graciously consented to sharing the recording of that chat with the listeners of LawNext. 
The four panelists were:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhunter4/">John Hunter</a>, Chief Information Officer, Council of Europe. </li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lucas-0270041/">Mike Lucas</a>, Chief Information Officer, Wilson Sonsini.</li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricetunney/">Maurice Tunney</a>, Director of Technology and Innovation, Keystone Law.</li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-umbaugh-1815aa1b3/">Craig Umbaugh</a>, Denver Office Managing Partner, Hogan Lovells, and also Global Head of the firm’s Sports, Media, and Entertainment Group</li>
</ul>
The theme of the conference focused on patterns of work, patterns of knowledge, and patterns of success, and so the fireside chat was organized around those themes. The panelists discuss major challenges they have addressed with regard to the evolving nature of the workplace, how they capture their organizations’ internal knowledge and use it strategically, and how, in a time of such volatility, their organizations are preparing for continued success in the future. 
Apologies for the scratchy sound in some places. That was how the recording came to us.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

On Nov. 7, 2022, at the NetDocuments Inspire 2022 conference for its customers and partners, I had the privilege of moderating a fireside chat with four legal innovation leaders. Our topic was the trends driving their organizations and legal teams and how they are addressing current challenges in order to tee up their organizations for the next […]

A Special Fireside Chat on the State of the Legal Industry, Recorded Live with Four Innovation Leaders

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Bommarito-Katz-LawNext-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25549998/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> 
Since the December release of Open AI’s GPT-3.5 model, and the related ChatGPT, speculation has been rampant about how this next generation of artificial intelligence might upend the legal profession. But as others have been speculating, two legal scholars and scientists, <a href="https://www.danielmartinkatz.com/">Daniel Martin Katz</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bommarito/">Michael Bommarito</a>, put GPT 3.5 to the task, having it perform that most anxiety-inducing of tests along the path to becoming a lawyer – taking the bar exam. 
How did it do? Katz and Bommarito recently published the results in their article, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4314839">GPT Takes the Bar Exam</a>, and on this episode of LawNext, they join me to discuss why they did this experiment, how it turned out, and what it all means for the future of AI in law. 
Katz is professor of law at <a href="https://kentlaw.iit.edu/law/faculty-scholarship/faculty-directory/daniel-martin-katz">Chicago-Kent College of Law</a> and academic director of both <a href="http://www.thelawlab.com/">The Law Lab at Illinois Tech, Chicago-Kent College of Law</a> and the <a href="https://legaltechcenter.de/en/index.html">Bucerius Center for Legal Technology &amp; Data Science</a> in Hamburg, Germany. He is cofounder and CSO of <a href="https://273ventures.com/">273 Ventures</a>, and formerly cofounded the legal AI company LexPredict, which was acquired by Elevate in 2018. 
Bommarito is cofounder and CEO of 273 Ventures and a serial entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of experience in the financial, legal, and technology industries. A cofounder with Katz of LexPredict, he also co-founded Telly, an open source telemetry platform, and licens.io, an information security and compliance data company. He is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University College of Law.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Since the December release of Open AI’s GPT-3.5 model, and the related ChatGPT, speculation has been rampant about how this next generation of artificial intelligence might upend the legal profession. But as others have been speculating, two legal scholars and scientists, Daniel Martin Katz and Michael Bommarito, put GPT 3.5 to the task, having it […]

On LawNext Podcast: Can the AI of GPT-3.5 Pass the Bar Exam? We Find Out

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Joaseus-Stagg-LawNext-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25384917/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianna-joaseus/">Brianna Joaseus</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/edriusstaggnotary/">Edrius Stagg</a> are two law students at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, La., who spent nine months earlier this year tackling systemic racism in the legal system. On the latest LawNext, they join host Bob Ambrogi to discuss their projects and how their work impacted their goals for their legal careers. 
Joaseus and Stagg were two of 18 law students from six law schools who participated this year in the second year of a <a href="https://lexisnexis.shorthandstories.com/AANLNROLFFellowship/index.html">fellowship program</a> sponsored by the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation and the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network, in partnership with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Law School Consortium. (Two students from the program’s first year were featured on <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/07/on-lawnext-podcast-the-legal-fellows-tackling-systemic-racism-in-law.html">this podcast in July 2021</a>.)
The project Joaseus designed focused on the problem of racial bias in real estate appraisals. Her proposal would reduce appraisal bias by creating a digital checklist for appraisal professionals, developed using LexisNexis resources, that would help identify “red flag” situations in which the appraisal process may be unfair or biased.
Stagg’s project focused on the problem of jury pools that are not racially diverse or representative of their communities. His proposal was to create a “Jury Wheel 2.0” data visualization dashboard that would leverage available technology to ensure that a jury-duty summons is sent to the correct address and represents the demographic make-up of the community.
Both students stand as inspiring examples of those who are shaping the future of the legal profession and their schools are examples of how law schools can do more to drive change in their communities. Of course, credit also goes to LexisNexis, which organized this program and committed $180,000 in funds plus the time and mentorship of numerous employees.
In addition to Southern University Law Center, the schools that participated this year were: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University College of Law, Howard University School of Law, North Carolina Central University School of Law, Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Brianna Joaseus and Edrius Stagg are two law students at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, La., who spent nine months earlier this year tackling systemic racism in the legal system. On the latest LawNext, they join host Bob Ambrogi to discuss their projects and how their work impacted their goals for their legal […]

On LawNext Podcast: Two Law Students Who Took On Systemic Racism in the Legal System

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/WK-Della-Featured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />&#8216;Twas the night before New Year&#8217;s Eve, when all through the legaltech world 
Not a creature was stirring, not even in-house. 
The laptops were stored in their backpacks with care, 
Certain no investors would anytime soon be there.
This blogger was nestled all snug at my desk, 
Envisioning how Legaltech Week would soon dance in my head; 
There would be <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patrice-32398a/">Joe</a> in his &#8216;kerchief and <a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/">Steve</a> in his cap, 
Settling down for our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@legaltechweek298">Friday afternoon yap</a>.
When out <a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/12/30/wolters-kluwer-legal-regulatory-acquires-della-ai/">on Law.com</a> there arose such a clatter, 
I sprang from Twitter to see what was the matter. 
Away to my browser I flew like a flash, 
Tore open the shut tabs and and bypassed the cache.
The story was there, <a href="https://www.law.com/author/profile/stephanie-wilkins/">Stephanie Wilkins</a> got the scoop, 
Giving lustre to year-end news in the loop, 
There, what to my wondering eyes should appear, 
But a year-end acquisition, one of which I did not hear.
With Wolters Kluwer the driver, so nimble and quick, 
It had acquired Della, the object of its pick. 
More rapid than eagles, the deal had closed, 
Or at least as I shouted, that is what I supposed.
I offer the above by way of explaining why I am so late in reporting the news, which broke late on Friday, Dec. 30, that <a href="https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/legal-regulatory">Wolters Kluwer Legal &amp; Regulatory</a> has acquired the contract analytics and review startup <a href="https://dellalegal.com/">Della AI Ltd.</a>
Legaltech News edtior Stephanie Wilkins picked up on it and reported it just as we were about to begin our weekly Legaltech Week webcast.
Della AI will become part of the Legal Software unit of Wolters Kluwer Legal &amp; Regulatory, which includes legal technology solutions such as Legisway, all-in-one software for corporate legal departments, and Kleos, cloud-based legal practice management software for law firms.
Last March, Della, the London and Paris-based company founded two years ago by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/frerebeau/">Christophe Frèrebeau</a>, raised 2.5 in seed funding. Frèrebeau <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/03/aiming-to-enable-lawyers-to-do-more-with-ai-contract-review-startup-della-raises-2-5m-seed-funding.html">told me at the time</a> that his dream for his technology was for it to &#8220;be able to answer a question about a legal document, and answer it like a lawyer would.”
Last June, Della and the London-based international law firm <a href="https://www.mishcon.com/">Mishcon de Reya</a> entered into a commercial agreement by which Della’s platform <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/06/contract-analytics-company-della-inks-deal-with-london-law-firm-mishcon-de-reya-following-stint-in-mishcons-mdr-lab-incubator.html">became available to selected legal teams</a> throughout the firm.
Della had graduated last February from Mishcon’s <a href="https://lab.mdr.london/">MDR Lab</a>, a 12-week program designed to give legal startups the opportunity to work within their target market and to pilot and improve their products.
Della was also a participant in the <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/03/congratulations-to-winners-of-startup-alley-at-aba-techshow.html">2021 Startup Alley</a> at ABA Techshow (which I organize), where it was the third-place winner. 
Read <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/directory-companies/listing/the-della-platform/">more about Della</a> at the LawNext Legal Technology Directory.
In a statement released by the company, Giulietta Lemmi, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Legal &amp; Regulatory Legal Software, said: “By integrating the expertise and know-how of Della AI into Wolters Kluwer Legal &amp; Regulatory, we are further enhancing the value we deliver to our customers, by investing in the continuous development of this key technology and the people behind it. Today, our customers already acknowledge the value of Legisway in all their legal activities. Together with Della AI, we will further enhance our customers’ experience and secure a leading position for Wolters Kluwer in the corporate legal market.”
In that same statement, Frèrebeau said: “We are extremely proud to be joining the Wolters Kluwer family. Wolters Kluwer recognizes Della AI&#8217;s potential for its customers. Della AI was built to make finding, analyzing, and extracting data from contracts simpler and faster through AI, and we are excited to leverage our expertise to help make Legisway even smarter. Becoming part of Wolters Kluwer will provide great opportunities for our customers and partners.”

‘Twas the night before New Year’s Eve, when all through the legaltech world Not a creature was stirring, not even in-house. The laptops were stored in their backpacks with care, Certain no investors would anytime soon be there. This blogger was nestled all snug at my desk, Envisioning how Legaltech Week would soon dance in […]

‘Twas the Night Before New Years Eve (in which Wolters Kluwer Acquires Contract Review Platform Della AI)

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/DanHauckInspire2022-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25085445/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Over seven years as a litigator of complex commercial and antitrust cases, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danhauck/">Dan Hauck</a> had become frustrated over how difficult it was for legal teams to collaborate around matters. In 2014, he left his law firm, Bryan Cave, to start ThreadKM, a matter-centric legal collaboration platform. As the product evolved, it developed integrations with the document management platform NetDocuments, and in 2017, NetDocuments acquired ThreadKM, resulting in the NetDocuments product ndThread. 
Now, Hauck is chief product officer at <a href="https://www.netdocuments.com/">NetDocuments</a>, where he is responsible for the company’s strategic vision, partnerships, products, user interface and roadmap. Over the past year, he was instrumental in the company’s launch of PatternBuilder, a product for building applications and automating legal documents, and its acquisition of Worldox. 
Earlier this month, at the NetDocuments three-day Inspire 2022 conference for customers and partners, LawNext host Bob Ambrogi sat down with Hauck for a live conversation about the company’s product strategy and roadmap. Spoiler alert: His vision for the platform spans automating and linking every stage of the legal document workflow. 
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Over seven years as a litigator of complex commercial and antitrust cases, Dan Hauck had become frustrated over how difficult it was for legal teams to collaborate around matters. In 2014, he left his law firm, Bryan Cave, to start ThreadKM, a matter-centric legal collaboration platform. As the product evolved, it developed integrations with the document management […]

LawNext Podcast: Dan Hauck, Chief Product Officer at NetDocuments, On the Company’s Product Strategy and Roadmap

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TR-ExpectedChangesInFinancialPerformanceIndicators-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />What with COVID, the economy and the day-to-challenges of practicing law and managing a firm, it&#8217;s been a tough three years. Yet despite it all, smaller law firms have a bullish outlook on their future prospects — and with good reason.
So says the <a href="https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/legal/small-law-firms-report-2022/">2022 State of U.S. Small Law Firms</a> survey conducted by Thomson Reuters, in collaboration with the American Bar Association&#8217;s Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division.
Nearly six in 10 lawyers in small firms — which the survey defines as those of 29 lawyers or fewer — say they expect growth over the next 12 months in revenues per lawyer, billable hours, and profits per lawyer. Across every metric — billing rates, productivity, realization rates — greater numbers of lawyers expect to see moderate or high growth over the next year.
The same holds true for the next three years, as small firm lawyers also expect high-to-moderate growth to continue in revenues, profits, demand for services, and other metrics.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082341.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-41943" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082341.png" alt="" width="683" height="480" /></a>
Given this optimism, it should not be surprising that small firm lawyers consider themselves successful. According to the survey, 90% of small firm lawyers rate their firms as successful or very successful. Less than 1% characterize their firm as unsuccessful.
But the survey finds that there are variations in how firms view their success based on their size. For solos and firms of 2-6 lawyers, their evaluation of their success dipped last year but rebounded in 2022. For firms of 7-10 lawyers, the percentage of lawyers describing their firm as very successful has steadily risen over the last three years, from 29% to 35%. But for firms with between 11 and 29 attorneys, that percentage dropped from 39% to 23%.
Of course, a firm&#8217;s evaluation of its success turns on how it measures success. In the 2021 survey, repeat business was the most commonly cited definition of success, followed closely by client satisfaction ratings and work/life balance. This year, the most frequently mentioned measure of success was overall profits, followed by repeat business, client satisfaction, and work/life balance.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082425.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-41942" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082425.png" alt="" width="502" height="538" /></a>
As in past years, the survey finds that small firms face competition both from above and below, in that they see their competition not only as similarly sized firms, but also as larger firms and self-help legal websites.
&#8220;The growing popularity of DIY legal websites continues to encroach upon small firms’ clientele,&#8221; the survey found. &#8220;The percentage of small firm lawyers who view such websites as major competitors took a significant jump in 2021 and has remained elevated in 2022. Such competition — readily accessible via computers and smartphones and viewed by consumers as a less expensive alternative to law firms — is putting the onus on small law firms to improve efficiency and client service.&#8221;
Even though firms are optimistic about their futures, they also recognize that they face challenges. The survey finds that the top challenge small firms face is that of spending too much time on administrative tasks and not enough time practicing law. The average law firm attorney spends just 56% of their time practicing law, down from 58% in 2020.
Other top challenges they most frequently identified:
<ul>
<li>Acquiring new client business.</li>
<li>Cost control and expense growth for real estate, salaries and the like.</li>
<li>Keeping up with competition.</li>
<li>Lack of internal efficiency.</li>
<li>Clients demanding more for less or rate pressure from clients.</li>
<li>Increasing complexity of technology.</li>
</ul>
With regard to the challenge of rising costs, the most common method by which firms respond is by increasing their billing rates, followed by adopting new technology, according to the survey. Other responses include:
<ul>
<li>Cutting unprofitable services or clients.</li>
<li>Changing marketing strategy.</li>
<li>Changing staffing ratios.</li>
<li>Pushing work to staff with lower billable rates.</li>
<li>Reducing real estate costs.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082529.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-41941" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-14-082529.png" alt="" width="837" height="703" /></a>
On the technology front, the survey finds that small firms are either increasing their tech spend or holding the line. Among slightly larger firms, those of 11-29 lawyers, the percentage that increased their investment in tech nearly doubled in 2022 to 38%, from 20% last year. At the same time, the number of firms planning to decrease their tech spend fell from 8% in 2021 to 5% this year.
Where are those tech dollars going? Most often to case management software, billing and invoicing software, and practice management software.
Some of it is also going to non-legal specific tech, such as websites, hardware, and billing or accounting software.
It is interesting that the survey appears not to have asked about electronic payments technology — a technology whose use appears to have soared in recent years, according to other surveys.
But the survey does find that getting paid by clients is less of a concern to small firms this year. Whereas in 2020, 64% of firms viewed getting paid as a significant to moderate challenge, this year, that number has dropped to 54%. &#8220;And the portion of firms with the greatest urgency around this issue, those who rated it as a significant challenge, has been cut by more than half to just 9% from 19% in 2020,&#8221; the survey says.
&#8220;[T]here is emerging evidence that suggests small law firms are demonstrating their ability to rise to the challenge and address some of their most pressing needs,&#8221; the report concludes. &#8220;Continuing to strategically focus on their goals and the challenges that could stand in their way will enable them to fully capitalize on the growth opportunities that they are foreseeing.&#8221;
Past years of the survey: 
2020 Survey
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2020/09/exclusive-small-firms-face-significant-challenges-but-fail-to-act-on-them-thomson-reuters-survey-finds.html">Exclusive: Small Firms Face Significant Challenges, But Fail To Act On Them, Thomson Reuters Survey Finds</a>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="post_content clear">
2019 Survey
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2019/03/exclusive-survey-report-small-firms-see-many-challenges-but-do-little-to-address-them.html">Exclusive Survey Report: Small Firms See Many Challenges, But Do Little To Address Them</a>.</li>
</ul>
2017 Survey
<ul>
<li><a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2017/11/exclusive-first-look-at-new-survey-of-solo-and-small-firms/">Exclusive: First Look At New Survey Of Solo And Small Firms</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2017/11/solo-small-firms-face-many-challenges-survey-shows-made-changes-address.html">Solo and Small Firms Face Many Challenges, Survey Shows, But Few Have Made Changes to Address Them</a>.</li>
</ul>
2016 Survey
<ul>
<li><a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2016/07/this-week-in-legal-tech-exclusive-results-of-a-new-small-firm-survey/">This Week In Legal Tech: Exclusive Results Of A New Small-Firm Survey</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2016/07/exclusive-survey-results-small-firms-greatest-challenges-theyre-address.html">Exclusive Survey Results: Small Firms’ Greatest Challenges And What They’re Doing To Address Them</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2016/08/exclusive-survey-results-small-firms-measure-success.html">More Exclusive Survey Results: How Small Law Firms Measure Success</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2016/08/exclusive-survey-results-small-firms-implementing-new-technology.html">More Exclusive Survey Results: Few Small Firms Implementing New Technology</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2016/09/this-week-in-legal-tech-survey-sheds-light-on-how-solos-differ/">This Week In Legal Tech: Survey Sheds Light On How Solos Differ</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>

