Microsoft plans to invest $10 billion in ChatGPT

Chat GPT, the latest language model tool, has been making waves since its release last month by OpenAI. The tool allows users to have conversations with a chatbot that can understand natural language and respond in a way that mimics human speech patterns. The app can answer questions, write poems, and even explain quantum physics, but experts say that a full AI takeover is not imminent.

The chatbot is powered by large amounts of data and complex algorithms that make predictions about how words should be strung together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast vocabulary and information but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching encyclopedic knowledge.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the company behind … … weiterlesen

Litigation Analytics Platform Pre/Dicta Acquires Gavelytics

Pre/Dicta, claiming itself the only litigation analytics platform that makes predictions about the outcome of federal lawsuits, announced the acquisition of Gavelytics, a pioneering judicial analytics platform for state court cases.

The purchase, the terms of which were not disclosed, dramatically shortens Pre/Dicta’s timeline for creating a tool that offers instant and accurate predictions for state courts across the country.

“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,” said Gavelytics founder Rick Merrill, who is joining Pre/Dicta as its strategic advisor.

According to Pre/Dicta, Gavelytics was a market leader in litigation analytics for state courts, where 95% of all cases heard in the U.S. take place. Launched in California in 2017, the company expanded its … … weiterlesen

LexCheck Secures $17M in Series A Funding to Expand Its AI-Based Contract Review Technology

LexCheck, a leading AI-powered contract acceleration and intelligence platform, announced it has raised $17M in Series A funding led by Mayfield Fund. The funding will fuel the expansion of LexCheck’s contract review technology as it helps businesses accelerate growth by unlocking legal talent. 

This funding comes on the heels of a significant period of growth for LexCheck. The company has tripled its customer base in the last year. LexCheck has seen success with customers across more than 14 different industries, including some of the world’s largest financial institutions, fastest-growing technology providers and top law firms. 
 
“One of the biggest opportunities for businesses today is to minimize the inevitable friction caused by increased specialization and expectations to scale. The ability to accelerate revenue and actualize on business decisions typically delayed by prolonged negotiations is … … weiterlesen

You Can’t Have Legal GRC Optimisation Without Data Management Improvement

– By Nick Rich, Head of Corporate Engagement UK&I at Exterro

Effective data management is no longer an optional extra, but a fundamental part of organisational strategies. Good data analysis allows companies to make informed decisions and create reality-based plans. From enhanced customer experiences to streamlined administrative operations, effective analysis is key to identifying areas for improvement and innovation – and analysis depends on data management.

However, while it’s easy to get caught up in the opportunities data offers, organisations must tread with caution. If captured, kept, or used wrongly, data can end up doing more harm than good.

Typically, more data leads to more risk. With each rise in the amount of information an organisation acquires, the more expensive and difficult it is to store and manage it safely, heightening administrative burdens and costs. Equally, it becomes harder for firms to achieve best practices across … … weiterlesen

AI Contract Review Software Provider LegalOn Announces Expansion into the US

LegalOn Technologies (“LegalOn”), a legal technology company and AI contract review software provider from Japan, announced its expansion into the United States, the largest legal market in the world, and the appointment of Daniel Lewis as US CEO.

“LegalOn has built the world’s leading AI contract review solution for in-house teams and law firms and we are excited to bring our unique solution to the US,” says Nozomu Tsunoda, CEO. “We have over 3,000 customers, a team of 400 employees, $101m in recent fundraising, and now we’ve added an experienced executive, Daniel Lewis, to lead our US expansion.”

Daniel Lewis joins LegalOn as US CEO after five years at LexisNexis leading practical guidance businesses serving 100k+ attorneys. He previously founded and led Ravel Law, a legal analytics software company.

“One of the biggest challenges that general counsel and in-house teams face is … … weiterlesen

Terzo Raises $16M in Series A Funding for AI-Powered Contract Intelligence

Contract management platform Terzo raised $16M in Series A funding led by Align Ventures with participation from TYH Ventures, Engage Ventures, Human Capital and other. The company is also welcoming world-known entrepreneurs as angel investors, including Ryan Breslow (Founder & Chairman of Bolt) and Daniel Saks (Co-founder & President of AppDirect). 

“Terzo is tackling a $6 trillion problem that almost every organization faces. Most companies do not have an effective contract management system in place which leads to inefficiencies like overspend. Terzo has developed a much needed unique enterprise platform to empower the buy side. We chose to back Terzo from the start as they have the team, vision and product needed to completely change how companies manage their contracts and enterprise relationships.” said Neel Chary, Partner at Align Ventures.

Terzo is a contract intelligence software powered by a AI-as-a-Service model. Terzo … … weiterlesen

Ireland’s Legal Tech Conference Will Take Place on 29th November

La Touche Training, Ireland’s Legal Training company, announced the Legal Tech Conference 2022, taking place on 29th November in Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland. The Legal Tech Conference is a well-known event for all things related to legal technology and eDiscovery in Ireland and globally. The conference gathers law firms, government departments, corporates, general counsel, in-house lawyers, regulatory agencies, eDiscovery providers, advisors and much more for an enlightening day focusing on best practices and the latest trends and developments.

On the agenda:

Keynote Address by Justice Leonie Reynolds

How embracing technology can make discovery and investigations more cost effective – an update from the Civil Justice Review Group

Cyber Incidents & Managing Risk in Investigations with Pat Ryan MSc – Detective Superintendent – Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau and Jon Blake MBCS – Cyber & Internet Investigator

  • Current Cybercrime Landscape
  • How the GNCCB investigate cybercrime
  • The rise of ransomware attacks
  • Reporting – Why Report & Obligations
  • Risks to … … weiterlesen

CLM Provider SirionLabs Announced Acquisition of Zendoc

SirionLabs, a global leader in AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM), announced the acquisition of contract automation platform Zendoc. With this expansion Sirion aims to further enhance its commitment to the application of AI in CLM. Through the Zendoc acquisition, SirionLabs is also establishing a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Nice, France, located in the region known as the European Silicon Valley, as stated by SirionLabs.

This new European CoE joins a recently established Sirion CoE in Toronto as the company continues to scale up just months after its $85 million Series D funding round in May led by Partners Group. 

“The war for talent is global, and we’re thrilled to be adding such skilled professionals to the Sirion team as well as gaining a foothold in a key region for tech development,” … weiterlesen

Legal Innovation from the Startup Nation – ELTACON22 in Tel Aviv

The European Legal Tech Association (ELTA) Annual Legal Tech Conference will take place in Tel Aviv this year. Join ELTA for the main event on November 29, 2022, for a day of legal tech, networking and fun. Following the day of the conference, there will be an optional start-up nation tour of companies in Tel Aviv.