What with COVID, the economy and the day-to-challenges of practicing law and managing a firm, it’s been a tough three years. Yet despite it all, smaller law firms have a bullish outlook on their future prospects — and with good reason. So says the 2022 State of U.S. Small Law Firms survey conducted by Thomson […]

Small Firm Lawyers Are Awash with Optimism about their Practices, Thomson Reuters Survey Finds

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Filevine-dot-vine-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />In news that had me checking my calendar to see if it is April 1, the practice management company <a href="https://www.filevine.com/">Filevine</a> says that, as part of a new Document Assembly feature, it has developed a proprietary document format, &#8220;.vine,&#8221; that it believes will replace Microsoft Word and Google Docs in the legal industry.
&#8220;We believe that Document Assembly and .vine will become the new standard in the legal industry, replacing word processors that are ill-equipped for the job,&#8221; said Ryan Anderson, founder and CEO of Filevine. &#8220;Fundamentally, legal work is about producing and exchanging complex documents. By bringing this task into our platform—and connecting it to all the case data Filevine collects—we&#8217;re enabling legal teams to streamline a crucial part of their work.&#8221;
Before I tell you what I think about this, let me say that Filevine is a well-regarded product and the company&#8217;s CEO Anderson, a former lawyer, has always struck me as a very savvy business leader. Investors apparently think so also, as the company <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/04/case-management-company-filevine-raises-108m-series-d-to-fuel-expansion.html">raised $108 million in a Series D</a> earlier this year (after which <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/04/lawnext-podcast-filevine-ceo-ryan-anderson-on-his-companys-108m-raise-and-the-future-of-practice-management.html">Anderson was on my LawNext podcast</a> to discuss the deal).
Let me also say that I have not yet directly discussed this news with anyone at Filevine. A spokesperson told me he could schedule an interview for next week.
But I have to wonder whether that $108 million was a fun-money windfall that left the folks at Filevine looking for ways to spend it.
<h3>Misguided Idea</h3>
The idea of a single company creating a proprietary document format that it hopes will become the industry standard just seems like a counterintuitively misguided idea for multiple reasons.
<ul>
<li>First and foremost, the future-facing approach to document standards is to create vendor-neutral open standards that can be used across platforms and that can be structured using common protocols, such as XML. Admittedly, the legal industry is nowhere near achieving that, but that should be the focus.</li>
<li>Second, even apart from the open standards issue, there already is a vendor standard that just so happens to dominate the legal industry. That is not to say that a new standard could not come along and knock Microsoft Word off its throne (remember WordPerfect?), but even Google caved to enabling .docx editing in Google Docs.</li>
<li>Third, companies need to meet their customers where they are, not compel them to learn new formats. Where they are is on Word, and for Filevine to think that its .vine format can become the legal industry standard is hallucinatory.</li>
<li>Fourth, and this follows from meeting customers where they are, the clear trend in the legal industry, as <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/08/the-five-legal-tech-themes-i-took-away-from-iltacon22.html">I wrote recently</a>, is towards interoperability, driven by the notion that so many legal professionals suffer from platform fatigue.</li>
<li>Fifth, a single practice management company&#8217;s proprietary format is never going to become the legal industry standard. That would require one of two things to happen. Either every lawyer would have to move to the Filevine platform, or every competing vendor would have to adopt Filevine&#8217;s format. Does Filevine think there is even a remote chance of either of those?</li>
</ul>
I could go on, and I do not have the benefit of hearing directly from Filevine on why it took this route. But it seems to me that if a company wants to build better document assembly that will become the industry standard, do it on Word.
<h3>Based on CLM Technology</h3>
As for the actual news, Filevine said that this new .vine format was developed to &#8220;power&#8221; its document-generation tool, Filevine Document Assembly. It builds on the document technology developed by the contract lifecycle management company <a href="https://getoutlaw.com/">Outlaw</a>, which <a href="https://www.filevine.com/blog/announcing-our-newest-acquisition/">Filevine acquired in 2021</a>.
&#8220;Document Assembly auto-populates data, clauses and other information stored in Filevine to accelerate legal document generation and ensure accuracy,&#8221; the announcement said. &#8220;Combined, .vine and Document Assembly introduce a vastly better way to draft complaints, demand letters, interrogatories and more.&#8221;
&#8220;In 2017, when we set out to create a new word processor and doc format from scratch, we focused on contracts because they&#8217;re harder than other legal scenarios in terms of workflow, content structure, negotiation/redlining, permissions and version control,&#8221; Evan Schneyer, Outlaw&#8217;s CTO and cofounder, said in the announcement.
&#8220;We had the sense that if we could solve these problems in the contract space, we could solve them anywhere. And now, the .vine format represents the extension of Outlaw&#8217;s market-proven contracting technology to add loads of formatting capabilities that are mission-critical in a broader legal context: firm-specific headers and branding, pleading lines, captions and much more.&#8221;
Filevine says its new document assembly tool will allow users to:
<ul>
<li>Auto-populate data stored anywhere in Filevine, including names, dates, tables, expenses, company holdings, saved clauses, and more.</li>
<li>Bidirectionally sync data, meaning that changes to data in a .vine document automatically update data in the Filevine database and changes in the Filevine database are automatically pushed to .vine documents.</li>
<li>Use conditional logic so that .vine templates adapt to multiple contingencies. For example, conditional logic can automatically change language in a letter to an insurance company based on the insurance type (liability, UIM, no-fault, etc.).</li>
<li>Make redlines and comments to facilitate contextual feedback and accurate edits.</li>
<li>Securely store and share documents with clients, colleagues and co-counsel. A .vine can be viewed in any web browser or exported as a docx or pdf.</li>
</ul>
&#8220;It never made sense for lawyers to use the same word processors that middle-school students use to write their first essays,&#8221; Cain Elliot, head legal futurist at Filevine, said in the announcement. &#8220;With this launch, we&#8217;re equipping legal teams with the first document technology that stands up to the complexity of their work.&#8221;

In news that had me checking my calendar to see if it is April 1, the practice management company Filevine says that, as part of a new Document Assembly feature, it has developed a proprietary document format, “.vine,” that it believes will replace Microsoft Word and Google Docs in the legal industry. “We believe that […]

Say What? Filevine Introduces Proprietary Document Format to ‘Become the New Standard in the Legal Industry’

Eight months ago, we launched the LawNext Legal Technology Directory, aiming to develop it into the most trusted source available for information and resources on legal technology products. Now, we are taking the next step forward with the launch of version 2.0 of the directory that brings new features and functionality. As I wrote at […]

Thrilled to Announce the ‘New and Improved’ Version 2.0 of the LawNext Legal Technology Directory

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/StructureFlow-Screenshot-2022-12-07-100944-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://www.structureflow.co/">StructureFlow</a>, a London company whose platform enables visual modeling of complex corporate transactions, has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round.
The company, launched in 2019, said it will use the funding to accelerate development of its visual modeling platform and to boost its sales and marketing efforts, with a particular focus on expansion in North America.
The funding round was led by UK-based venture capital firm Venrex, with participation by angel investors Chris Adelsbach and Tariq Khan. The round brings the company&#8217;s total seed funding to $8 million.
StructureFlow&#8217;s software is already used by some of the world’s largest and most prestigious law firms, including three of the five UK ‘Magic Circle’ firms and a number of Am Law 100 US firms, the company said.
The software enables real-time collaboration around complex corporate transactions, including brainstorming deal structures, designing steps plans, and mapping transactions and disputes.
By visually modeling transactions and bringing the distinct but interconnected elements together, the company says, its platform enables deeper understanding of the complexities of deals across a variety of stakeholders.
&#8220;We are thrilled to have secured significant funding in an extremely challenging environment,&#8221; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-follett-1271b163/">Tim Follett</a>, founder and CEO of StructureFlow, said in a statement. &#8220;Strong traction and our strength of vision have attracted forward-thinking investors. We will not rest until we have transformed the way people work on complex deals — moving the industry away from dense text to more visual ways of working.&#8221;
In 2020, the company participated in Fuse, the tech incubation program of law firm Allen &amp; Overy. Of this investment, Shruti Ajitsaria, Allen &amp; Overy partner and head of Fuse, said, &#8220;So pleased about StructureFlow’s successful fundraise. We very much enjoyed having the team in Fuse, our tech incubation space, in 2020 and have been delighted to support and use StructureFlow since then. I am looking forward to seeing where their journey takes them next.&#8221;

StructureFlow, a London company whose platform enables visual modeling of complex corporate transactions, has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The company, launched in 2019, said it will use the funding to accelerate development of its visual modeling platform and to boost its sales and marketing efforts, with a particular focus on […]

StructureFlow, UK Platform to Create Visual Models of Corporate Transactions, Raises $3.5M for Development and Expansion

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/LegalTypeMechanicalKeyboard169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />For many writers, programmers, and gamers, there is no substitute for a mechanical keyboard. With mechanical switches under each key, mechanical keyboards are more tactile and durable than other laptop and desktop keyboards, which can translate to a more enjoyable typing experience. Until now, however, there has not been a mechanical keyboard designed expressly for lawyers and legal professionals.
Well, say hello to <a href="https://getlegaltype.com/">LegalType</a>, the customizable mechanical keyboard designed for lawyers. It comes with a set of keys for common legal symbols as well as for international and crypto currency symbols, and hotkey shortcuts for Microsoft Word and Outlook functions commonly used by legal professionals.
Even if you prefer to stick with your laptop keyboard, LegalType has you covered. It offers a software-only version of its key set that turns any keyboard into a legal keyboard.
Of course, this is not the first keyboard for lawyers. Back in 2017, I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2017/01/debuting-tomorrow-keyboard-designed-just-lawyers.html">published a blog post</a> announcing the launch of the <a href="https://legalboards.myshopify.com/">LegalBoard</a>, a keyboard designed for lawyers by a lawyer (Perkins Coie partner <a href="https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/professionals/brian-h-potts.html">Brian H. Potts</a>). 
Reader reaction to that 2017 post was so enormous that, as I <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2017/01/this-week-in-legal-tech-the-keyboard-that-consumed-the-legal-profession/">wrote a few days later</a>, “Never in my 14 years of blogging and more than two decades of covering legal technology have I seen the legal world react to a new product as it did this week to the LegalBoard.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2017/01/hands-legalboard-keyboard-just-lawyers.html">Hands On With the LegalBoard — The Keyboard Just for Lawyers</a>.
But while the LegalBoard was a standard membrane keyboard, the new LegalType is a mechanical keyboard, with the tactile satisfaction that offers, not to mention programmable firmware that makes it easy to customize.
The LegalType keyboard was developed by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-semeco/">Daniela Semeco</a>, who is CEO of Polyglotte, the company that sells the keyboards. The Venezuelan-born Semeco was a medical and legal interpreter when she saw the need for a high-functioning legal keyboard that could also be ergonomic, adaptable and attractive.
<h3>Testing It Out</h3>
Semeco sent me a review unit of the keyboard to try for myself. The USB keyboard works easily out of the box, but to use the legal-specific functions, you first need to open a small executable file. The file ships with the keyboard on a USB flash drive or can be downloaded from Polyglotte. With the software installed, all of the legal functions become active.
The LegalType keyboard includes a variety of keys for symbols commonly used by legal professionals, as well as international currency and crypto symbols. The chart below shows the available symbols.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Legaltype-Legal-Symbols.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42049" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Legaltype-Legal-Symbols.png" alt="" width="576" height="497" /></a>
It also comes with hotkeys that enable functions in Word and Outlook that legal professionals commonly use. This chart shows those hotkeys.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Legaltype-Windows-Hotkeys.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42050" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Legaltype-Windows-Hotkeys.png" alt="" width="532" height="477" /></a>
The LegalType keyboard differs from the LegalBoard in that it offers far fewer keyboard shortcuts. The LegalBoard, in addition to commonly used symbols, includes keys for inputting common words and abbreviations, such as &#8220;plaintiff,&#8221; &#8220;F.3d,&#8221; and &#8220;e.g.&#8221; The LegalType keyboard has only the symbols and hotkeys shown above.
However, because the LegalType keyboard is programmable, it is easy to create macros for any of these or any other terms and phrases. Flip a couple DIP switches on the keyboard to put it into programming mode, then easily create a macro, such as &#8220;Fn+p&#8221; to enter the word plaintiff.
As I mentioned above, the software works independently of the keyboard, so when it is running, its functions are enabled on any keyboard. For example, if I want to insert the section symbol (§) using the mechanical keyboard, I press the AltGr key plus the S key. On my laptop keyboard, there is no AltGr key, but I can accomplish the same thing by pressing Alt plus the right arrow and then S.
It is even possible to combine LegalType&#8217;s keyboard software with the LegalBoard keyboard, whose functions are built into its firmware. That gives all the functions of both LegalType and LegalBoard.
The advantage to using the software with the mechanical keyboard is that the LegalType keyboard includes the symbols on the keys, so you do not have to remember which key or combination to press.
<h3>How to Buy</h3>
If you are interested in buying the LegalType mechanical keyboard, it costs $155 from <a href="https://getlegaltype.com/">the LegalType website</a>. That includes the software driver and a keycap puller if you want to change keycaps.
You also have two other buying options:
<ul>
<li>Buy just the software driver for $1.99.</li>
<li>If you already have a mechanical keyboard, you can buy the LegalType keycap set for $46.75.</li>
</ul>
The company also offers the set of four crypto keys separately for $9.99.
<h3>Bottom Line</h3>
If you have already mastered macros, or already have software such as <a href="https://activewords.com/">ActiveWords</a>, then there may be little incentive for you to use LegalType (or the earlier LegalBoard). But if you are constantly having to remind yourself how to insert that paragraph symbol, then having it and other common symbols directly on your keyboard is a time saver.
Combine that convenience with the tactile pleasure and durability of a mechanical keyboard, and you just may find yourself eager to get started on that brief you need to write.
&nbsp;

For many writers, programmers, and gamers, there is no substitute for a mechanical keyboard. With mechanical switches under each key, mechanical keyboards are more tactile and durable than other laptop and desktop keyboards, which can translate to a more enjoyable typing experience. Until now, however, there has not been a mechanical keyboard designed expressly for […]

A Mechanical Keyboard Designed for Lawyers

<img width="839" height="472" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/david-versus-goliath-169.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />[Editor&#8217;s note: This is a guest post by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-stodder-4bb45aa/">Mark Stodder</a>, President of <a href="https://xcential.com/">Xcential Legislative Technologies</a>. As I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/small-tech-company-takes-on-major-law-firm-over-ownership-of-bill-drafting-software.html">reported here in November</a>, the law firm <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/">Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &amp; Feld</a> has sued Xcential for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and other causes of action. This is Stodder&#8217;s perspective on the lawsuit. If anyone at Akin Gump wishes to respond, I would be happy to publish it.]
As you may have <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/small-tech-company-takes-on-major-law-firm-over-ownership-of-bill-drafting-software.html">heard</a>, my company, <a href="http://www.xcential.com/">Xcential Legislative Technologies</a>, has found itself playing the role of David in a David &amp; Goliath battle over our patent application for a software invention that automates key aspects of federal lawmaking. We’re a tiny company – 25 employees – based in a small beach town near San Diego. We are small but we do vital work with big governments, modernizing how bills are drafted and how laws are kept up to date and visualized, with our <a href="https://xcential.com/legispro/drafting/">LegisPro</a>™ platform and other software applications that we have developed and marketed over the past 20 years. LegisPro is currently used by the California Legislature, the U.S. House, the Oregon Legislature and other governments around the world.
<div id="attachment_42298" style="width: 265px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42298" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-42298" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Mark-Stodder-mugshot.jpg" alt="" width="255" height="282" />Mark Stodder</div>
The Goliath is the Washington, D.C.-based “Biglaw” firm of <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/">Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &amp; Feld</a> – the federal lobbying powerhouse that last year, according to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/summary?cycle=2021&amp;id=D000000162">Open Secrets</a>, earned nearly $54 million in revenues from helping clients sway Congress and the federal government, work that includes drafting and amending federal legislation.
This Goliath has stepped forward and filed multiple actions against us, first at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and then in D.C. Superior Court, to claim an Xcential invention as its own and to throttle us for, among other allegations, misappropriation of trade secrets. At great cost, Xcential has been forced to defend itself with counterclaims and motions for dismissal. This unwarranted and burdensome expense has not only been extremely stressful to all of us at Xcential but represents a looming threat to our business.
We know the Biblical story (and how that turned out), but change the venue to a courtroom and the USPTO and things get a little murky.
Why would this Goliath care so much about this David?
First, the context.
<h3>Legislative Automation</h3>
The details and the arguments from both sides are publicly <a href="https://portal-dc.tylertech.cloud/app/RegisterOfActions/#/56485B0991437D8915D4F31EBB3F9BFBEF5B75A26C030CBDDCDE4D21623F1A9A9A19D0392A71D502D35218EA95744348/anon/portalembed">available</a> and have been covered by the <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/11/29/akin-gump-california-company-in-litigation-battle-over-bill-drafting-software/">National Law Journal</a>, the <a href="https://legaltechnology.com/2022/11/29/akin-gump-and-tech-vendor-xcential-allege-theft-of-trade-secrets-in-washington-litigation/">legal tech media</a> and, most recently, <a href="https://patentlyo.com/hricik/2022/12/petition-institute-derivation.html">experts</a> in the patent world. A quick summary: at issue is Xcential’s 2019 <a href="https://cdn.patentlyo.com/media/2022/12/Xcential-app.pdf">patent application</a> for a software invention we call “Bill Synthesis” (or, as filed, “System and Method for Document Extraction and Synthesis”). Xcential’s invention was based on two of our existing technologies: “Change Sets” software (U.S. patent application in process); and another internal technology we call “Snapshot,” both of which are built into and rely on our LegisPro bill drafting software. What’s particularly important about the invention is that it can automate some of the more complicated, time-consuming and error-prone steps for drafting a federal bill.
Bill Synthesis, Snapshot and Change Sets were developed out of our decades of experience with legislatures and with Congress. The inventor, Xcential CEO/CTO and co-founder <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantcv1/">Grant Vergottini</a>, has been working with legislative attorneys – the professional bill drafters inside government – since the early 2000s, watching and absorbing every detail of their highly specialized and critically important work. Grant has also worked with many different styles of amending the law and creating legislation around the world and has observed the pain points created by complex traditions and legacy technology. This extensive education has led him to conceive of, develop and implement software to make those processes work more efficiently, with greater accuracy and transparency.
Among the most complicated styles of bill drafting is the U.S. federal “cut and bite” style – meaning a bill will consist largely of out-of-context line-by-line changes to the law (“Section 55(b)(1) is amended by striking so much as precedes subparagraph (A) and inserting the following…”), instead of redline “amend in full” changes that allow you to see exactly how the law may be amended. The cut-and-bite style has always been a challenge for federal drafters. We know this from our many discussions with them and others in legislative circles about how to create those documents more efficiently – even automatically.
Automation technology for creating amending documents from redlines has been around for a long time, but LegisPro’s Bill Synthesis software, combined with our Change Sets and Snapshot, provides a way to mark up federal law as you’d redline any document in context and then automatically convert those redlines into the cut-and-bite style of a federal bill. Dreaming up such an efficient solution is one thing; writing the code to enable it was much more challenging, but in 2019 Vergottini did it. When we demonstrated a prototype of our invention to drafters, their excitement was palpable. This invention is a big deal.
And, apparently, it’s a big deal for Akin Gump.
Such a big deal that Akin filed an extremely rare “<a href="https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/trials/derivation-proceeding">Petition for Derivation</a>” at the USPTO last March in an attempt to claim ownership of our invention. As our application awaited action from USPTO examiners, Akin Gump filed suit against us in D.C. Superior Court in October. More recently, the night before Thanksgiving, it filed a preliminary injunction to attempt to halt the USPTO process. We now have multiple court dates on our calendar in the new year.
<h3>The Holy Grail?</h3>
Akin Gump claims one of its attorneys, <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/louis-t-agnello.html">Louis Agnello</a>, is the actual inventor of Bill Synthesis. According to their court filing, one summer afternoon in 2018, Agnello thought up the idea of creating a federal cut-and-bite style bill from redline changes to the law, allegedly telling associates it would be the “Holy Grail” of federal legislative drafting, and “forever change the complex process of drafting federal legislation.”
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AkinGump-Xcential-FeaturedImage.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignright wp-image-42077" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AkinGump-Xcential-FeaturedImage-300x169.png" alt="" width="400" height="225" /></a>The software invention, however, involves highly complicated interactions of XML technology with our LegisPro editor, a browser-based application. Agnello, who drafts bills and amendments for Akin Gump’s clients, and who worked for a time on The Hill, doesn’t mention any technical background in his law firm bio or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-agnello">LinkedIn profile</a> – no expertise in XML technology, no mention about working with internal XML data structures or JavaScript coding, nothing about creating complex algorithms or the technology that’s behind LegisPro’s Change Sets application, which Bill Synthesis is built on. There is no shame in not having software-coding skills, but they are essential to creating the kind of software that Agnello now claims he invented.
Xcential met with Agnello in the fall of 2018 when, as detailed in the court filings, he contacted us to inquire about our bill drafting software. A series of calls and meetings and demonstrations of our software to Agnello and others at Akin Gump ensued over the next many months and into 2019. Eventually Vergottini, who, as noted above, had been working on amending technology for decades, built a prototype enhancement to LegisPro that showed the Bill Synthesis functionality (coupled with Change Set and Snapshot). He showed this not only to Agnello, but also to other government bill drafters we’d been working with on The Hill.
Agnello’s reaction? “Holy —!”
He declared this would lead to a “K Street parade.” Apparently, Grant Vergottini had unearthed the “Holy Grail.” Or so Agnello told us.
Surprisingly, despite his over-the-top enthusiasm, this chapter of our David and Goliath story ended here. After the sales demo, Xcential proposed building and licensing a custom version of the application for Akin Gump (at a cost amounting to a small fraction of the annual revenues from just <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/hired-firms?cycle=2021&amp;id=D000046527">one</a> of Agnello’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/lobbyists?cycle=2021&amp;id=D000000162">nearly two dozen</a> federal lobbying clients). The proposal, however, was rejected, Agnello told us, as too costly.
Xcential was disappointed, but after investing many hours and dollars to build the demo, and after disclosing our trade secrets and confidential information to Akin Gump (under a EULA and mutual NDA), Xcential wasn’t about to walk away from our invention. Vergottini made his application for a patent for the Bill Synthesis software he’d created and, as happens with patent applications, we settled in for the long wait to hear from an examiner.
Instead, we heard from Akin’s lawyers. Here comes Goliath.
<h3>Why?</h3>
Why is our technology for federal bill drafting so important to Akin Gump that it’s inspired a rare patent action and multiple lawsuits and motions in court – the cost of which, by now, must far exceed what Akin would have spent on Xcential’s “too costly” original licensing and development proposal? What makes it a “Holy Grail” worth potentially crushing a tiny LegalTech innovator from a California beach town?
Why would Akin resort to the laughable claim that Agnello was the actual inventor of Bill Synthesis technology? As Vergottini put it, “For Agnello to claim this invention is like saying, ‘If we had a rocket we could go to Mars,’ and then suing the rocket scientists who built it for the design patent.”
<h3>First, there’s what called, “The Cream.”</h3>
K Street lobby firms generally charge their clients on a flat fee or retainer basis. Retainers can start in the low thousands per month and run well beyond $50,000. (According to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/lobbyists?cycle=2021&amp;id=D000000162">OpenSecrets.org</a>, in 2021, ZTE Corp, the Shenzhen-based telecom provider fighting federal trade violation <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-accuses-chinese-company-helping-zte-hide-business-with-iran-commerce-dept-2022-08-09/">accusations</a>, which lists Louis Agnello as their lobbyist, averaged $100,000 per month in spending with Akin Gump; the 23 clients showing Agnello as registered lobbyist spent nearly $6.2 million on federal lobbying with Akin Gump last year). While customers are billed a flat fee, most lobbying firms carefully track the time their teams spend on each client and measure those costs against the retainer amount. The difference between the retainer and those costs is, obviously, the profit – or “The Cream,” as it is sometimes called.
Use Xcential’s Bill Synthesis software to dramatically cut the hours spent using Word to draft those complicated cut-and-bite bills, and you squeeze a whole lot more “cream” from your clients. Having to pay the technology firm that invented this invaluable shortcut would only drain off some of the cream.
<h3>And then there’s the competition.</h3>
K Street is the most competitive street in Washington, with extraordinary amounts of money at stake. <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2022/01/21/another-record-year-for-k-street-800003">Politico’s rankings</a> of federal lobby firm revenues showed Akin Gump in second place in 2021 ($53.4 million), edged out by <a href="https://www.bhfs.com/">Brownstein Hyatt</a> ($56.3 million). In the most recent <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2022/10/21/k-streets-windfall-continues-thanks-to-chips-reconciliation-bills-00063013">2022 reporting</a>, Brownstein maintained the top position on K Street, leaving behind Akin Gump at number two and <a href="https://www.hklaw.com/en">Holland &amp; Knight</a> (the firm now representing Xcential in D.C. Superior Court) in third.
What if one firm on K Street completed its legislation drafts more efficiently and faster than the others?
LegisPro, with its Bill Synthesis technology, has the potential to dramatically cut the time it takes for a bill draft or amendments to get to The Hill for consideration and to deliver it in the proper XML data format. If Akin owned the Bill Synthesis software patent, it could have a distinct edge over other K Street firms in getting its bills to the Hill ahead of the pack. If Xcential retains the patent for its invention, we could license the application to every lobbyist on K Street.
And what about their clients?
Corporations and trade associations are always evaluating and reevaluating how to pursue their governmental relations interests. Do they pay that big retainer to an outside lobby firm, or do they take some or all of the work in-house?
Xcential could help these associations and company in-house counsel do just that. LegisPro and its Bill Synthesis can simplify drafting those complicated cut-and-bite bills. Vergottini’s invention makes it as simple as working in Word – but with powerful structured-data technology. That’s why it’s the “Holy Grail.” Might that tip the decision toward relying more on an in-house lobbying team – and away from hiring Biglaw lobby firms like Akin?
<h3>Taking aim</h3>
Profits and competition. Throughout time, they have caused Goliaths to behave ruthlessly.
For Xcential, it has been extremely stressful, financially and emotionally, to play the role of David in this drama. Everyone roots for the underdog, but nobody chooses to be one. We must and will continue to combat their claims, not only for Xcential’s sake, but also for the sake of other inventors – especially those in the LegalTech world – who could also face becoming collateral damage in a similar power grab.
So we load our sling with the smoothest stone we can find, and hope our aim is true.
<hr />
Mark Stodder is President of Xcential Legislative Technologies. For more about Xcential: <a href="http://www.xcential.com">www.xcential.com</a>.

[Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Mark Stodder, President of Xcential Legislative Technologies. As I reported here in November, the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has sued Xcential for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and other causes of action. This is Stodder’s perspective on the lawsuit. If anyone at […]

Guest Post: David the Inventor vs. the Biglaw Goliath – What Drives A Goliath To Take On A David?