With over 500 members, ELTA encourages a dialogue between legal technology users and developers. With regular in-person and online events ELTA strives to promote networking at a European level between all those who share an interest in legal technology.

Check out this year’s agenda on ELTACON’s website! The conference will be all about AI, Legal Tech Strategies, entrepreneurial decisions regarding the implementation of legal tech, Law Firms and New Law Companies, the future of legal tech, and – of course – networking.

… weiterlesen

CLM Platform Summize Secures £5M Series A Investment

Manchester-based contract lifecycle management platform provider Summize has secured £5m Series A investment from YFM Equity Partners (YFM) and Maven Capital Partners (Maven), as it looks to build its presence in the US and further develop its intelligent SaaS legal technology. 

Founded in 2018, Summize has experienced rapid growth by taking a disruptive approach to a traditional sector. Its world-first integrated contract lifecycle management (CLM) software is uniquely designed to make contract workflows smarter and up to 85 per cent faster by digitising and automating manual legal processes. The solution integrates into the daily life of any business via established platforms including Teams and Slack, improving collaboration between in-house legal and business users.  

Summize has more than 100 businesses worldwide on its platform, including Fujifilm, Everton FC, NCC Group, … … weiterlesen

Legal Innovators UK 3.0 is Just Around the Corner – And We Got Free Tickets for You!

After two incredible shows in London, Artificial Lawyer and Cosmonauts will host Legal Innovators UK this year again – bringing you the best in Legal Tech in London! Legal Innovators UK will take place on the 10th and 11th of November 2022 at the stunning etc. venues St. Pauls. Focused on the intersection between technology and law, Legal Innovators is for everyone interested in innovation.

If you, dear reader, are thinking about buying a ticket last minute to attend the event, we got you covered with one of five free tickets for Legal Innovators UK! Just use our code ‘LEGALTECHBLOG‘ in the check-out process when buying the ticket online; and if you are fast enough, you will be one of our five lucky readers who get their ticket free.

About the Event

With day one of the two-day event … … weiterlesen

Contractify and ClauseBase Join Forces to Offer a Complete Contract Lifecycle Solution

Ghent-based scale-up Contractify is already working with numerous partners to optimize their contract management software. Contractify’s goal is to offer their clients a solution that allows them to manage the entire contract lifecycle in one place. For the first phase in this cycle, contract creation, they have now joined forces with Leuven-based legal software platform ClauseBase

Who is Contractify?

Steven Debrauwere and Herlinde De Buck started Contractify in 2015. In the meantime, the ambitious company has grown into a leading software supplier for contract management. The cloud software helps companies centralize, manage and sign all contracts in one secure contract library. The platform prevents unwanted automatic extensions and speeds up the signing of contracts with customizable signing and approval flows. With the help of Ada, an AI-powered contract assistant, the company also aims to improve the speed of contract digitization and analysis. 

… weiterlesen

Shearman & Sterling Launches Legal Operations Offering

Global law firm Shearman & Sterling announced the launch of Legal Operations by Shearman, a new offering designed to meet the evolving people, process and technology needs of in-house law departments. The new offering is focused on embedding tools, techniques and behaviors as part of the firm’s commitment to finding innovative and efficient legal solutions and service delivery for its clients’ business needs.

Legal Operations by Shearman will initially offer services in five key areas:

  • Knowledge Management: Supporting improved capture of tacit and explicit knowledge.
  • Process Improvement: Identifying processes in need of improvement and supporting the design of new processes.
  • Legal Technology: Identifying the most relevant technologies to support efficient ways of working.
  • Business Intelligence: Supporting law departments in making the most of the data at their disposal, including through data visualization and analysis.
  • Training & Development: Supporting the … … weiterlesen

Online Dispute Resolution, Cybersecurity, and A Vault at ILTACON – An Interview with Mike Schuman, CSTO of Immediation

Mike Schuman

Immediation, founded in 2017, offers a holistic end-to-end dispute resolution platform for case intake, management, collaboration, secure digital hearings and insights. Today, the enterprise claims to provide the world’s most secure and specialized digital legal environment for dispute resolution, justice, and legal practice. We sat for a chat with Mike Schuman, CSTO of Immediation – the one who keeps an eye on cybersecurity, privacy, and risk – about Immediation’s purpose, cybersecurity, ‘the vault’ at ILTACON 2022, and the potential of online dispute resolution. Read on to find out what Mike Schuman told us.

LTB: Mr. Schuman, what is the purpose of Immediation’s tools and solutions?

M. Schuman: Ultimately, Immediation’s purpose can be summed up in three words: Speed to Resolution. As the ‘gold standard’ online dispute resolution platform, Immediation provides greater access to justice, alternative … … weiterlesen

Legal Tech Funding in 2022 – Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground

By Shayan Edalati and Jan Gilarowski

Over the last two decades, Cloud-based software has revolutionized the way we build, buy and use software. Few areas are untouched and the cloud is becoming the leading technology. This is true for the legal tech products as well. With the fast adoption came unprecedented growth for the vendors: Over the last years, cloud companies have grown faster than any other industry. And with it, valuations. But recent events have brought a stop to what has been a bonanza not only for the leading SaaS players, but also cloud-based legal tech companies’ valuations.      

What happened to the funding environment?

In recent years a variety of factors gave the tech industry a boost: liberal monetary policies made tech’s long-term growth more attractive to investors while the TINA-situation (“there is no alternative”) turned a former niche-market into a shareholder darling. Tech stocks heavily benefitted from the coronavirus pandemic elevating life and work online. Additionally, with several growth funds fuelling the ecosystem … … weiterlesen

Cleary Gottlieb Officially Launched ClearyX

Cleary Gottlieb officially launched ClearyX, its platform for highly efficient AI and data-driven legal services, in June, and it has now announced its roster of Advisory Board members.

ClearyX is a tech-forward platform dedicated to reimagining how legal services can be delivered. By drawing on the insights and experience of these legal and business leaders, ClearyX’s services will closely align with client needs to address a broad range of issues.

“Following on the heels of our successful launch earlier this year, it’s exciting to reach another milestone in the life of ClearyX with the establishment of our Advisory Board,” said Cleary Managing Partner Michael Gerstenzang. “We are honored to have such an accomplished group of individuals, who bring great diversity of experience and perspectives, collaborating with us on this new venture. It is a testament not only to the progress … … weiterlesen

Legal Innovators UK 3.0 – Join us on 10th and 11th of November 2022!

After two incredible shows in London, Legal Tech news site Artificial Lawyer and Cosmonauts, a first in service B2B conference producer and business development organisation, are proud to present Legal Innovators UK 3.0 – bringing you the best in Legal Tech in London! Legal Innovators UK will take place on the 10th and 11th of November 2022 at the stunning etc. venues St. Pauls.

Focused on the intersection between technology and law, Legal Innovators is for everyone interested in innovation. With day one focused on law firms and legal services businesses, and how they are driving innovation and the second day focusing on innovation amongst in-house legal teams and legal ops professionals, Legal Innovators UK will become host to incredible Legal Tech providers alongside industry leading speakers and presenters to offer you the chance to facilitate change in the sector.

Legal Innovators UK is about the real-life experiences of … … weiterlesen

New Future Ready Lawyer Survey Finds Increasing Pressures on Legal Professionals as Pace of Change, Compliance Complexity and Talent Challenges Climb

The increasing complexity of compliance, new client expectations, talent challenges and productivity demands are pressuring legal professionals as never before, according to the findings of Wolters Kluwer’s new global Future Ready Lawyer Survey 2022. The survey also finds that more progress is needed as most legal professionals say they are not well- prepared to address key challenges and opportunities.

Challenged to keep up with emerging trends and escalating demands, legal professionals are increasingly turning to legal technology for help. Across Europe and the U.S., the investment and demand for legal tech solutions have accelerated, with technology now firmly at the center of improved performance, productivity, client-firm relations and talent expectations. According to survey findings:

  • 91% of corporate legal departments are expecting their law firms to fully leverage technology.
  • More than 80% of lawyers say it’s of high importance to them to work for a tech-savvy law firm or … … weiterlesen

The Bavarian Ministry of Justice and UnternehmerTUM Establish the “Legal Tech Colab“

(German version below)

Innovative momentum from Bavaria: The Free State of Bavaria, Germany, continues to invest in the Hightech Agenda and wants to take a leading position in the legal tech sector with a new support network for legal tech startups. On the initiative of the Bavarian Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich, the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and UnternehmerTUM have established the “Legal Tech Colab”. The Bavarian Ministry of Justice is funding the initiative with up to one million euros per year.

Bavaria’s Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich: “Also for legal disputes and legal services: People want convenient, simple and cost-effective solutions. Therefore, Legal tech is currently experiencing a strong boost. We want to take advantage of the opportunities of digitization and become a leading legal tech hub. That’s why I’m very pleased that we can give the starting signal for our ‘Legal Tech Colab’ … … weiterlesen

Contractify Launches AI Colleague for Contract Administration

The scale-up Contractify introduces its new AI feature, called Ada, to the general public today. Ada helps companies to register contracts three times faster and is therefore revolutionary for contract management. Contractify, as a Belgian scale-up, is now at the level of large international players when it comes to the use of AI. To highlight the time-saving AI feature, the company also gives all their employees an extra day off. 

Who is Contractify?

Steven Debrauwere and Herlinde De Buck started Contractify in 2015. As consultants, they began to help companies better manage their contracts. It soon became clear that no software was adequate for both their own needs as consultants and those of the customer. So they decided to take matters into their own hands and develop their own contract management tool, completely … … weiterlesen

ILTACON 2022 Reunited Visionaries, Lawyers, Legal Tech Enthusiasts, and Enterprises Successfully Again

This year’s ILTACON, organized by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), finally took place in-person again in National Harbor, Maryland USA, for over four days. More than 70 educational sessions, a well-staffed exhibition hall and plenty of networking opportunities made the 42nd ILTACON a successful event.

After kicking off ILTACON on August 21, the event gained momentum on August 22 with company updates from Thomson Reuters, Litera, and Microsoft, among others, as well as educational sessions on various topics related to legal tech. In addition, the Exhibit Hall was opened where many legal tech providers, other technology companies, and legal databases presented themselves, their products, and services. Attendees got plenty of time and space to network with each other and the company delegates, not only in the exhibit hall but also at lunch sessions, coffee breaks, and a cocktail party. This broad … … weiterlesen

Global Legal Forum 2022 – December 1st and 2nd in The Hague

Join the Global Legal Forum (GLF) at The Hague on December 1st and 2nd, 2022! The event brings together the whole legal industry, legal tech, blockchain and global legal practitioners, academics and GCs redefining the global legal industry.

GLF stated that this year over 500 of the most influential people in the Legal Industry will be coming to The Hague, with Partners, CEOs, Judges, General Counsels, Arbitrators, Law Ministries and Legal Policy Makers from around the world as well as some of the most promising legal technology firms, game changing companies in Law and innovators of law and justice systems among them.

This years conference will be structured in nine main tracks: Blockchain, Technology for Legal Industry, Dispute Resolution, Future of Law, Emerging Practice – Cannabis Law, Artificial Intelligence, Legal Education, Mediation, and Access to Justice.

If you strive for learning from … … weiterlesen

Immediation Raises Additional AUD$5 Million  from Institutional and Sophisticated Investors

Immediation, labelling itself the world’s leading digital dispute resolution provider, announced it has received AUD$5 million (USD$3.5 million) in further funding from a consortium of institutional and private investors, managed by Euroz Hartleys. This AUD$5 million comprised the second tranche of an $8.5M raising.  Immediation has now secured four institutional investors on its register, including Thorney Technologies, SG Hiscock, Wunala Capital, and Perennial Private Investments, the private capital business of major Australian investment management company, Perennial Partners. 

The capital will be used to continue the Company’s rapid expansion in the U.S. and EMEA markets and grow its global sales force to meet growing demand for its purpose-built legal technology.

“To secure this new funding in this market is a huge endorsement of our rapid expansion into new markets, leading technology and business plan,” said Laura Keily, … … weiterlesen

LexFusion Selects DISCO as E-Discovery Partner

LexFusion, a go-to-market collective of leading legal innovation companies, announced its selection of DISCO, a leader in AI-enabled legal technology, as its e-discovery partner. DISCO stated that the partnership will help accelerate digital transformation for corporations and law firms as the industry continues to embrace next-generation technology to reduce risk, enhance compliance, control costs, and ultimately, deliver better outcomes.

Joe Borstein, LexFusion Chief Executive Officer, said: “As legal professionals scale service-delivery capabilities, taking full advantage of the latest advances in technology is foundational. We must embrace new tools as we collectively confront a new wave of litigation, investigations, and information governance challenges in an increasingly complex landscape that is once again making ediscovery a focal point for meeting the legal needs of the enterprise.”