<img width="1022" height="575" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TECHSHOW-2023-HomePage.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />In its six years so far, the Startup Alley competition at <a href="https://www.techshow.com/">ABA TECHSHOW</a> has helped catapult the success of a long list of legal technology startups. Now the competition is returning for its seventh year, and applications officially open today to enter for a spot at <a href="https://www.techshow.com/">TECHSHOW 2023</a>, which takes place in Chicago March 1-4.
Out of all the entries received, 15 startups will be selected to participate in a live pitch competition that will be the opening event of this year’s TECHSHOW. In addition to the pitch competition, the 15 finalists will be highlighted as exhibitors in a special Startup Alley section of the conference exhibit hall. 
Again this year, I will be coordinating the competition, in collaboration with the TECHSHOW board. Read on for full details. 
<h2>How Will the Startups Be Selected? </h2>
The competition starts today. Startups interested in participating must <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2023-aba-techshow-startup-alley-application">complete this application form</a>. Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023.
From all applications received, a panel of five judges will select 25 finalists. This year’s judges are:
<ul>
<li>Jeannine Lambert, TECHSHOW 2023 co-chair.</li>
<li>Gyi Tsakalakis, TECHSHOW 2023 co-chair.</li>
<li>Sofia Lingos, TECHSHOW 2023 co-vice-chair.</li>
<li>Cynthia Thomas, TECHSHOW 2023 co-vice-chair.</li>
<li>Bob Ambrogi, Startup Alley organizer.</li>
</ul>
On Jan. 17, 2023, descriptions of each of the 25 finalists will be posted on the ABA TECHSHOW blog, Above the Law and LawSites, and readers will be invited to vote for their favorites. The 15 startups that receive the most votes will be selected for Startup Alley. Winners will be announced on Jan. 31. 
<h2>What Are the Criteria for Applying?</h2>
The competition is limited to startups that meet the following criteria:
<ul>
<li>Your product or service is targeted to lawyers or legal professionals, not to consumers.</li>
<li>Your company has never before exhibited at a national legal technology conference.</li>
<li>Your company has achieved some demonstrable traction, either in users or financing.</li>
<li>You were not one of the prior years’ winners selected to present at Startup Alley in 2017-2022.</li>
</ul>
In addition, your company should be innovative, meaning that it addresses a need not met by other products or services currently on the market or that it does so in a way not currently done by others.
<h2>What Happens If My Company Is Selected?</h2>
The 15 winning finalists will face of in a LIVE pitch competition that is TECHSHOW&#8217;s signature opening night event. Each startup will have 2.5 minutes to present its pitch in front of an audience of TECHSHOW attendees. At the conclusion of the pitches, attendees will vote to select the most innovative company as the winner.
In addition, all 15 startups will be provided space at a discounted cost to exhibit their product or service in a special Startup Alley located within TECHSHOW’s exhibit hall.
<ul>
<li>Each startup will be provided space in a uniform, pre-installed booth. You will not need (or be allowed) to bring a booth of your own.</li>
<li>Each startup will be responsible for the booth fee of $1,500. This is a significant reduction off the standard booth cost. You are welcome to seek sponsors to underwrite all or part of this cost.</li>
<li>Each startup is responsible for its own travel and hotel expenses to Chicago.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What Do Startups Get Out of This? </h2>
ABA TECHSHOW is one of the world’s pre-eminent legal technology conferences. All of the participants gain exposure to a large and diverse audience of legal professionals, including practitioners, academics, consultants and others. In addition, TECHSHOW’s audience includes legal journalists, bloggers, industry analysts and investors.
The winner of the opening night pitch competition will receive:
<ul>
<li>Free 10×10 booth space at the 2024 TECHSHOW.</li>
<li>Free 12-month listing on the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s Buyer’s Guide.</li>
<li>$5,000 credit to use towards advertising in ABA Law Practice Division media.</li>
<li>A profile of the company on my LawSites blog.</li>
</ul>
Additionally, each of the 15 finalists will receive a free one-year premium listing in the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/">LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
There is no cost to apply and the application form is relatively painless to complete. We look forward to reading your submissions. 
Questions? Send them my way.

In its six years so far, the Startup Alley competition at ABA TECHSHOW has helped catapult the success of a long list of legal technology startups. Now the competition is returning for its seventh year, and applications officially open today to enter for a spot at TECHSHOW 2023, which takes place in Chicago March 1-4. […]

Attention Startups: Applications Now Open for the ABA TECHSHOW 2023 Startup Alley and Pitch Competition

<img width="1024" height="577" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ReynenCourtOffering-9-21-22-1024x577.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://reynencourt.com/">Reynen Court</a>, the so-called app store of law, is reducing its headcount, cutting expenses, and telling vendors on its platform they might experience service delays. But <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdklein/">Andrew D. Klein</a>, the company&#8217;s founder and CEO, denied that the company is going out of business or discontinuing support for its platform, and he said he is seeking new investment capital to help the company manage through the economic downturn.
The news comes two months after Reynen Court <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/09/reynen-court-the-app-store-of-legal-launches-online-stock-offering-to-bring-on-individual-investors.html">launched an online stock offering</a> to bring on individual lawyers and “legal technology enthusiasts” as investors in the company, on top of some $20 million in venture financing the company had already raised, including a $4.3 million round earlier this year.
Reynen Court has now discontinued the online stock offering.
&#8220;We were pleased with the reception to our stock offering,&#8221; Klein told me by email. &#8220;However, we recently made the decision to pull the transaction after realizing that market conditions were making it unlikely that we could meet the forecast on which the offering was based. It simply became untenable to close on the committed capital in the current economic environment.&#8221;
Although sources asserting knowledge of the situation had told me that the company would be closing down its platform, Klein said that is false. Rather, he is reducing headcount and operating expenses to get through the economic downturn.
&#8220;As a result of the delay in raising capital, we are reducing headcount and other operating expenses to manage through the economic downturn,&#8221; he said.
Today, Klein emailed vendors whose products are featured on the platform. He wrote to them:
<blockquote>&#8220;I am sorry to report that Reynen Court is reducing our headcount and other operating expenses in order to manage through the economic downturn.
&#8220;Consequently, until further notice, we are suspending access to our vendor portal. You may also experience delays in certain vendor services and support.
&#8220;We greatly value your partnership and thank you in advance for your patience.&#8221;</blockquote>
The vendor portal referenced in his email is a recently launched feature that provides vendors with certain tools and a self-testing environment to assist in making their products deployable on the Reynen Court platform, Klein said.
Klein did not say how many people have been laid off. Via posts on social media, I have seen two Reynen Court employees announce their layoffs: <a href="https://sarahglassmeyer.substack.com/p/so-it-goes">Sarah Glassmeyer</a>, who was legal tech curator at Reynen Court, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sam-moore_legalinnovation-legaltech-activity-7000878675101417474-vFyO?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop">Sam Moore</a>, who was director of vendor relations.
&nbsp;
<h3>Seeking to Simplify Tech Adoption</h3>
In 2017, seeing how difficult it was for larger law firms to adopt modern technology, Klein, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor, launched Reynen Court with the mission of making it easier for law firms and legal departments to test, adopt and manage modern cloud-based applications without fear of compromising sensitive firm data.
<div id="attachment_30340" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Andy_Klein_ReynenCourt_169.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-30340" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30340" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Andy_Klein_ReynenCourt_169-300x169.png" alt="" width="300" height="169" /></a>Andrew Klein</div>
With financial backing from international law firms Clifford Chance and Latham &amp; Watkins, and backing from a consortium of 20 global law firms, it released its beta version in August 2019 and formally <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2020/01/reynen-court-formally-launches-its-app-store-of-law.html">launched its commercial offering</a> in January 2020, picking up another major law firm, Orrick, as an investor, and bringing its total raise at that point to more than $13 million.
Ultimately, the company raised roughly $20 million in venture financing, including the $4.3 million round earlier this year.
Reynen Court&#8217;s &#8220;secret sauce&#8221; was to offer a platform where law firms could deploy containerized versions of cloud applications on their own infrastructure or to their own virtual private clouds on a self-managed basis. It also offered its own virtual private clouds on a full-service basis to which firms could deploy its standardized software versions.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/img_infographic_platform_v5.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-42020" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/img_infographic_platform_v5-1024x382.png" alt="" width="1024" height="382" /></a>
Whether self-managed or full service, the Reynen Court platform allows users to run third-party applications in a centralized platform that has greater security and less risk than deploying through any number of separate vendors’ SaaS offerings.
Both options provide the ability to test-drive applications with one click, easily purchase vendor licenses or bring their own, and take advantage of Reynen Court’s telemetry and other services.
Founder Klein, a Harvard Law School graduate, was an associate at Cravath, Swaine and Moore when he left in 1992 to start a brewery. In 1995, to raise money for the brewery, Klein applied his experience as a securities lawyer to launch the first-ever initial public offering sold through the Internet.
The success and notoriety of that IPO led Klein to launch Wit Capital, an investment bank dedicated to helping other companies raise money online. The company flourished, recording more than $350 million in annual revenues, and itself went public in 1999. Ultimately, Wit Capital was acquired by Charles Schwab.
Related: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2019/09/lawnext-episode-51-reynen-court-ceo-andrew-klein-on-creating-the-app-store-for-law.html">LawNext Episode 51: Reynen Court CEO Andrew Klein on Creating the App Store for Law</a>.

Reynen Court, the so-called app store of law, is reducing its headcount, cutting expenses, and telling vendors on its platform they might experience service delays. But Andrew D. Klein, the company’s founder and CEO, denied that the company is going out of business or discontinuing support for its platform, and he said he is seeking […]

Reynen Court, ‘App Store of Legal,’ Reduces Staff, Tells Vendors They Could See Service Delays

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LexCheckHome-12-14-22-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Citing rapid growth over the past year, <a href="https://www.lexcheck.com/" rel="noopener">LexCheck</a>, a company whose platform provides AI-powered contract review and negotiation, has raised $17 million in Series A funding, on top of $8 million in seed funding it <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/03/lexcheck-raises-5m-to-drive-growth-of-its-ai-powered-contract-negotiation-platform.html">had previously raised</a>.
The funding was led by the global venture capital firm <a href="https://www.mayfield.com/">Mayfield Fund</a>. The company said it will use the funding to fuel and accelerate further development of its contract review technology, with a focus on customer experience.
The company said that the funding comes after a year of significant growth, during which it has tripled its customer base. Its customers span 14 industries and include some of the world’s largest financial institutions, major technology providers and top law firms.
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/directory-companies/listing/ai-contract-negotiation-solution/">Read about LexCheck</a> on the LawNext Legal Tech Directory.
&#8220;The ability to accelerate revenue and actualize on business decisions typically delayed by prolonged negotiations is critical for businesses as they navigate today’s how-to-do-more-with-less economy,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsangha/">Gary Sangha</a>, CEO of LexCheck.
“Lawyers have the opportunity to lead the charge of expediting revenue generation and achieving ROI on enterprise spend, all while fulfilling their duty to appropriately mitigate enterprise risk. As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I’ve experienced both sides of these countervailing interests, which is why I’m passionate about solving this problem.”
“LexCheck is leveraging AI to accelerate efficient revenue growth for businesses while mitigating risk,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/therajeevbatra/">Rajeev Batra</a>, partner at Mayfield Fund. “While contract review and negotiations are often put squarely on the shoulders of the legal department, they are critical to the revenue and procurement teams in a company. We are thrilled to partner with Gary and LexCheck as they empower companies to increase deal velocity with their AI-based contract review platform.”
Sangha founded LexCheck in 2015, originally under the name LitIQ. He previously founded <a href="https://www.intelligize.com/">Intelligize</a>, a securities compliance platform that was <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2016/09/friday-round-2-2.html">acquired by LexisNexis</a> in 2016. Prior to Intelligize, Sangha practiced securities law at Shearman &amp; Sterling and White &amp; Case.
LexCheck says its key features include:
<ul>
<li>A considered review of contracts while ensuring adherence to the business’s contracting standards.</li>
<li>Near-instantaneous redlines provide contextual comments, insertions and deletions.</li>
<li>Ease of implementation with small sample sets required to develop customized contract playbooks.</li>
<li>The ability to scale contract review operations by empowering contract reviewers of varying levels of experience, while maintaining harmonious teams.</li>
<li>An easy-to-use technology that requires minimal training and fits within existing workflows.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-pressman-8a383897/">Adam Pressman</a>, associate general counsel at Bio-Rad Laboratories and a LexCheck customer, said, &#8220;With LexCheck, our lawyers and contract analysts no longer have to spend their time inserting standard contract changes, can focus on more substantive issues unique to each negotiation and can turn contracts around much faster. The team at LexCheck has been fantastic and are uniquely dedicated to collaborating closely with us to provide the best product for our specific needs.&#8221;

Citing rapid growth over the past year, LexCheck, a company whose platform provides AI-powered contract review and negotiation, has raised $17 million in Series A funding, on top of $8 million in seed funding it had previously raised. The funding was led by the global venture capital firm Mayfield Fund. The company said it will […]

Contract Review and Negotiation Platform LexCheck Raises $17M in Series A Round to Drive Expansion

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TheTrueValueofLegalTech-screenshot-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Recently, I posted here an <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/09/exclusive-analysis-the-true-story-of-legal-tech-funding-1984-2020.html">exclusive analysis of legal tech funding</a> from 1984 to 2020, a video timeline showing the evolving bar chart of investments in legal tech over nearly four decades.
Now I am able to exclusively present another analysis of legal tech deals — this time of exits in the forms of acquisitions or other deals from 2001 up to Oct. 25, 2022.
As before, this analysis was compiled and created by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondblijd/">Raymond Blijd</a>, founder of <a href="https://www.legalcomplex.com/">Legalcomplex.com</a>, a company that is in the business of tracking investments and market data.
In this analysis of acquisitions,  Blijd found:
<ul>
<li>A total of 901 deals, of which 892 were unique and 16 involving companies acquired multiple times (such as Consilio and AbacusNext.</li>
<li>A total dollar value of deals of $59.1 billion.</li>
<li>The top three categories of deals, based on numbers of deals, were e-discovery, practice management and contract tech.</li>
<li>The top three categories based on dollar values were e-discovery, intellectual property and tax.</li>
<li>The average deal value was $65 million.</li>
<li>The average company age at exit was 11.9 years.</li>
</ul>
&#8220;This is our third analysis on the return of an investment of a legal tech venture&#8221; Blijd told me. &#8220;The most concerning insight here are the similarities between popularity of e-discovery and contract tech. The most lucrative investments historically are in intellectual property and tax.
&#8220;Yet, if we look at the startup pipeline, we see little IP tech. We do see a colorful set of new categories, It&#8217;s exciting to see what the fresh crop of startups will return in value at an increasingly younger age.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WeiCLfRjh7c" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
For any reader interested in going deeper into this data or getting the full breakdown, reach out to Blijd through his website. His <a href="https://www.legalcomplex.com/spark-max/">Spark Max custom dashboards</a> provide continually updated insights with numbers and names, and they show narratives in graphs, charts, and maps.

Recently, I posted here an exclusive analysis of legal tech funding from 1984 to 2020, a video timeline showing the evolving bar chart of investments in legal tech over nearly four decades. Now I am able to exclusively present another analysis of legal tech deals — this time of exits in the forms of acquisitions […]

Exclusive Analysis: Legal Tech Exits, 2001-2022

Since starting my LawNext podcast in 2018, I have had the great fortune of sitting down almost every week for conversations with the “innovators and entrepreneurs who are driving what’s next in law.” While I enjoy each and every conversation, the numbers of listens reveal something about which topics and guests you, the listeners, found most […]

Top 15 LawNext Podcast Episodes of 2022 and of All Time

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/CASEpeerHome-1-9-23-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://www.casepeer.com/">CASEpeer</a>, a practice management platform designed for personal injury law firms, now integrates with the online payments platform <a href="https://www.lawpay.com/">LawPay</a>, it said today.
The integration enables PI firms to accept credit card and ACH payments electronically, which can help a firm increase collections and streamline financial operations.
CASEpeer is owned by <a href="https://www.affinipay.com/">Affinipay</a>, the parent company of LawPay. AffiniPay acquired CASEpeer as part of its <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/06/in-major-deal-lawpay-acquires-mycase-read-full-details-and-listen-to-exclusive-podcast-interview-with-the-two-companies-ceos.html">acquisition of MyCase</a> last June.
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/case-peer/">Learn more about CASEpeer in the LawNext Legal Tech Directory</a>.
“CASEpeer’s new integration with LawPay increases the flexibility of payment services for legal clients,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/druarmstrong/">Dru Armstrong</a>, Affinipay&#8217;s chief executive officer. “Many CASEpeer law firm customers require payments functionality for their non-contingency fee cases.&#8221;
The integration works seamlessly within the CASEpeer platform, the company says, and enables firms to:
<ul>
<li>Use Quick Bill to send payment requests to clients easily without leaving the CASEpeer&#8217;s platform.</li>
<li>Monitor activity around when a client has received, viewed or paid a bill.</li>
<li>Enables clients to pay a bill in just a few clicks. (According to LawPay, 57% of paid Quick Bills are paid the same day a request is sent.)</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/lawpay/">Learn more about LawPay in the LawNext Legal Tech Directory</a>.
“This integration makes it faster and easier for CASEpeer law firms to collect payments, right from our practice management platform,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela-cubeiro/">Gabriela Cubeiro</a>, founder of CASEpeer. “Many personal injury focused law firms also handle other types of cases, and LawPay will help them get paid quickly and securely.”
For more information about this integration, <a href="https://www.casepeer.com/integrations/lawpay">see this page</a>.