“DISCO stands apart in empowering legal teams to filter out the noise, focus faster … … weiterlesen

LexisNexis Has Acquired Caselex

LexisNexis has acquired the merger control intelligence provider Caselex. This acquisition stands in line with LexisNexis’ recent strategy comprehending the acquisitions of Parley Pro and Closd as well as the partnership with Josef.

LexisNexis told ArtificialLawyer that the acquisition is part of an “ongoing commitment to provide one place where lawyers can get the legal intelligence they need to advise their clients” and that with Caselex, LexisNexis can now offer “competition lawyers a truly integrated and differentiated suite of offerings”.

Caselex’ Netherlands-based core-team consists of six people, supported by about 40 editors, each having a background in competition law. Caselex declares to be the leader in merger control information, offering insight into market definitions. They have developed a client base consisting of over 100 leading national and international … … weiterlesen

ContractPodAI’s oneDPA Is Now Freely Available

ContractPodAi, provider of the AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) product and ‘One Legal Platform’, announced that oneDPA, a standardized open-source data processing agreement, created in partnership with PwC UK and the greater Claustack Community, is now freely available.

With ever-changing data protection regulations across the globe, it is increasingly challenging and time-consuming for legal teams to keep up with changes. In response, the Claustack community came together to create a standardized DPA which takes into account data protection laws in various jurisdictions to ensure it’s globally applicable.

On participating in the oneDPA SteerCo, Darryl Chiang, Director, Legal, at Google said: “I wanted to be a part of the growing community of lawyers championing open-source contracts as the key to a better future where a broad … … weiterlesen

Legal Tech Spotlight #1 – Lawcus, the Legal Practice Management Software

by Shayan Edalati

In legal tech it’s hard to find an all-encompassing solution that meets the needs of law firms from lead generation to matter management. Many of the platforms that claim to be all-encompassing are often offered by large corporate players who have acquired various SaaS platforms and connected through them in awkward and haphazard integrations. Unsurprisingly, these often don’t work effectively.

More commonly, lawyers and firms must resort to buying various platforms to meet their needs. This practice leads to excess costs and the real possibility of solutions not integrating. For those wanting to create a custom integration, costs will be higher still while the practicality of the integration is not certain. 

Entering the current state of legal tech is Lawcus. Lawcus is an intuitive, workflow-focused law practice management software that’s especially useful for productivity focused law firms with well-defined systems and processes. It’s an … … weiterlesen

Della Expands into German Market

Hengeler Mueller adopts and rolls out Della’s cutting edge, multilingual, AI technology across the firm.

Leading international law firm, Hengeler Mueller, has selected and begun a firm-wide roll out of Della’s unique, multilingual, artificial intelligence (AI) driven contract analytics platform. The partnership will accelerate Hengeler Mueller’s contract review processes, and further expand the firm’s legal tech strategy of providing outstanding, up to date working practices, which allow their teams to focus on offering high-end legal advisory services.

Teams across the firm are now using Della to accelerate the review of a wide variety of legal documents. Using Della’s technology to make rapid initial project assessments and track and aggregate due diligence information. Significantly increasing the efficiency of exchanging information and giving Hengeler Mueller’s lawyers the freedom to devote their full attention to assessing complex legal issues.

… weiterlesen

New Study Uncovers Untapped Potential for Legal Departments to Positively Impact Revenue Growth and Operational Efficiency

The Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report also finds Legal can directly contribute to the growth of its businesses by increasing revenue and improving sales negotiations with greater automation  — powered by the combination of AI and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM).

Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, released chapter two of its Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments, the way legal professionals see their interactions with internal clients, and the material impact Legal can have on its businesses — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture.

In January, Onit commissioned Provoke Insights, a New York City-based market research firm, to conduct a study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United … … weiterlesen

Legal Innovators UK on 10th and 11th of November 2022

After two incredible shows in London, Artificial Lawyer, a leading Legal Tech news site and Cosmonauts, a first in service B2B conference producer and business development organisation, are proud to present Legal Innovators UK 3.0 – to bring you the best in Legal Tech in London. Legal Innovators UK will take place on the 10th and 11th of November 2022 at the etc. venues St. Pauls.

Focused on the intersection between technology and law, Legal Innovators is for everyone interested in innovation. Legal Innovators is the conference driving change in the legal sector through people, processes and technology.

The event is about the real-life experiences of the people working at the cutting edge of solving their firm’s and their clients’ challenges through innovation. The latest Legal Tech, such as AI and automation, is a central part of this. But, people and process are vital too, and this conference will be focused on all three pillars … … weiterlesen

United for Ukraine and BRYTER Connect Displaced People with Lawyers

NGO United for Ukraine (UfU), information and assistance provider for temporarily displaced people by the war in Ukraine, and BRYTER, the no-code automation platform, have teamed up to provide fast and accurate services to refugees. These efforts are supported by the International Rescue Committee and a Google.org Fellowship.

More than 14 million people have fled their homes since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The UN Refugee Agency says that as of May 27, 6.7 million refugees have left Ukraine for neighboring countries, while eight million people are displaced inside the war-torn country itself. The demand for informed decisions, safe housing, humanitarian support, and legal advice has been rising day by day. 

“To provide Ukrainians with legal aid, we were able to obtain support from 200 lawyers just by the … … weiterlesen

The Vital Role of Managing E-Discovery

By Shawn Arnold and Clayton Romero, co-founders, CodexTen

E-Discovery is a critical process that begins at the onset of litigated matters and involves the exchange of information between parties involved in a lawsuit or other legal action.

All Discovery is E-Discovery 

Since the 1500’s when English Law codified discovery, today, all discovery is e-discovery. “eDiscovery” is merely the extension of the well-established discovery process to any Electronically Stored Information (ESI) that an organization might possess – email messages, voicemails, presentations, word processing files, spreadsheets, social media posts and all other relevant communication or information that might be useful in a legal action. The amount of electronic information attached to cases today can be mind boggling.

Whether your firm is working on a smaller case to a headline-grabbing global legal action, firms cannot ignore the importance of eDiscovery. In fact, a 2013 white paper by Osterman Research, Inc. 1 stated … … weiterlesen

LegalForce Raises $101M in Series D Led by SoftBank, Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital

LegalForce Inc., a Japan-based provider of the contract review platform LegalForce and the AI-enabled contract management suite LegalForce Cabinet, announced to have received a $101 million fundraise in a series D round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund, Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital.

The funds will be invested in accelerating recruitment, research and development, and sales and marketing  in order to realize the company’s mission of managing “all contract risks anytime, anywhere”.