CASEpeer, a practice management platform designed for personal injury law firms, now integrates with the online payments platform LawPay, it said today. The integration enables PI firms to accept credit card and ACH payments electronically, which can help a firm increase collections and streamline financial operations. CASEpeer is owned by Affinipay, the parent company of […]

CASEpeer, Practice Management Software for PI Firms, Now Integrates with LawPay for E-Payments

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/RelativityFestHomePage-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />At its annual <a href="https://relativityfest.com/">RelativityFest</a> user conference in Chicago today, the e-discovery company <a href="https://relativity.com/">Relativity</a> announced several new tools and features for e-discovery, privacy and compliance, data management, translation, and more.
The product announcements were made during the conference’s opening keynote presented by Mike Gamson, Relativity’s chief executive officer, and Chris Brown, chief product officer.
Gamson said that the company had already made substantial progress this year on its product roadmap. Earlier this year, it <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/relativity-acquires-contract-review-company-heretik-301613446.html">acquired Heretik</a> to expand its contract intelligence capabilities and offer integrated, purpose-built contract review. In April, it launched Relativity Patents, the first AI-based patent search and workflow tool designed for attorneys. Last month, it released Translate for RelativityOne, for AI-powered document translation.
“We’re acutely cognizant of the critical role technology plays in service of empowering our global community to tackle today’s emerging and proliferating data challenges,” said Gamson. “And we see this as our opportunity to activate our mission through bold innovation, strategic investment and remaining laser-focused on delivering the cutting-edge solutions our customers need to navigate an ever-changing data landscape.”
Announced today were several new products and enhancements to existing products.
<h3>Sentiment Analysis for Document Review</h3>
Further investing in the use of AI to enhance document review, Relativity said it is currently offering AI-powered sentiment analysis to limited customers and will make it available to all RelativityOne customers in the coming months.
Sentiment analysis uses AI to identify positive, negative and other targeted signals across data, which Relativity says can help reviewers better prioritize data for review and view documents within the context of communications.
Visualizations and integration with a document viewer will allow users to click into documents to see highlighted sentences that contain these signals or overlay sentiment across communications to identify and dig into key conversations, Relativity said.
Relativity provided the statement of Craig Macaulay, data scientist at the firm Phi Finney McDonald, who said that sentiment analysis identified 20 documents that were pivotal to a case his firm was working on – documents that may otherwise never have been reviewed.
“We don’t often find a ‘smoking gun’ in our discovery,” Macaulay said. “Using sentiment analysis that quickly identifies these powerful, relevant documents has been instrumental in painting a picture that helps us prove our case.”
Relativity said it has worked to ensure that cultural biases would not influence the results delivered by the new sentiment analysis AI.
<h3>Review Center</h3>
Also slated to be available to RelativityOne customers within the next few months is Review Center, a new dashboard for review management and administration, particularly for management of AI-driven document review and for queuing documents for active learning.
Relativity said Review Center will consolidate previously disparate tasks to produce a comprehensive dashboard to help users understand the nature and status of projects. Users will be able to set up workflow-based templates for reviews, better manage queues for reviews, and get an overview of the status of reviews, among other features.
<h3>Products Targeting Privacy and Compliance</h3>
Noting that the average number of data breaches increased <a href="https://www.idtheftcenter.org/post/identity-theft-resource-center-2021-annual-data-breach-report-sets-new-record-for-number-of-compromises/">68% in 2021</a>, Relativity announced several products aimed at data breach response and privacy challenges.
For one, it has expanded its Text IQ product to develop TextIQ for Data Breach, which it said will allows users responding to data breaches to reduce assessment time by as much as 75%, allowing action to be taken in a timely manner when it matters most.
Additionally, Text IQ for Personal Information will be integrated with Redact in RelativityOne and available in advanced access by end of year. Text IQ for PI will combine the redaction capabilities in RelativityOne with the AI in Text IQ to help organizations better adhere to evolving global privacy regulations, Relativity said.
It said that the product will automate and improve the accuracy of PI identification, cutting the PI document population for review by 50% and increasing the speed of review by 5-6 times.
Relativity said that its AI-powered communication surveillance product, <a href="https://www.relativity.com/data-solutions/communication-surveillance/">Relativity Trace</a>, which uses data cleansing to prevent alerts from being generated on duplicative or non-authored content, will expand its data cleansing capabilities in 2023 by removing more irrelevant content, such as cybersecurity disclaimers, salutations/greetings and duplicative content.
<h3>New Data Management Capabilities</h3>
By the end of the year, Relativity will launch new import-export capabilities, enabling all RelativityOne users to more easily transfer data. The solution provides simple drag-and-drop functionality and eliminates the need for multiple tools.
Shortly after the release, an Express Transfer app will be available for large imports and exports to enable greater speed than ever before.
In addition, Relativity said it has partnered with <a href="https://imanage.com/">iManage</a> to create an integration that allows customers to directly collect documents from Cloud iManage into RelativityOne, via Collect. Users can stay within RelativityOne and kick off a Cloud iManage bulk export using key filters, ensuring only relevant data is collected and that the data never leaves the secure Microsoft Azure boundary.
<h3>Machine Translation</h3>
Relativity said that it now offers Translate, a product that provides machine translations for 112 languages and more than 100 language pairs directly within RelativityOne, saving customers time and money in translations. Users can translated a single document or a range of files and have the translations rendered in the native view of the original document.
Soon, Translate will be supported with Automated Workflows, enabling triggers to update search and analytics indexes after translations are completed and mass exports of translated native documents for easy use in depositions and interviews, the company said.
In a preview call with Brown ahead of the keynote, he said that Relativity develops its product roadmap based both on customer feedback and by paying attention to the trends that are transforming and disrupting the legal industry.
“We want to harness the forces of disruption, not fight them,” he said.

At its annual RelativityFest user conference in Chicago today, the e-discovery company Relativity announced several new tools and features for e-discovery, privacy and compliance, data management, translation, and more. The product announcements were made during the conference’s opening keynote presented by Mike Gamson, Relativity’s chief executive officer, and Chris Brown, chief product officer. Gamson said […]

At Its User Conference, Relativity Unveils New Tools for E-Discovery, Compliance, Data Management and More

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Josef-Founders-LR-Kirill-Tom-Sam-169-scaled-1-1024x576.jpeg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://joseflegal.com/">Josef</a>, an Australia-based, no-code software platform that enables legal professionals to automate common tasks, today said it has raised AU$5.2 million, or approximately $3.5 million in U.S. dollars, which it says it will use to further bolster its presence among enterprise customers. 
The company <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/05/no-code-legal-automation-startup-josef-raises-2-5m.html">previously raised</a> $2.5 million in 2021 and a seed round of $1 million in 2019.
&#8220;We&#8217;ll be using the new funds to further expand our U.S. presence and to reach more in-house legal teams, cementing our role as the infrastructure layer on which the future of automated legal service delivery is being built,&#8221; CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-dreyfus/">Tom Dreyfus</a> told me in an email.
This latest funding round was led by OIF Ventures, with participation from Carthona Capital, Flying Fox Ventures, Jelix Ventures and Saniel Ventures.
Josef was founded in Australia in 2017 by two lawyers, CEO Dreyfus and COO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-flynn-379735161/">Sam Flynn</a>, and engineer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirillkliavin/">Kirill Kliavin</a>, now CTO. (Kliavin, Dreyfus and Flynn pictured left to right above.)
The company is <a href="https://joseflegal.com/blog/the-josef-story/">named for</a> Josef K., the protagonist in Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel The Trial.
Its software enables legal professionals to easily build digital tools that automate their day-to-day work, from streamlining intake, to drafting contracts, to providing advice.
Users can automate document drafting, build bots to handle client interviews, triage paperwork or execute NDAs and generate personalized documents, from letters to contracts.
Its customers include such law firms as Gunderson Dettmer, Clifford Chance and MinterEllison. In-house customers include Nutanix, CoreLogic, Bupa, and Who Gives A Crap.
In a statement, the company said it will also use the new funds to expand its reach globally through several new hires in the U.S. and APAC, following its launches last year in North America and Europe.
“Josef is no longer just about helping legal practitioners improve their effectiveness and efficiency through technology, although this is still a core part of our offering,&#8221; Dreyfus said. &#8220;We’re an innovation partner helping the sector automate the nitty gritty so that teams can better assist the people they serve.
&#8220;While we’ve always focused on solving problems for both in-house teams and law firms, we’re now in a position to help the millions of corporate legal teams globally do better. Whether this be helping address unmet justice needs or streamlining operations so that the work that really makes a difference can be prioritized, we’ve created a simple but impactful automation platform that anyone in the legal trade can use.&#8221;

Josef, an Australia-based, no-code software platform that enables legal professionals to automate common tasks, today said it has raised AU$5.2 million, or approximately $3.5 million in U.S. dollars, which it says it will use to further bolster its presence among enterprise customers.  The company previously raised $2.5 million in 2021 and a seed round of […]

No-Code Legal Automation Platform Josef Raises $3.5M to Fuel Further U.S. and In-House Expansion

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/review-ge5ff9f729_1920-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Every Friday on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@legaltechweek298">Legaltech Week</a>, the panelists come together to discuss the top stories of the week in legal tech and innovation. This week, in a special year-end edition, the panelists will pick their top stories of the year and offer their predictions for what&#8217;s ahead in 2023.
Join us Dec. 30 at 3 ET to hear our picks and prediction. Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you need to register, <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ylahkY_aTZOr8G8HuxMcuQ">which you can do here</a>. Register once and you are signed up for all future sessions.
Our panelist lineup changes from week to week, but our regulars are:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikiblack/">Nicole Black</a>, legal technology columnist and legaltech evangelist at MyCase.</li>
<li>Stephen Embry, publisher, <a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/">TechLaw Crossroads</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/legalitnews/">Caroline Hill</a>, editor in chief, Legal IT Insider.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.abajournal.com/authors/27587">Victor Li</a>, assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal.</li>
<li>Jean O’Grady, publisher of the blog <a href="https://www.deweybstrategic.com/">Dewey B Strategic</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patrice-32398a/">Joe Patrice</a>, editor, Above the Law.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-wilkins/">Stephanie Wilkins</a>, editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News and the ALM Global Newsroom’s Legal Technology Desk.</li>
</ul>
Hope you will join us.

Every Friday on Legaltech Week, the panelists come together to discuss the top stories of the week in legal tech and innovation. This week, in a special year-end edition, the panelists will pick their top stories of the year and offer their predictions for what’s ahead in 2023. Join us Dec. 30 at 3 ET […]

Legaltech Week Year-End Edition: Panelists Pick their Top Stories of 2022 and Predict What’s Ahead for 2023

Every year since 2010, I have compiled a list of my most-popular posts. In some years, there has seemed to be a theme across the most-read posts. But this year, they seem to span the gamut of topics I cover, from analytics to artificial intelligence, from legal ethics to legal research, from new companies starting […]

My 20 Most-Read Posts of 2022

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/iStock-498334873-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />For some employees of legal tech companies, the holidays have been far from merry, as their employers have trimmed headcounts and sent out layoff notices.
The exact number of layoffs in legal tech are unknown. It is difficult to track and confirm layoffs, as companies are often secretive about them. Although, in the U.S., the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to report layoffs, it generally applies only to employers of 100 or more employees that layoff 50 or more employees.
So, although this may not be a comprehensive list of recent legal tech layoffs, here are the ones that have been reported.
Contractbook. Two weeks ago, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/niels-martin-brochner-18a7b1b/">Niels Martin Brochner</a>, founder and CEO of the Danish contract lifecycle management company <a href="https://contractbook.com/">Contractbook</a>, took to LinkedIn to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7003368241544708097/">announce the layoff of 32 employees</a>.
&#8220;Like many other companies in our industry, we must reduce our headcount and grow in a more efficient way. I’m sorry to take this step, and I wish it could have been avoided. At the same time, I take full responsibility for the decision.&#8221;
Last year, the company <a href="https://venturebeat.com/business/contract-automation-platform-contractbook-raises-30m-to-challenge-docusign/">raised $30 million</a> in a Series B round, just a few months after it <a href="https://news.cision.com/contractbook-aps/r/contractbook-raises--9-4-million-in-series-a-funding-led-by-bessemer-venture-partners,c3250656">raised a $9.4 million Series A round</a> in December 2020.
&#8220;There is no good way to lay off good people, but I would at least like to express my gratitude and appreciation towards the people leaving Contractbook today,&#8221; Brochner wrote on LinkedIn. &#8220;You’ve had a massive impact and helped us grow into what we are today.&#8221;
Filevine. The news site <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2022/12/15/utah-tech-layoffs-silicon-slopes-losing-workers">Axios Salt Lake City</a> recently reported that <a href="https://www.filevine.com/">Filevine</a> is among several Utah-based tech companies that are laying off workers. However, in an interview with me, founder and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-anderson-49a30740/">Ryan Anderson</a> denies the company had layoffs.
Rather, he said that, as part of a strategic plan announced to employees last January to focus on being a software company, not a services company, certain employees who work in services roles with customers on product implementation and data migration were notified earlier this year that their work would be transitioned to third-party Filevine partners who specialize in implementation and migration. Filevine offered to assist those employees in finding positions with partner companies, and many have already been successfully placed, Anderson said.
While a layoff is typically driven by a need to reduce costs due to a reduction in revenue, Anderson said, this transition was driven by a strategic decision regarding the company&#8217;s focus and mission. He noted that it is common for companies such as his to rely on third-party partners to handle implementation and migration, pointing to NetDocuments and Salesforce as examples.
From a business standpoint, Filevine is strong, Anderson said. With much of the $108 million it <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/04/case-management-company-filevine-raises-108m-series-d-to-fuel-expansion.html">raised earlier this year</a> still in the bank, it is about to hit $60 million in annual recurring revenue, with 59% ARR growth year over year. It has just had its two strongest quarters ever, and has seen 75% revenue growth year over year.
Bottom line: Anderson said these were not economically driven layoffs, but strategically driven transitions of certain service functions to companies in Filevine&#8217;s partner ecosystem.
Lawgeex. In September, the Israel-based contract review automation company <a href="https://www.lawgeex.com/">Lawgeex</a> announced plans to lay off 30 employees, or about a third of its total staff.
“We had to lower the number of employees so that the product could soon be profitable — remove the auxiliary wheels and let it work on its own, founder and CEO Noory Bechor told the <a href="https://www.tech12.co.il/index-career/Article-daa4d2195231381027.htm?sCh=cf25c425b37bc710&amp;pId=18758941771">Israeli news publication Tech12</a> (as translated and reported <a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/09/07/lawgeex-plans-to-layoff-staff-pivot-to-small-business-clients/">by Legaltech News</a>).
Onit. The website <a href="https://www.trueup.io/layoffs">TrueUp Tech</a> reports that Texas-based enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management company <a href="https://www.onit.com/">Onit</a> laid off 19 people, citing employee reports as its source. I reached out to Onit seeking to confirm the report, but a spokesperson declined to comment.
Relativity. Earlier this month, the e-discovery company Relativity <a href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1556506/legal-tech-giant-relativity-lays-off-150-to-adjust-costs">laid off 150 employees</a>, or about 10% of its total staff.
In a statement <a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/12/09/relativity-lays-off-approximately-10-of-workforce-in-cost-adjustment-move/">provided to Law.com</a>, the company said:
<blockquote>“To support our core business strategy going forward, we will reduce and realign our investments in certain parts of the business and adjust our overall cost structure. We believe these changes will prepare Relativity, which is healthy and growing, for any headwinds from what is becoming an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic environment. It will also better position the company to focus on, invest in, and continue to lead in our core areas where we have the best product-market fit and that are most valued by our customers and partners.”</blockquote>
Reynen Court. As I <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/reynen-court-app-store-of-legal-reduces-staff-tells-vendors-they-could-see-service-delays.html">reported Nov. 22</a>, <a href="https://reynencourt.com/">Reynen Court</a>, the so-called app store of law, is reducing its headcount, cutting expenses, and telling vendors on its platform they might experience service delays. The company has not said how many employees it is letting go, but reports from various sources have suggested it is a substantial percentage of its workforce.
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdklein/">Andrew D. Klein</a>, the company’s founder and CEO, denied that the company is going out of business or discontinuing support for its platform, and he said he is seeking new investment capital to help the company manage through the economic downturn.
“As a result of the delay in raising capital, we are reducing headcount and other operating expenses to manage through the economic downturn,” he said.

For some employees of legal tech companies, the holidays have been far from merry, as their employers have trimmed headcounts and sent out layoff notices. The exact number of layoffs in legal tech are unknown. It is difficult to track and confirm layoffs, as companies are often secretive about them. Although, in the U.S., the […]

‘Tis the Season … for Layoffs in Legal Tech, As Multiple Companies Send Out Pink Slips

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/thomas-lefebvre-gp8BLyaTaA0-unsplash-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />This year marked the 10th anniversary of the American Bar Association&#8217;s adoption of the duty of technology competence for lawyers. Ever since, I have tracked <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/tech-competence">states&#8217; adoption of the duty</a>, which is now up to 40 states. But even after 10 years and 40 states, many lawyers still lack competence in technology.
<div id="attachment_42255" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42255" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-42255" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Mike_Quartararo_015_86dc41c463-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="225" />Michael Quartararo</div>
&#8220;I know the legal industry tends to move slow; but this is glacial progress,&#8221; says <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/authors/michael-quartararo/">Michael Quartararo</a>, president of the <a href="https://aceds.org/">Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists</a> (aka ACEDS). &#8220;And it, too, is unacceptable.&#8221;
But Quartararo believes there is a clear solution to this problem — and it is to be found in law schools and the curricula they offer.
He explains his position and describes what law schools can do in the article, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/law-schools-could-solve-the-lawyer-technology-competence-problem-if-they-wanted-to/">Law Schools Could Solve the Lawyer Technology Competence Problem (If They Wanted To)</a>, which is published in the resources library of the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/">LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
I hope you&#8217;ll give it a read.
If you are a legal technology author who would like to contribute an article to the LawNext resources library, let us know by <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">signing up here</a>.

This year marked the 10th anniversary of the American Bar Association’s adoption of the duty of technology competence for lawyers. Ever since, I have tracked states’ adoption of the duty, which is now up to 40 states. But even after 10 years and 40 states, many lawyers still lack competence in technology. “I know the […]

How Law Schools Could Solve the Legal Tech Competence Problem Almost Overnight

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/balloons-874837_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />The Legaltech Week panel is back at 3 ET today to discuss the top stories in legal tech.  Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you need to register, <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ylahkY_aTZOr8G8HuxMcuQ">which you can do here</a>. Register once and you are signed up for all future sessions.
Among the stories we’re planning to take up:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/12/at-a-legal-tech-conference-like-no-other-attendees-pondered-the-present-and-future-of-the-industry.html">Post-mortem on the inaugural TLTF Summit</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/12/new-lawpay-mycase-survey-provides-insights-into-the-tech-that-matters-for-smaller-law-firms.html">The LawPay/MyCase Legal Industry Report</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2022/12/when-federal-judges-said-free-pacer-would-cost-2b-they-were-completely-full-of-crap/">Free PACER saves money</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2022/12/15/chatgpt-is-impressive-but-can-and-should-it-be-used-in-legal/">Should ChatGPT be used in legal?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/bankman-fried-faces-criminal-and-civil-charges-for-alleged-1-8b-fraud-at-ftx-trading">FTX founder faces criminal and civil charges</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/2022/12/alaska-offers-practical-approach-to-a2j-crisis/">Alaska&#8217;s new approach to A2J</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/12/12/my-ai-will-talk-to-your-ai-as-donotpay-joins-the-gpt-3-fray/">My AI will talk to your AI</a>.</li>
</ul>
Our lineup changes from week to week, but our regular panelists include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikiblack/">Nicole Black</a>, legal technology columnist and legaltech evangelist at MyCase.</li>
<li>Stephen Embry, publisher, <a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/">TechLaw Crossroads</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/legalitnews/">Caroline Hill</a>, editor in chief, Legal IT Insider.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.abajournal.com/authors/27587">Victor Li</a>, assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal.</li>
<li>Jean O’Grady, publisher of the blog <a href="https://www.deweybstrategic.com/">Dewey B Strategic</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patrice-32398a/">Joe Patrice</a>, editor, Above the Law.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-wilkins/">Stephanie Wilkins</a>, editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News and the ALM Global Newsroom’s Legal Technology Desk.</li>
</ul>
Hope you will join us.

The Legaltech Week panel is back at 3 ET today to discuss the top stories in legal tech.  Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you need to register, which you can do here. Register once and you are signed up for all future sessions. Among the stories we’re planning to take up: […]

Today at 3 ET: The Live Legaltech Week Panel Returns; Here Are The Stories We’ll DiscussThis Week

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LegalIndustryReportFeatured-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />A legal industry report released today by the sibling legal technology companies <a href="https://www.lawpay.com/">LawPay</a> and <a href="https://www.mycase.com/">MyCase</a> provides unique insights into the technology tools that matter most to smaller law firms in the post-pandemic era.
While the report finds that law firms have largely recovered from pandemic-related declines in revenues, it concludes that, with regard to technology, the pandemic &#8220;drastically impacted&#8221; its use by law firms.
&#8220;Law firms’ investment in technology — especially technology that enabled remote work — occurred at rates never before seen,&#8221; the report says. &#8220;Many experts have suggested that the pandemic’s effects may have accelerated technology adoption by as much as a decade.&#8221;
In reaching this conclusion, the report drills down into the types of software that smaller firms are using and consider important, demonstrating that the majority of firms have moved to the cloud and are committed to technologies that facilitate remote working.
The <a href="https://www.mycase.com/reports/2022-legal-industry-report/">2022 Legal Industry Report</a> was compiled by the electronic payments company LawPay and the law practice management company MyCase, both of which are owned by <a href="https://www.affinipay.com/">AffiniPay</a>, based on a survey of more than 2,300 legal professionals during August and September.
It also builds on a <a href="https://www.mycase.com/reports/#benchmark">three-part Benchmark Report series</a> that MyCase published earlier this year, using anonymized data from MyCase customers, including data showing credit card and ACH payments processed by law firms since 2019.
Of the survey respondents, 42% were from firms with 2-5 lawyers, 45% were solos, 7% were from firms with 6-10 lawyers, 3% were from firms with 11-20 lawyers, 1% were from firms with 21-50 lawyers, and 2% were from firms with more than 51 attorneys.
The report was written by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikiblack/">Nicole Black</a>, lawyer and senior director of SME and external education at AffiniPay (and a panelist on our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@legaltechweek298">Legaltech Week</a> podcast).
<h3>Increased Adoption of Cloud Software</h3>
With regard to adoption of cloud-based software, overall use of cloud software rose from 73% before the pandemic to 80% today. While that, alone, may not seem like a dramatic change, consider that 57% of respondents reported that their firms invested in cloud computing tools during the past year because of the effects of the pandemic.
As for which types of cloud software law firms have in place, the most popular is law practice management software, used by 87% of respondents, followed by electronic payment software, used by 50% of respondents.
Other types of cloud software used by firms:
<ul>
<li>Calendar management software, 44%.</li>
<li>Document management software, 43%.</li>
<li>Legal billing and time-tracking software, 42%.</li>
<li>Accounting software, 40%.</li>
<li>Task management software, 26%.</li>
<li>Document assembly software, 23%.</li>
<li>Practice-area specific software, 17%.</li>
<li>CRM software, 11%.</li>
</ul>
An interesting finding with regard to several of these categories of software is that firms are using generic consumer products to a greater extend than they are legal-specific products. For example, when asked how their firms handle accounting, half said they use consumer accounting software. Just 18% use accounting features built into their practice management system and just 4% use legal-specific accounting software (which I assume means standalone products).
Similarly, for document storage, 50% use consumer products such as Dropbox or Google Docs, while only 6% use legal-specific products such as NetDocuments or iManage.
For document automation, only 7% use legal-specific document automation software, while 41% used consumer software (a category in which the survey includes HotDocs), and 27% use no document automation software at all.
While the list above indicates that 11% of firms are using cloud-based CRM software, the survey found that only 2% use standalone, legal-specific lead-intake software, and that 44% of firms use no lead-intake software of any kind.
<h3>Firms Ready for Remote Work</h3>
A key focus of the report is on law firms&#8217; adoption of remote-work software. The survey found that 47% of respondents said that their firms added new remote working technologies to their IT stack within the past year as a direct result of the pandemic. Additionally, 70% of respondents said that remote working tools were part of their firm’s long-term business continuity strategy.
In a version of this survey that MyCase conducted in 2021, it found that firms had already increased their usage of remote-working tools, But this year, the survey found, firms made even greater investments in remote-working tools. The chart below shows some of the most popular options that saw a significant increase in adoption.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_10-remote-work-tools.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-42187" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_10-remote-work-tools-1024x449.png" alt="" width="1024" height="449" /></a>
&#8220;These trends indicate that law firms have moved on from piecemeal adoption and are now implementing robust, long-term remote working solutions into their law firms,&#8221; the report says. &#8220;Doing so ensures efficiency in the here and now and provides predictability and business resiliency in times of future uncertainty.&#8221;
<h3>Majority of Firms Accept Online Payments</h3>
Consistent with other industry surveys, this report concludes that one of the top categories of software that saw an increase due to the pandemic was online payments.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_13-onlinepayments.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-42188" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_13-onlinepayments-1024x316.png" alt="" width="1024" height="316" /></a>
According to the survey, &#8220;the vast majority of firms (84%) now accept credit cards and ACH payments from clients using online payment tools.&#8221;
In addition, the majority of firms (75%) use legal-specific payment tools, with 39% using standalone software, 35% using payment processing software built into their practice management systems, and 7% using payment processing software built into a legal billing platform.
At a time when clients are increasingly seeking flexible payment options, firms are responding in kind, the survey finds. It finds that 15% of respondents reported that their firms offer clients the option of paying legal fees using loans. Another 34% said they do not yet provide that option but were open to the idea. More common is offering clients payment plays, which 61% of respondents’ law firms do.
The survey also finds that firms saw tangible benefits from accepting online payments. Sixty-one percent of respondents said that their firms collected more money because of online payments, with 25% saying they collected &#8220;significantly more money.&#8221; In addition, the survey found that firms that accept online payments had their invoices paid 32% faster than firms that do not.
<h3>Little Interest in M&amp;A Activity</h3>
One topic this survey explored that I have not seen before in other surveys is the impact of mergers and acquisitions among legal technology companies. Anyone who reads this blog knows that there has been substantial M&amp;A activity in legal tech over the past few years, and particularly in the area of law practice management.
<a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_11MandA.png"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-42184" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-LPMC-Legal-Industry-Report-FINAL_Page_11MandA-1024x265.png" alt="" width="1024" height="265" /></a>
In fact, it was just this year that LawPay parent AffiniPay&#8217;s acquisition of MyCase brought the two companies together that produced this survey report. And that was just one of several acquisitions involving law practice management companies.
But the majority of small firm lawyers were largely unaware of all this M&amp;A activity and unsure of its impact on them.
Only 31% of respondents said that they knew about all the recent legal technology consolidation that had occurred since 2020. Nearly half were unsure whether the effects of consolidation would be positive or negative, while 38% viewed them favorably and 17% negatively.
<h3>Laid the Foundation</h3>
I encourage you to download and read <a href="https://www.mycase.com/reports/2022-legal-industry-report/">the full report</a>, which goes into a number of other areas than I have covered here, including email marketing, reception services, e-filing, integrations, and outsourcing.
Thanks to technology adoption, firms are now better situated to withstand uncertain times, the report concludes.
&#8220;They have laid the foundation for business success by implementing key technology functionalities that will drive efficiency and growth in their firms in the long term.&#8221;

A legal industry report released today by the sibling legal technology companies LawPay and MyCase provides unique insights into the technology tools that matter most to smaller law firms in the post-pandemic era. While the report finds that law firms have largely recovered from pandemic-related declines in revenues, it concludes that, with regard to technology, […]

New LawPay/MyCase Survey Provides Insights Into The Tech That Matters For Smaller Law Firms

<img width="533" height="329" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Varun-Mehta-headshot-169.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25230045/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<a href="https://www.factor.law/">Factor</a>, the managed services company that <a href="https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/02/alternative-legal-service-company-axiom-prepares-ipo-spins-off-two-companies.html">spun off in 2019</a> from alternative legal services provider Axiom, describes itself as providing “complex legal work at scale” for the corporate legal market it serves. But more recently, it has begun to position itself as falling within a new category of alternative legal services. It calls this new category “integrated law,” and describes it as bringing together the expertise of traditional law, the efficiency of new law, and the business alignment of in-house law.
On this episode of LawNext, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunmehta/">Varun Mehta</a>, CEO of Factor since 2020, joins host Bob Ambrogi to take a deeper dive into this concept of integrated law. They also discuss how the managed services market is evolving in the post-pandemic market, how the current labor market is impacting corporate legal departments and managed services providers, and how Factor is evolving in the face of these issues. 
Mehta, a veteran of the legal tech industry, was <a href="https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2020/01/new-ceo-named-for-axiom-managed-services-spin-off-factor.html">named Factor’s CEO</a> in 2020, just before the global pandemic. Several months later, the company <a href="https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2020/08/investment-firm-to-take-majority-share-in-factor-the-axiom-managed-services-spin-off.html">received an investment</a> it characterized as one of the largest in the global legal solutions market. Earlier this year, the company appointed <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-f-pedersen-349a3868/">Jonathan Pedersen</a>, a former Skadden partner and co-general counsel of of investment banking at Credit Suisse, as executive vice president and global practice lead to oversee all of Factor’s engagements. 
This is a return visit to LawNext for Mehta, who was previously on this podcast <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2021/02/lawnext-varun-mehta-on-his-momentous-first-year-leading-alsp-factor.html">in February 2021</a>. 
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Factor, the managed services company that spun off in 2019 from alternative legal services provider Axiom, describes itself as providing “complex legal work at scale” for the corporate legal market it serves. But more recently, it has begun to position itself as falling within a new category of alternative legal services. It calls this new category “integrated […]

On LawNext Podcast: Factor CEO Varun Mehta On ‘Integrated Law’ As A New Category of Legal Services

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/aleix-ventayol-yPoM-wmzKMM-unsplash-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />We’ve all been there or heard the stories: You’re a junior associate working on a make-or-break case. Partners are breathing down your neck to meet deadlines. The entire case rests on your shoulders so you have to get it right – even if it means pulling a fourth all-nighter – because if you miss a critical case or motion or piece of expert witness testimony, you could ruin a carefully crafted legal strategy or sink the matter entirely.
With so much at stake how do you know when it’s safe to stop researching?
In the article, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/enough-is-enough-how-do-you-know-when-it-s-safe-to-stop-researching-case-law/">Enough is Enough: How Do You Know When It’s Safe to Stop Researching Case Law?</a>, <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/authors/serena-wellen/">Serena Wellen</a>, senior director of product management for LexisNexis North America, breaks down how lawyers can overcome &#8220;analysis paralysis.&#8221;
Read <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/library/enough-is-enough-how-do-you-know-when-it-s-safe-to-stop-researching-case-law/">the full article</a> in the resources library of the <a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/">LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
If you are a legal technology author who would like to contribute an article to the LawNext resources library, let us know by <a href="https://lawnextauthors.paperform.co/">signing up here</a>.