Kentaro Matsui, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers said: “Facing a shortage of lawyers and increasing pressure for operational efficiencies, corporations and law firms in Japan are seeking innovative solutions to support their legal operations. Through its software platform, LegalForce uses AI and machine learning to support the end-to-end lifecycle of contract management, thereby reducing workload and improving the accuracy of contract reviews. We … … weiterlesen

Clausematch Closes US$10.8 M Strategic Investment Round

Clausematch announced the close of a US$10.8M strategic funding round led by Lytical Ventures and joined by Flashpoint and Sony Innovation Fund. The new financing will be used to increase the company’s commercial activities in the US and invest in its product, technology and data science teams. The new funds bring the total investment to date to over US$20M.

Clausematch is a financial technology company that provides a software-as-a-service platform for smart management of compliance documents and processes, enabling regulated companies to meet compliance obligations. According to Clausematch, since its last funding, its team has made numerous advancements to its product offering and launched a new core module, Policy Portal, which has been adopted by all of Clausematch’s biggest clients. Policy Portal … … weiterlesen

“Hier wird endlich eine Mauer eingerissen, die bisher viele vom Gründen in Deutschland abgehalten hat”

(English version below)

Ein Interview mit Christian Manthey – Gründer und CEO von firma.de – über das DiRUG.

In diesem Sommer soll das DiRUG – das Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Digitalisierungsrichtlinie – in Deutschland in Kraft treten. Durch dieses Gesetz sollen etwa die Online-Gründung der GmbH sowie weitere Online-Verfahren für Registeranmeldungen bei Kapitalgesellschaften ermöglicht, neue Regelungen zur Offenlegung von Registerinformationen getroffen und der europäische grenzüberschreitende Informationsaustausch, insbesondere bezüglich Registersachen, verbessert werden. Wir haben mit Christian Manthey, Gründer und CEO von firma.de, über das neue Gesetz, dessen praktische Folgen, das Geschäftsmodell seines Unternehmens sowie die Zukunft eines digitalisierten Gesellschaftsrechts gesprochen. Firma.de ist ein in Deutschland führendes Unternehmen, wenn es um die Unterstützung von Startups in der Gründungsphase und die Entbürokratisierung der Gesellschaftsgründung geht. Dabei hat sich firma.de auf die Fahne geschrieben: Firmengründung … … weiterlesen

Syntheia Acquires Motionize

Syntheia, a contract and data startup, has acquired Motionize, another startup which offers a Word add-in that improves access to knowledge and provides drafting guidance to transactional lawyers.

The move to acquire the business first started in April 2022, after the two companies had been collaborating for the six months prior. The acquisition process took about a month, and completed on 31 May 2022.

Following this acquisition, Syntheia will be offering four distinct products:

  • an intelligent drafting recommender that surfaces precedent clauses while inside Microsoft Word,
  • a multi-document terms comparer that identifies variances and risks between contracts,
  • a self-sorting clause bank for knowledge management of contracts, and
  • a suite of data extraction and natural language processing APIs for legal documents.

Horace Wu, Founder and CEO of Syntheia said:

“We are … … weiterlesen

4th Legal Innovation Challenge Took Place in Stuttgart

Deutsche Version unten / German version below

The Legal Innovation Challenge took place for the 4th time from May 20-22 in Stuttgart. In this innovation format, more than 40 talents from the southern German region developed digital solutions in interdisciplinary teams from law, business & IT based on practical problems of law firms.

Each of the five participating law firms – Ebner Stolz, Oppenländer, Menold Bezler, Lutz Abel and Thümmel, Schütze & Partner – submitted a problem (“Challenge”) for the event. These challenges ranged from supply chain law and ransomware attacks to whistleblowing, social selection, and an Open Source Companion.

In the course of agile development of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and a digital business model, the teams applied client-centric innovation methodologies. The teams were supported by coaches from … weiterlesen

Deloitte Spinout Arteria AI Announced Strategic Investment Lead by Citi

Arteria AI, a Deloitte spinout and leading enterprise in digital documentation, announced it has received strategic investments from Citi SPRINT (Spread Products Investment Technologies), the strategic investing arm of Citi’s Global Spread Products division, and BDC Capital

Arteria’s software has been deployed at global financial institutions to deliver fast and accurate documentation experiences to clients, while lowering the cost and risk of doing business. Arteria uses artificial intelligence and a data-first approach on its mission to make documentation processes frictionless.

Arteria includes a series of product modules that can be used to help draft, negotiate and analyze documentation and contracts. Unlike other CLM platforms, Arteria claims to be built to the specific requirements of the institutional banking and trading sector. It aims to deliver efficiencies … … weiterlesen

The 2022 In-House Legal Tech Report Is Released

While corporate legal departments are still trying to shake the reputation of being slow to modernize, adapt, and adopt new technology, a recent study commissioned by ContractWorks paints a very different picture of today’s modern legal professionals. 

This new study, carried out by international research agency Censuswide, reveals key trends from 350 in-house legal professionals from the United States and the United Kingdom. General counsel, in-house lawyers, and other members of the legal department share insight on the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the legal workforce and their personal experiences and preferences about work style, legal technologies, and their employers.

According to ContractWorks, research shows that legal tech adoption is on the rise, and that when in-house lawyers adopt the right solutions, the results can be transformative for … … weiterlesen

DiliTrust Raises €130M to Accelerate Its Growth Internationally

DiliTrust, a France-based provider of SaaS solutions for legal departments, is bringing together a consortium of investors with Cathay Capital, Eurazeo and Sagard. The €130m heavy investment will enable DiliTrust to accelerate its growth, both organically and through acquisitions, and to support its innovation, and international expansion. The company also plans to carry out a significant recruitment initiative over the next twelve months. 

According to DiliTrust, the SaaS provider is a leader in France, Canada, Italy, Spain, and Morocco and is present in nearly 50 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. To address the increasing complexity and workload of legal departments, the company proposes the DiliTrust Governance Suite, which aims to significantly simplify operations.

This investment is a recognition of DiliTrust’s performance and reinforces its … … weiterlesen

CLM Platform Provider SirionLabs Announced $85M Series D Funding

AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform provider SirionLabs announced a fresh round of $85 million in Series D funding led by Partners Group acting on behalf of its clients, with participation from existing investors Avatar Growth Capital, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. This brings the total raised by SirionLabs to $157 million – a significant milestone for the company as it more than doubles the company’s capitalization. The investment will enable SirionLabs to continue expanding its position in the rapidly growing enterprise CLM market, which is projected to reach $3.3 billion by 2027.