We’ve all been there or heard the stories: You’re a junior associate working on a make-or-break case. Partners are breathing down your neck to meet deadlines. The entire case rests on your shoulders so you have to get it right – even if it means pulling a fourth all-nighter – because if you miss a […]

When Researching Case Law, How Do You Know When It’s Safe to Stop?

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/balloons-874837_1280-169-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Thanks to Thanksgiving, the regular Friday Legaltech Week panel has not met for two weeks. But we are back today at 3 p.m. ET to discuss the latest developments in legal tech and legal innovation, and there is a lot to talk about.
Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you need to register, <a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ylahkY_aTZOr8G8HuxMcuQ">which you can do here</a>. Register once and you are signed up for all future sessions.
Our lineup changes from week to week, but our regular panelists include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikiblack/">Nicole Black</a>, legal technology columnist and legaltech evangelist at MyCase.</li>
<li>Stephen Embry, publisher, <a href="https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/">TechLaw Crossroads</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/legalitnews/">Caroline Hill</a>, editor in chief, Legal IT Insider.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.abajournal.com/authors/27587">Victor Li</a>, assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal.</li>
<li>Jean O’Grady, publisher of the blog <a href="https://www.deweybstrategic.com/">Dewey B Strategic</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patrice-32398a/">Joe Patrice</a>, editor, Above the Law.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-wilkins/">Stephanie Wilkins</a>, editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News and the ALM Global Newsroom’s Legal Technology Desk.</li>
</ul>
Hope you will join us.

Thanks to Thanksgiving, the regular Friday Legaltech Week panel has not met for two weeks. But we are back today at 3 p.m. ET to discuss the latest developments in legal tech and legal innovation, and there is a lot to talk about. Attendance is free, but, if you have not already done so, you […]

We’re Back! After Two Weeks Away, the Legaltech Week Panel Returns Today at 3 P.M. ET; Join Us Live

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Case-Status-Home-12-5-22-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><a href="https://casestatus.com/">Case Status</a>, a mobile client portal and messaging platform with a primary focus on consumer law firms, has raised $5 million in a Series B round, bringing its total funding to over $11 million. 
Last January, the company <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/01/friday-roundup-case-status-raise-filetrail-acquisition-brightflag-enhancement.html">raised $3.5 million</a> in a Series A venture capital round, and it had previously <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2020/03/legal-tech-startup-case-status-raises-1-5-million-in-seed-funding.html">raised of $1.5 million in seed funding</a> in 2020 and <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2019/03/case-status-app-that-automates-client-communications-receives-venture-funding.html">$750,000 in funding in 2019</a>.
This latest round was led by <a href="https://panoramic.vc/">Panoramic Ventures</a>, which also participated in its Series A round.
<a href="https://directory.lawnext.com/products/case-status/">Learn more about Case Status in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory</a>.
Cofounder and CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyseavers/">Andy Seavers</a> said it has never been more important for law firms to scale client service, and that includes what he calls the &#8220;legal technology triad&#8221; of their businesses: intake, case management and client service.
While many businesses use generic customer service software such as Zendesk, Hubspot or Intercom, he said, Case Status is specifically designed as a dedicated platform to support client service in the legal industry.
Case Status was cofounded in 2017 by lawyer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-sturdivant-29692814/">Lauren Sturdivant</a>, who later returned to law practice but remains chairman of the board, and Seavers, who was its CTO before becoming CEO after Sturdivant’s departure. 
Its primary customer focus is on consumer law firms in the United States and Candada offering services on a flat-fee or contingency basis. Its customers include firms in personal injury, immigration, family law, and more, as well as professional services organizations outside the legal profession, such as veterans affairs and senior living.
Its mobile app serves as a mobile client portal and provides clients with case updates, text messaging, appointments, and more, all delivered securely on their phone.
It also integrates with a number of practice management platforms.
Sturdivant told me that the company continues to exceed its projections for growth and is being implemented in some of the largest firms in the U.S.
&#8220;Case Status updates are turning into the new norm in legal,&#8221; she said, &#8220;which is how it should be.&#8221;

Case Status, a mobile client portal and messaging platform with a primary focus on consumer law firms, has raised $5 million in a Series B round, bringing its total funding to over $11 million.  Last January, the company raised $3.5 million in a Series A venture capital round, and it had previously raised of $1.5 […]

Case Status, Mobile Client Portal and Messaging App, Raises $5M Series B, For Total Raise of $11M

<img width="808" height="454" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Harvey-Home-11-23-22.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />A hitherto stealth legal AI startup emerged from the shadows today with <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/23/harvey-which-uses-ai-to-answer-legal-questions-lands-cash-from-openai/">news via TechCrunch</a> that it has raised $5 million in funding led by the startup fund of OpenAI, the company that developed advanced neural network AI systems such as GPT-3 and DALL-E 2.
The startup, called <a href="https://harvey.ai/">Harvey</a>, will build on the GPT-3 technology to enable lawyers to create legal documents or perform legal research by providing simple instructions using natural language.
The company was founded by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/winston-weinberg/">Winston Weinberg</a>, formerly an associate at law firm O’Melveny &amp; Myers, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabepereyra/">Gabriel Pereyra</a>, formerly a research scientist at DeepMind and most recently a machine learning engineer at Meta AI.
The funding was led by the <a href="https://openai.fund/">OpenAI Startup Fund</a>, through which OpenAI and its partners are investing in early-stage AI companies that it believes will &#8220;have a profound, positive impact on the world.&#8221;
Although the company has come out of stealth in announcing its financing, Pereyra and Weinberg are not prepared to show their product to the public.
However, I can tell you that I have seen an early version of the product under embargo, and that I think that, when the product is released, it will have been well worth the wait, and could potentially be a game-changer.
I am unable to say more about the product at this point. The TechCrunch article includes this quote from Pereyra:
<blockquote>“We want Harvey to serve as an intermediary between tech and lawyer, as a natural language interface to the law,” he said. “Harvey will make lawyers more efficient, allowing them to produce higher quality work and spend more time on the high value parts of their job. Harvey provides a unified and intuitive interface for all legal workflows, allowing lawyers to describe tasks in plain English instead of using a suite of complex and specialized tools for niche tasks.”</blockquote>
In an email to me, Pereyra elaborated:
<blockquote>“Our goal is not to compete with existing legal tech (such as Westlaw or LexisNexis) or to replace lawyers, but instead to make them work together more seamlessly. We want Harvey to serve as an intermediary between tech and lawyer, as a natural language interface to the law. We see a future where every lawyer is a partner — able to delegate the busy work of the legal profession to Harvey and focus on the creative aspects of the job and what matters most, their clients.”</blockquote>
Pereyra also provided me with three quotes from lawyers who have seen the product&#8217;s beta version:
<blockquote>&#8220;In the new AI tool, known as &#8216;Harvey&#8217;, there is the potential to help deliver more high-quality, life-saving and life-affirming legal services to those low-income communities in need of representation so as to protect their access to justice, and their access to the basic necessities of life. Only through the legal system can those most in need be ensured these most fundamental democratic values. I am so inspired by the generosity of the developers of this unique program to make this potentially invaluable new asset available, free of charge, to the legal aid organizations who work so hard every day to close this devastating justice gap. It is a remarkable gift of justice and fairness.&#8221;</blockquote>
&#8211;<a href="https://www.omm.com/professionals/david-a-lash/">David Lash</a>, managing counsel for Pro Bono and Public Interest Services at O&#8217;Melveny &amp; Myers LLP. (Lash said this reflects his personal opinion only and that it is not attributable to his firm, which is named for identification purposes only.)
<blockquote>&#8220;Lawyers at Quinn Emanuel are using an early version, and Harvey is incredibly promising and represents the future of best-in-class generative AI companies.&#8221;</blockquote>
&#8211;<a href="https://www.quinnemanuel.com/attorneys/stake-sam/">Sam Stake</a>, partner and co-chair of the AI Practice Group at Quinn Emanuel.
<blockquote>“AI has the power to disrupt the legal profession and fundamentally improve how lawyers add value. Harvey&#8217;s offering, even though in its early stages, already shows incredible promise in making lawyers more impactful and efficient, and has the potential to materially lower legal research fees for in-house legal departments and law firms alike.”</blockquote>
&#8211;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/labaj/">John LaBarre</a>, deputy general counsel at Snowflake Inc.
Stay tuned for further developments.

A hitherto stealth legal AI startup emerged from the shadows today with news via TechCrunch that it has raised $5 million in funding led by the startup fund of OpenAI, the company that developed advanced neural network AI systems such as GPT-3 and DALL-E 2. The startup, called Harvey, will build on the GPT-3 technology […]

Stealth Legal AI Startup Harvey Raises $5M in Round Led By OpenAI

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Jeff-Pfeifer-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25150290/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Earlier this month, at the <a href="https://www.netdocuments.com/">NetDocuments</a> three-day Inspire 2022 conference for customers and partners, one of the speakers was <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffpfeifer/">Jeff Pfeifer</a>, chief product officer for <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/home.page">LexisNexis</a> for Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. He was there to speak about a unique partnership between LexisNexis and NetDocuments called Highlights, which embeds LexisNexis case analysis and intelligence technology directly into the NetDocuments platform, enriching legal documents and making them easier to find and retrieve.
A broader theme of both Pfeifer and the conference was that of patterns of knowledge and of how enriching legal documents not only makes them easier to find and retrieve, but also enables law firms and legal departments to better see the patterns in their data and use those insights to better serve their clients. For Pfeifer, it is all part of the vision he and LexisNexis have long espoused of data-driven law practice. 
After Pfeifer spoke at the conference, he sat down with me to discuss the LexisNexis partnership with NetDocuments and his broader thoughts on the future of data-driven law. This is the last of three LawNext episodes I recorded at the Inspire conference. The first featured an <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/lawnext-podcast-netdocuments-ceo-josh-baxter-and-cto-alvin-tedjamulia-on-success-in-the-cloud.html">interview with NetDocuments’ two top executives</a>, CEO Josh Baxter and CTO and cofounder Alvin Tedjamulia. The second <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/lawnext-podcast-dan-hauck-chief-product-officer-at-netdocuments-on-the-companys-product-strategy-and-roadmap.html">featured Dan Hauck</a>, the company’s chief product officer.
Pfeifer was previously <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2018/08/lawnext-episode-7-data-driven-lawyering-lexisnexis-legal-vp-jeff-pfeifer.html">on LawNext in 2018</a>, where he spoke in greater depth about his concept of data-driven law practice.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a> and <a href="https://www.lollylaw.com/">LollyLaw</a>; the e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>; and the legal accounting software <a href="https://trustbooks.com/">TrustBooks</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Earlier this month, at the NetDocuments three-day Inspire 2022 conference for customers and partners, one of the speakers was Jeff Pfeifer, chief product officer for LexisNexis for Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. He was there to speak about a unique partnership between LexisNexis and NetDocuments called Highlights, which embeds LexisNexis case analysis and intelligence technology directly into the NetDocuments […]

LawNext Podcast: Jeff Pfeifer of LexisNexis on Partnering with NetDocuments to Enrich Law Firm Data

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AkinGump-Xcential-FeaturedImage-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />A 25-person legal technology company in California is fighting back against one of the world&#8217;s largest law firms in a lawsuit over ownership rights to legislation-drafting software that each side says was its idea.
In October, the law firm <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/">Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &amp; Feld</a> filed a lawsuit against <a href="https://xcential.com/">Xcential Legislative Technologies</a> for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and other causes of action, alleging that Xcential&#8217;s Bill Synthesis software, for which Xcential filed a patent application, was actually invented by an Akin Gump attorney, <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/louis-t-agnello.html">Louis Agnello</a>, who is counsel to the firm.
Early this month, Xcential fought back with an answer and counterclaim denying that its software was based on Agnello&#8217;s idea. To the contrary, the company says that Agnello stole its idea after it gave him a demonstration of the software in 2019.
Attorneys at Akin Gump declined to discuss the lawsuit. Shade Vaughn, the firm&#8217;s chief marketing and business development officer, provided this statement: “In accordance with the court’s timetable, we will be replying to the counterclaims, which are frivolous, and we will continue to vigorously pursue our claims against the defendant for its misappropriation and contractual breaches.”
Executives at Xcential also declined to discuss the case on the record, but issued a press release in which <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantcv1/">Grant Vergottini</a>, the company&#8217;s cofounder, CEO and CTO, asserted that Xcential was solely responsible for the design and execution of the software.
<h3>&#8216;K Street Parade&#8217;</h3>
The focus of the case is on Xcential’s 2019 patent application for a software prototype it named Bill Synthesis. The company says the prototype was based on two of its existing technologies: one called Change Set software and another internal technology later named Snapshot.
Xcential says both were developed out of its experience with the federal legislative process and were demonstrated to Akin Gump in 2019.
But Akin Gump, in its <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AK-v-Xcential-DC-Sup-Ct-002.pdf">complaint for damages and injunctive relief</a> filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court and in a petition to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, claims that Bill Synthesis was actually invented by Agnello. According to Akin Gump’s October 2022 lawsuit, Agnello claims he had “an idea that would forever change the complex process of drafting federal legislation” and lead to a “K Street Parade” among lobbying firms.
Akin Gump says it approached Xcential about adding Agnello&#8217;s concept to Xcential&#8217;s existing LegisPro software, which automates certain aspects of federal bill drafting. Akin Gump alleges that Agnello and Xcential even referred to the initial prototype as the &#8220;K-Street Parade&#8221; based on Agnello&#8217;s description.
In its <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Answer-and-Counterclaim.pdf">answer and counterclaim</a> filed Nov. 8, Xcential denies that Bill Synthesis was based on an idea presented to it by Agnello.
“Defendants deny any suggestion or implication that Agnello is the first or only person to conceive of” the software concept for Bill Synthesis, the pleading says. Xcential says it not only designed and executed the idea, but also has been creating software products to streamline the process of drafting legislation, including federal legislation, in response to legislative drafting professionals’ similar needs, for 20 years.
“Only Xcential has created software that functions as described in the patent application for Bill Synthesis,” said Grant Vergottini, the company&#8217;s cofounder, CEO and CTO. “We will not be intimidated into surrendering our know-how and intellectual property to a giant law firm like Akin Gump. This litigation should be a warning to all innovative legal technology providers.”
<h3>Series of Meetings</h3>
The dispute arose after a series of meetings and software demonstrations undertaken at Akin Gump’s request, beginning in 2018. Agnello had contacted Xcential in pursuit of a way to modernize and make more efficient its process of drafting and amending federal legislation for its corporate clients.
Between March and August 2019, Xcential and Akin Gump “operated under an implied-in-fact contract &#8230; whereby Xcential committed to contribute various resources to delivering updated Xcential software to (Akin Gump) that would meet the needs of Counterclaim Defendant Agnello, in exchange for financial compensation,” according to Xcential’s answer and counterclaim.
Relying on contractual protections that Akin Gump accepted, Xcential alleges, it “provided hundreds of hours of services, disclosed its trade secrets and confidential information, and made capital contributions towards the launch of more advanced Xcential software.” All of Xcential’s work was performed at no cost to Akin Gump.
As a result of these meetings, Xcential’ says, it developed the Bill Synthesis prototype, which it demonstrated to Agnello and Akin Gump personnel in August 2019. It asserts that Akin Gump then “breached the implied contract by rejecting the project as soon as financial terms were discussed and tried to file a patent on the work Xcential performed.”
Two weeks after the Akin Gump demo, Xcential filed its patent application, which it says built on and extended a prior patent application by Xcential for Change Sets.
<h3>&#8216;Absurd and Embarrassing&#8217;</h3>
In addition to its lawsuit against Xcential, Akin Gump has filed a Petition to Institute Derivation with the USPTO, in which it claims Xcential&#8217;s patent application was derived from Akin Gump’s claimed invention.
Xcential alleges in its court filing that the Akin Gump petition, which repeats its narrative depicting Xcential’s Bill Synthesis software as “Agnello’s K-Street parade bill-drafting invention,” constitutes “slander of title and rights of and to property and assets of Xcential, including, without limitations, title and rights of and to the Invention, and the claim of inventorship of the same.”
By “falsely claiming to the United States Patent and Trademark Office that Agnello is a true inventor of the Invention &#8230; Xcential has been severely damaged and is entitled to damages in the amount to be determined at trial and punitive damages against Counterclaim Defendants,” according to the counterclaim.
In addition to the slander of title claim, Xcential is seeking damages for Akin Gump’s breach of the EULA contract, for its misappropriation of trade secrets, misappropriation of confidential information and breach of implied contract, and is seeking to permanently enjoin Akin Gump from representing Agnello as an inventor of Xcential’s Bill Synthesis.
“For Agnello to claim this invention is a little like him saying, ‘If we had a rocket we could go to Mars,’ and then telling the rocket scientists he invented the rocket,” Vergottini said. “It’s absurd – and, frankly, a little embarrassing for him.&#8221;
The case is No. 2022 CA 004744 B, filed in the Civil Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Akin Gump is being represented by its attorneys <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/anthony-t-pierce.html">Anthony T. Pierce</a>, <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/caroline-l-wolverton.html">Caroline L. Wolverton</a> and <a href="https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/nathaniel-ben-botwinick.html">Nathaniel B. Botwinick</a>. Xcential is being represented by Holland &amp; Knight attorneys <a href="https://www.hklaw.com/en/professionals/g/gierhart-cynthia-a">Cynthia A. Gierhart</a> and <a href="https://www.hklaw.com/en/professionals/d/donoghue-r-david">R. David Donoghue</a>.

A 25-person legal technology company in California is fighting back against one of the world’s largest law firms in a lawsuit over ownership rights to legislation-drafting software that each side says was its idea. In October, the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld filed a lawsuit against Xcential Legislative Technologies for misappropriation of trade […]

Small Tech Company Takes On Major Law Firm Over Ownership of Bill-Drafting Software

I have always wanted to attend one of those invite-only summits – such as the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum or a Renaissance Weekend – that bring together leaders from across disciplines to engage in open and unfettered dialogue about the state and future of whatever the summit’s topic may be. This week, […]

At A Legal Tech Conference Like No Other, Attendees Pondered the Present and Future of the Industry

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Alvin-Josh-Bob-Lawnext-169-topaz-enhance-faceai-1024x576.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" /><iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Libsyn Player" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/25002183/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/" width="100%" height="90" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">﻿</iframe>
Last week, the cloud-based content management company <a href="https://www.netdocuments.com/">NetDocuments</a> was in Denver for its annual three-day Inspire 2022 conference for customers and partners. As it happens, I was there also, where I sat down for an exclusive live interview with the company’s two top executives, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshbaxter/">Josh Baxter</a>, who has been CEO since 2018, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-tedjamulia-a3492a12">Alvin Tedjamulia</a>, one of the company’s original three founders and its CTO since 1999.
Just before I flipped-on the record button, Josh and Alvin revealed that, the next morning, Alvin would be announcing his retirement – a major announcement not just for the company, but for the legal tech industry more broadly, as Alvin is a veteran of 40 years in the industry and has been a visionary leader in bringing legal to the cloud. (See: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/a-visionary-in-bringing-legal-to-the-cloud-netdocuments-cofounder-alvin-tedjamulia-retires.html">A Visionary in Bringing Legal to the Cloud, NetDocuments Cofounder Alvin Tedjamulia Retires</a>.)
Josh, Alvin and I talk about that news, and also about the company’s history, where it is today, and where it is heading over the next 5-10 years. Also, Josh and Alvin reveal who will succeed Alvin as the company’s next CTO. 
See also: <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2018/11/lawnext-episode-19-netdocuments-cto-alvin-tedjamulia-helping-lawyers-learn-love-cloud.html">LawNext Episode 19: NetDocuments CTO Alvin Tedjamulia on Helping Lawyers Learn to Love the Cloud</a>.
Thank You To Our Sponsors
This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. 
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://joinparadigm.com/">Paradigm</a>, home to the practice management platforms <a href="https://www.practicepanther.com/">PracticePanther</a>, <a href="https://www.bill4time.com/">Bill4Time</a>, and <a href="https://meruscase.com/">MerusCase</a>, and e-payments platform <a href="https://headnote.com/">Headnote</a>.</li>
</ul>
If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Last week, the cloud-based content management company NetDocuments was in Denver for its annual three-day Inspire 2022 conference for customers and partners. As it happens, I was there also, where I sat down for an exclusive live interview with the company’s two top executives, Josh Baxter, who has been CEO since 2018, and Alvin Tedjamulia, one of the […]

LawNext Podcast: NetDocuments CEO Josh Baxter and CTO Alvin Tedjamulia on Success in the Cloud

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-18-093406-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Not surprisingly given the economy, a <a href="https://www.lexion.ai/lp/state-of-legal-tech">survey of inhouse legal professionals</a> finds that companies are slowing down or freezing hiring, reducing outside counsel spending, and conducting layoffs.
To help counter these cuts and reduce their workloads, legal departments are increasingly bullish on leveraging legal technology, the survey finds.
The survey by contract management company <a href="https://www.lexion.ai/">Lexion</a> polled 450 inhouse legal professionals — general counsel, inhouse counsel, legal operations professionals, contract managers, paralegals and others — across various industries.
Among its key findings:
<ul>
<li>Too much time spent on low-value tasks. Respondents said the top three factors keeping them from doing their jobs well are lack of resources and people (38.37%), being buried in low value or administrative tasks (36.9%) and time wasted keeping track of documents and versions (34.9%).</li>
<li>Department headcount not likely to grow. Among respondents, 65% are worried about impacts from the uncertain economy and 69% anticipate cutting spending through reduced outside counsel consultation, hiring freezes, and layoffs.</li>
<li>Technology spend is imminent. Amid expectations of layoffs and hiring freezes, 44% of respondents expect to add technology to increase efficiency.</li>
<li>Faith in legal tech is high. More than 70% of respondents believe technology helps to increase efficiencies in an economic downturn.</li>
<li>Top technology needs. Respondents said their top three technology acquisitions in the next six months all relate to contracting: e-signature software (31.3%), a contract repository (29.4%), and contract review/redlining software (27.6%).</li>
</ul>
Other high-priority areas of legal tech, according to the survey, include:
<ul>
<li>Contract creation software.</li>
<li>Contract analytics/reporting.</li>
<li>Legal task management.</li>
<li>Discovery.</li>
<li>Spend management.</li>
<li>File folder storage.</li>
<li>General project management.</li>
</ul>
&#8220;Based on survey results and industry projections,&#8221; the survey concludes, &#8220;it seems safe to assume that legal tech will continue to grow and evolve as more organizations seek digital solutions to create more streamlined workflows and efficient legal departments.&#8221;
There is a lot more information in the report, which you can <a href="https://www.lexion.ai/lp/state-of-legal-tech">download from Lexion</a>.

Not surprisingly given the economy, a survey of inhouse legal professionals finds that companies are slowing down or freezing hiring, reducing outside counsel spending, and conducting layoffs. To help counter these cuts and reduce their workloads, legal departments are increasingly bullish on leveraging legal technology, the survey finds. The survey by contract management company Lexion […]

As Companies Rein In Legal Spend, They Are Bullish on Leveraging Legal Tech, Survey Says

<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.lawnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Filevine-dot-vine-1024x576.png" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" style="float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;" />Earlier this month, the practice management company <a href="https://www.filevine.com/">Filevine</a> announced that, as part of a new document assembly feature, it had developed a proprietary document format, “.vine,” that it said would replace Microsoft Word and Google Docs in the legal industry. (See, <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/11/say-what-filevine-introduces-proprietary-document-format-to-become-the-new-standard-in-the-legal-industry.html">Say What? Filevine Introduces Proprietary Document Format to ‘Become the New Standard in the Legal Industry’</a>.)
In a follow-up to that news, I met last week with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cainelliott/">Cain Elliott</a>, head legal futurist at Filevine, who gave me more details on the .vine format as well as a demonstration of how it works.
Notably, Elliott told me that, in furtherance of its goal to spur industry adoption of the format, Filevine will have .vine portability by the end of the year. It will publish the specification for the format by the end of the year and an open API so that others can use the format outside the Filevine platform.
&#8220;We can&#8217;t expect wide adoption if we tell people they have to be on Filevine to use this,&#8221; he said.
He said that he is working with the <a href="https://sali.org/">SALI Alliance</a> to make sure the specs include tagging that is consistent with other platforms. The legal-specific API will be a wrapped JSON that will enable developers to ingest the data into other systems, he said.
He said the back end that enables the synchronization of data with .vine documents was designed so that it would work not only with Filevine products, but also with other software platforms, such as Salesforce and Oracle NetSuite.
&#8220;Already today, if someone [on Filevine] shares a document with someone on the outside and wants to give them permission to redline, put an e-signature in there, and things like that, they can either just do that, or they can also create a free account where the .vine&#8217;s that have been shared with them are visible and available. And now we&#8217;ll also be giving portability so that they can go beyond our platform.&#8221;
<h3>Features of .vine</h3>
Elliott gave me a demonstration of some of the capabilities of the .vine format, and I have to say, it has some cool and unique features.
But before I get to those, let me address two points that I think have been unclear about the standard.
First, this is not a brand-new standard. It was developed by the contract lifecycle management company <a href="https://getoutlaw.com/">Outlaw</a>, which <a href="https://www.filevine.com/blog/announcing-our-newest-acquisition/">Filevine acquired in 2021</a>, as a legal template management system for drafting contracts.
After Filevine acquired Outlaw, it adapted the format for document assembly within the Filevine platform.
In my previous post, I wondered whether Filevine&#8217;s <a href="https://www.lawnext.com/2022/04/case-management-company-filevine-raises-108m-series-d-to-fuel-expansion.html">raise of $108 million in a Series D</a> earlier this year had somehow &#8220;left the folks at Filevine looking for ways to spend it&#8221; and led to the development of this format. 
But the fact is, Elliott said, that the development of the standard preceded that investment and even preceded Filevine&#8217;s acquisition of Outlaw.
&#8220;This is not something we came up with post-acquisition or post the last funding round,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is part of a long-term vision.&#8221;
Second, this is not, at this point, a full word processing format. It is a document templating and assembly format.
&#8220;What we’re answering right now with this is document assembly,&#8221; Elliott said. &#8220;We do have word processing tools in there, but they are much more confined to letting you control all the elements for particular templates and teams. If you’re a team lead with a partner and support staff, you can control how all of your items end up coming out and looking, but it is really grounded in someone who is a team lead having control of those kinds of settings.&#8221;
<h3>Clause-Based Dynamic Libraries</h3>
Possibly the most intriguing feature of the .vine format is its use of dynamic, clause-based libraries. This puts the focus in drafting more on particular clauses or sections of documents and less on the document as a complete entity. Elliott described this feature as &#8220;legal Legos&#8221; for its block-based assembly, or like creating a Spotify playlist from your library of favorites.
This includes the ability to check-out and work on a single clause within a document without locking your colleagues out of the entire document. Teams can comment and see activity logs at the clause level.
Three key features of this dynamic clause library are:
<ul>
<li>Clause lookup. When creating a template, find the appropriate clause by typing its title and matching clauses will auto-populate the list for you to select from.</li>
<li>Auto indexing. Clauses from active templates are automatically saved, eliminating the need to maintain separate libraries of approved clauses. Options are also available for manually adding or excluding clauses.</li>
<li>Dynamic linking. Any update to a source clause is automatically applied to linked clauses across whatever templates include them. These linked clauses are not editable by default (only the source clause can be edited), but the clause can be unlinked to be edited, without changes being reflected back to the source clause.</li>
</ul>
Another nice feature is that, when you look up a clause and insert it, it is properly formatted and numbered for the location in the document, and all references within the document are dynamically updated.
<h3>Teams and Users</h3>
The template editor allows individuals to be assigned various roles and permissions on two levels: as team members and as users. The same person can have both a team and user role.
Team members are those within a firm who share access to a template repository. Firms can have multiple teams. Within teams, members can be owners, editors, or viewers, with varying levels of permissions.
The template editor also allows the assignment of user roles for documents it creates. Users are those with whom the document owner (the person who generates it) shares a document. They can be assigned roles such as editor, viewer, signer, or proposer (for creating red-lines), or be associated as a party to the document.
<h3>More Features</h3>
Other features of the .vine format include:
<ul>
<li>The ability to create customized workflows around a document, either at the team level or for a particular document. These workflows are separate from project-level workflows created within the Filevine platform, and instead attach to the document. They can require, for example, that certain members of a team review certain parts of a document.</li>
<li>Connected variables allow users to pull data from fields in Filevine directly into the templates. These connected variables can be synced in either or both directions, for pull, push or bidirectional syncing. In other words, the sync can be only for updates in Filevine, only for updates in the document, or both ways.</li>
<li>The ability to import .docx documents into the .vine format and export them into .docx or .pdf.</li>
<li>The ability to separately encrypt personal privacy information within a document, so that even those who have permission to view a document cannot see that information without additional permission.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Bottom Line</h3>
Despite what sounded like hype by Filevine about replacing Word in the legal industry, Elliott said he has no delusions about the difficulty of driving change in this industry. In a prior job, he was CIO of a law firm tasked with moving the firm off WordPerfect. Filevine is full of people, he said, &#8220;who came out of legal leadership positions and have worked the trenches of legal&#8221; and know what the adoption cycle is like.
He also recognizes that, while Filevine is free to develop its own standard, it does not get to dictate adoption.
&#8220;The people will decide over the long haul whether we&#8217;ve succeeded. We don&#8217;t get to decide that. We get to try to do it, but we don&#8217;t get to decide it.&#8221;
With Filevine soon to release the specs for its format and an API for its template editor, the market will get to see for itself whether the format bears adoption. In the meantime, good for Filevine for putting it out there.

Earlier this month, the practice management company Filevine announced that, as part of a new document assembly feature, it had developed a proprietary document format, “.vine,” that it said would replace Microsoft Word and Google Docs in the legal industry. (See, Say What? Filevine Introduces Proprietary Document Format to ‘Become the New Standard in the Legal […]

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