The two biggest challenges in CLM are aligning post-award performance with contract terms and automating the import of legacy documents using AI,said Ajay Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of SirionLabs. “The SirionOne platform has a … … weiterlesen

Contract Intelligence Platform Evisort Announced $100M Capital Raise

No-code contract intelligence platform Evisort announced it has raised $100 million in capital, including equity and venture debt financing. This latest round of funding is led by global growth investor TCV, a key investor in Airbnb, LinkedIn, Netflix, and other market-defining companies. TCV General Partner Amol Helekar will join the Evisort board of directors. This financing round includes participation by Breyer Capital and all major existing investors, including General Atlantic, Microsoft’s venture capital fund M12, Amity Ventures, and Vertex Ventures.

Every time an organization buys, sells, hires, or otherwise transacts, it creates a contractual data layer. We created Evisort because it is absolutely critical for organizations to easily access and manage this data inside their contracts. We … … weiterlesen

LexisNexis Announces Acquisition of CLM Solution Parley Pro

LexisNexis Legal & Professional, a leading global provider of information and analytics, announced the acquisition of Parley Pro, a Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution and contract automation software provider, to complement LexisNexis’ Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) platform, CounselLink.

Founded in 2015, Parley Pro enables contract request, drafting, negotiation, signature, and post-signature management via a secure, cloud-based platform. AI-powered and easy to use, Parley Pro offers simultaneous collaboration, context-aware integration, and end-to-end contract process automation. In addition to that, Parley Pro gives corporate legal departments visibility into their entire portfolio of contracts in progress, with predictive and actionable analytics to help inform data-driven business decisions and unite organizations around contracts.

Parley Pro’s CLM capabilities provide the critical third pillar—in addition to Legal Spend and Matter Management—to strengthen our already robust CounselLink platform,said Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO, LexisNexis UK and North America. … … weiterlesen

Deloitte Legal and Contractify Join Forces to Create a CLM Solution

Deloitte Legal and Contractify have built an affordable end-to-end contract lifecycle management solution for the Belgian legal market, connecting Contractify’s contract management software to Legau, Deloitte Legal’s contract automation software. Deloitte Legal will add its legal and paralegal expertise to the solution to support clients to streamline their processes in order to fully experience all the benefits that Contractify and Legau offer.

Jan Roggen, Director of Legal Managed Services at Deloitte Legal, stated“Talking with clients in Belgium, we noticed that they struggle with finding a reliable, yet affordable, solution for contract management with limited implementation costs. We recognised that Contractify is a great, cost-efficient and reliable partner for many clients, and we are excited to combine forces to change the way legal services are delivered.”

Through this partnership, Contractify and Deloitte Legal aim to provide a one-stop-shop for Belgian legal departments looking … … weiterlesen

Athennian Raises $33m to Promote Its Entity Management Technology

Cloud-based business entity management technology company, Athennian, announced that it has raised $33 Million in its Series B round, led by Centana Growth Partners with participation from existing investors Arthur Ventures, Touchdown Ventures, and several private investors.

Founded in 2017, Athennian’s software enables legal, tax and finance teams to digitise and manage their business entities and company structures. Athennian has developed cloud-based legal tech used by law firms, legal departments, and professional services firms to automate subsidiary and entity management, transforming compliance, governance, and transactional workflows. The data collected on its platform covers a wide range of services, including compliance, ownership, and digital signatures.

We’re excited about this new investment round as it will help us support more clients and meet the increasing need for digital automation and corporate transparency demands required by governments … … weiterlesen

This Weekend: Global Legal Hackathon 2022

The Global Legal Hackathon, the world’s largest technology innovation event and learning laboratory for the legal industry, will open the #GLH2022 competition on March 25-27, 2022. Thousands of legal professionals, software developers, designers, and businesses will come together for one purpose: rapid development of solutions to improve the legal industry.

Returning for its fourth year, #GLH2022 is expected to surpass previous years, with over 100 host cities and 10,000 participants expected from around the globe, tapping into the creative energy of a legal industry that is experiencing accelerated innovation as a consequence of the pandemic.

Starting on Friday evening and continuing until Sunday evening, teams will develop new technology solutions to “business of law” and “access to justice” problems, and compete to be selected as winners in their respective cities and progress to the global semi-finals. Finalists will then be invited … … weiterlesen

Linklaters Partners with BRYTER

Global law firm Linklaters has partnered with the no-code automation platform provider BRYTER on a series of global initiatives to accelerate the delivery of legal advice and other services to clients in new and innovative ways. The partnership, which is being led by newly appointed Global Head of Practice Innovation, Greg Baker, and the firm’s global practice innovation team, has already delivered a number of client solutions and continues to look for potential areas for digitization across the firm’s global practice areas on key legal and regulatory topics.

Extending across various areas of delivery, the partnership is aiding the development of client-facing technology, the improvement of internal workflows and the provision of pro bono support offered to local and global communities.

Greg Baker, Global Head of Practice Innovation, commented“As we continue … … weiterlesen

Thirdfort Secures £15M Series A Funding

Thirdfort, the anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) technology provider for the legal sector, has secured £15M in a series A funding round.

Since January 2020, Thirdfort grew from a team of 10 with 30 business clients and one industry partner to an enterprise with 100 “Thirdforters”, 700 business clients, and 15 industry partners who have integrated Thirdfort. Now, Thirdfort has taken it’s first institutional investment from Breega and Element Ventures.

With recent events bringing into sharp focus the importance of spotting and preventing money laundering and other fraud, Olly Thornton-Berry, Managing Director & Co-Founder, sympathises with professionals who are trying to protect their businesses and clients while facing a tidal wave of increasing regulation and fraud risk.

According to Thornton-Berry, client ID verification, source of funds confirmation (guilty until proven innocent) and client funds transfer … … weiterlesen

Legaltech Startup Josef Launches in the US

After successfully launching in the UK and Europe in 2021, Australian-founded legaltech startup Josef has announced their launch into the United States. The software company provides a no-code platform for attorneys and legal professionals to automate tasks, including lawyer-client interactions, sending emails, generating legal documents and providing legal guidance and advice. 

With a mission of transforming the way legal services are delivered, Josef makes life easier for all involved by automating repetitive work for attorneys, and streamlining service delivery for clients. 

With a US team on the ground, Josef can better serve existing US customers, and continue to expand their already-global services and products into new teams and new territories. Josef’s founding team have confirmed that their US plans have always been central to their long-term goals.

Since my time studying at Columbia Law School, I have had a deep respect for … … weiterlesen

New Report by Wolters Kluwer and ECLA: Legal Departments on the Move

Wolters Kluwer and the European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA) have released an in-depth overview of the state of digitalization in a new report Legal Departments on the Move, offering insights into how legal departments have responded to recent challenges and key issues they are facing. The report is based on a comprehensive survey into the corporate legal profession, conducted in the second half of 2021, with data from more than 500 legal departments across Europe (including Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden). The survey is the second from Wolters Kluwer and ECLA, with the first released in 2020. 

Legal software has entered the daily workflow 

The 2020 survey confirmed the relevance of having a clear strategy to form a more digitally mature legal department, and that digitalization was already high on the agenda of corporate legal departments. However, … … weiterlesen

DISCO Has Acquired Hold360 and Request360

Legal tech provider DISCO announced it has acquired legal workflow products Hold360 and Request360, as well as related regulatory and alert solutions, from Congruity 360, LLC. These critical legal workflow capabilities will integrate with DISCO’s cloud-based e-discovery platform and provide a modern, digital solution for corporate legal hold obligations and legal request compliance. 

Hold360 and Request360 are next-generation, streamlined technology solutions that eliminate the challenges from legacy solutions, which relied on human processes, teams of attorneys and legal professionals, and limited technological solutions to ensure compliance with legal preservation obligations. 

With Hold360 and Request360, DISCO will expand its solution set to address the legal hold requirements of customers, including the ability to hold data and documents in place electronically rather than recreate, store, and manage copies of duplicative data. Further, silent hold capabilities allow legal teams to easily enact holds, without the need to engage … … weiterlesen

Legal Tech Startup Clara Announced $3.5M Seed Funding From The LegalTech Fund

Clara, a legal operating system that provides an integrated collection of self-service tools to assist founders digitally organise, manage, and develop their firms, announced that it had raised more than $3.5M in seed funding from The LegalTech Fund. The platform is nearing the end of its beta period.

According to TechFundingNews, the London based startup’s exit from beta means better features and functionality for the 1,200+ startups that have already signed up, including quick company formation in major jurisdictions where VCs and accelerators frequently invest. Improved cap table functionality and faster legal document processing are included in the platform. In the coming year, Clara will grow into new jurisdictions and continue to provide new and improved services to its users.

Clara was founded in 2018 by a group of entrepreneurs who have worked in … … weiterlesen

CodeX FutureLaw 2022 – A Summary

On April 07, 2022, the FutureLaw 2022 Conference, hosted by CodeX – the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics – was held on the Stanford University campus. FutureLaw 2022 was CodeX’s first in-person conference since the start of the Corona pandemic, which has also been streamed via Zoom.

This year’s CodeX conference was its tenth annual conference focusing on the way technology is changing the legal profession, the law itself, and the way these changes affect us all. 

Following the opening of the event and warm welcome to all attendees by Jenny S. Martinez, Dean of Stanford Law, and Roland Vogl, Executive Director of CodeX, Jennifer Newstead delivered an opening keynote speech. Newstead is the chief legal officer at … … weiterlesen

Filevine Raises $108M Series D for Legal Work Platform 

Filevine, a company offering a software-as-a-service product for legal case management, announced that it raised $108 million in a Series D funding round led by StepStone Group, with additional funding from Golub Capital. Signal Peak Ventures and Meritech Capital, repeat investors in Filevine, also participated in this round.

As law firms contend with rising demand and a talent shortage, many have turned to Filevine’s all-in-one legal suite to improve efficiency, mitigate stress, and grow revenue. The Series D funding will help power Filevine’s expansion more deeply into big law, insurance defense, corporate, governmental, and nonprofit legal counsel teams, building on the company’s expertise in litigation and personal injury law.

Founded in 2014, Filevine is building a new interface for legal work. CEO and co-founder Ryan Anderson, a former … … weiterlesen

Josef And LexisNexis Announced Partnership

Legaltech platform Josef has announced a partnership with LexisNexis Pacific, one of the world’s foremost legal content platforms. The partnership will see Josef and LexisNexis join forces to streamline how legal and compliance professionals access LexisNexis’ global content library.

Starting with the LexisNexis Regulatory Compliance solution, the collaboration augments how users retrieve content through an integration that offers an alternative method of querying the content library delivering workflow efficiencies, heightened transparency and actionable insights.

LexisNexis Pacific, Managing Director, Greg Dickason said Josef represents the innovative technology that LexisNexis has always embraced.

“LexisNexis has continually been innovating in this space for over 50 years, adopting and pioneering new technology ensuring that our content is optimised and highly accessible,” Dickason said. “Our partnership with Josef makes sense to us as we work with emerging no-code solution providers. We believe in experimenting … … weiterlesen

LinkSquares Raises $100M in Series C Funding

LinkSquares announced that it has secured $100M in its Series C funding round led by G Squared, with participation from new investor G2 Venture Partners and existing investors. Hence, raising the company’s capital only nine months from its Series B. This brings the total funding of the startup that offers AI-powered Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions built specifically for in-house legal teams to $161.4 million at an $800 million valuation.

Vishal Sunak, co-founder and CEO of LinkSquares stated: “It’s taken a lot of hard work to get us here, and I’m thrilled for our team. Over the last seven years, we’ve built relationships with over 500 in-house legal teams, Chief Legal Officers, and GCs. We’ve seen the immense contributions these trailblazers bring to businesses and how they’re showing their value through data-driven actions and insights. I know I speak for all … … weiterlesen

The Legal Tech Blog Gets A Fresh Face

We are pleased to announce that the Legal Tech Blog will start the new year with a redesign relaunch. On February 12, the Legal Tech Blog will relaunch under the new URL “legal-tech.blog” and get a fresh design.

Over the past few months, we have been working on making the blog clearer and more appealing, introducing easier navigation, and raising our privacy standards. Now the blog presents itself in a modern color scheme as well as a simple, functional, and beautiful new layout. We have brought new order to the blog’s page system and improved the readability of the content. In addition, the Legal Tech Blog will be even more targeted to an international audience and will be completely available in English.

The updated version of the blog will still be available under the old URL “legal-tech-blog.de” by automatic redirection.
Our twitter and LinkedIn accounts will of course … … weiterlesen

AltaML And Compass Law Form Legal-AI Joint Venture Jurisage

AltaML, a leading applied AI studio, and Compass Law, an independent Canadian legal publisher, announced the launch of Jurisage AI, a joint venture leveraging the parties’ expertise in artificial intelligence and legal innovation.

According to AltaML, Jurisage AI expands a relationship and collaboration in place since September 2020 when AltaML and its co-CEO joined the Legal Innovation Data Institute (LIDI), as founding member and advisor, respectively. LIDI was initially launched by Compass to lower the barrier to technological innovation in law through providing members controlled access to the Compass case law collection for non-profit and non-commercial uses. The potential and scope of that opportunity uncovered by AltaML through a year of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) research and prototype development opened the door to establishing a commercial venture with Compass. As co-founders of Jurisage AI, AltaML supplies the AI expertise and Compass supplies the … … weiterlesen

Reed Smith Launches Mobile App for Arbitration Cost Forecasting

Global law firm Reed Smith announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind mobile app to help arbitration users calculate the costs of arbitration.

According to Reed Smith, through the Reed Smith Arbitration Pricing Calculator, clients can quickly and accurately navigate the myriad cost structures at key arbitral institutions to inform their dispute resolution stance.

The app is useful for both users engaged in dispute resolution and those engaged in cross border transactions and projects where arbitration is being considered as the method for dispute resolution.

Developed by Timothy Cooke, a partner in Reed Smith’s International Arbitration practice, the app represents the firm’s latest example of driving client-facing innovation.

The app, which is aimed at both dispute resolution and transactional lawyers, enables users to calculate the expected administrative and tribunal costs of arbitration in over 20 currencies based on several inputs, such as:

BigHand Acquires Iridium Technology

BigHand, a leading provider of operational and financial products for law firms, announced it has acquired Iridium Technology.

BigHand and Iridium have been offering complementary products and in coming together, now offer powerful insight and data into law firms financial management, operational management, resource optimization and business development.

Law firms are under continuous pressure to improve their efficiency while also growing their profitability. Our goal has always been to offer our clients the best solutions and support, that work for them – so when it comes to M&A, we’ve been very selective. We want to join forces with organizations that align to our goals and the goals of our customers. There has to be an added value to our customers and that’s what makes this acquisition very exciting. The combined organization now gives our clients the opportunity to access a vast amount of data… weiterlesen

Legal OS Raises €6M Venture Capital Led by Google’s Gradient Ventures

No-code legal automation platform Legal OS raises €6M venture capital, co-led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund, and 10x with participation from existing investors HV Capital and Speedinvest. The company has built a no-code platform for automated contract creation, document generation, and process development to help legal teams speed-up their work and contribute to the no-code transformation in the legal industry.

Legal OS’s tool asks users questions and automatically builds an individual document from the answers. The software becomes more and more useful the more frequently users work with it. In the beginning, the rules and specifications are comprehensively defined. This yields the data that can build a legally compliant contract, as Lilian Breidenbach, co-founder and CEO of Legal OS, explained to Handelsblatt. The idea, she said, is to reduce repetitive work for legal customers.

Legal OS customers include companies such as … weiterlesen

Onit Acquires SecureDocs

Onit, Inc., a provider of enterprise workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, announced that it has acquired SecureDocs, a global software company for contract management, virtual deal rooms and electronic signatures. With this acquisition, Onit aims to strengthen its position as a leading, modern contract lifecycle management (CLM) provider and to expand the company’s product portfolio from enterprise-level CLM to include a quickly deployable contract management solution for legal operations teams.

While Onit is widely acclaimed by Fortune 500 customers ContractWorks from SecureDocs shares a parallel record of success for midsize and smaller companies. New legal operations and corporate development teams can set up contract management in minutes, quickly establishing their function and proving value. According to Onit, SecureDocs and ContractWorks have helped customers effectively manage more than 13 million contracts and documents across 96 countries.

SecureDocs will integrate with … weiterlesen

Litera Acquires Lynch Marks LLC

Global legal tech provider Litera announced it had acquired Lynch Marks, LLC, a California-based invoicing and shipping management company that developed PS/Ship. With this acquisition Litera aims to add another piece to its platform for law firms looking to solve more issues through a single technology partner integrating with their broader systems. This is now Litera’s 14th M&A deal in recent times and follows the purchase of Kira Systems and Concep last year.

Avaneesh Marwaha, Litera CEO, said that the acquisition would “expand client services and deliver on organizational growth. The Lynch Marks team built a great suite of products with strong customer relationships. We are excited to build on Lynch Marks’ ability to link front-office functions and back-office processes, making invoice processing, shipping and inbound package tracking faster, easier, and less expensive for Litera’s global customers.”

We are thrilled to join the Litera family and excited … … weiterlesen

Aderant Acquires American LegalNet

Aderant, a global provider of business software to law firms, announced the acquisition of American LegalNet (ALN), a provider of court forms, eFiling, calendaring and docketing solutions. Hence, Aderant and ALN customers will get access to an expanded suite of solutions to meet the demands of their clients and foster digital transformation. 

Los Angeles based ALN was founded in 1996 to become a premier provider of “Desktop to Courthouse” litigation workflow solutions that include eDockets, Docket Direct, Forms WorkFlow, Smart Dockets, Docket Alerts and eFiling Portal. In March of 2021, ALN Cloud was released in order to advance the legal tech space with a true cloud solution.

Aderant is a global industry leader which provides comprehensive business management software for law firms and other professional services organizations.

According to Aderant, with more and more firms embracing a cloud-first strategy, Aderant’s acquisition of ALN will combine their … … weiterlesen

AI & Law Conference by recode.law in January

On 20 January 2022, the first AI & Law Conference will be held by recode.law in cooperation with the Oxford Fintech & Legaltech Society. Due to the still ongoing pandemic, the event will take place online.

After artificial intelligence has increasingly moved into the public discourse in recent years, it is now also increasingly the subject of scientific and practice-relevant debates within the legal industry. With the AI & Law Conference, recode.law would like to offer an international platform that takes a closer look at the interface of AI and law.

The conference will be characterized by an interdisciplinary exchange of experts from computer science and law as well as other disciplines such as philosophy, behavioral economics and business administration.
Through panel discussions and keynote speeches, the organizers aim to converse about the potential of machine learning models in the application area of law and provide a … … weiterlesen

Consilio Announced Acquisition of Legility

Consilio, a global provider of eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services, announced it has closed the acquisition of Legility, a global legal services provider. According to Consilio, the acquisition will broaden the enterprise’s legal services and flexible legal talent solutions offerings.

Consilio aims to strengthen its capabilities to deliver a complete legal services experience across a spectrum of client needs worldwide while considerably increasing its European capabilities and solutions.

Legility has a proven track record of creating excellent predictive and automated enterprise-wide legal driven processes that blend analytics, purpose-built workflows, and information-driven process improvements that help legal teams achieve operational success,” said Andy Macdonald, CEO of Consilio. “This acquisition unlocks greater scale and resources while aligning with our strategy to invest in differentiated solutions that result in a consistently exceptional client experience.”

Legility will enhance Consilio’s resources with a deepened breadth of new talent in managed review, … … weiterlesen

Impressions From ELTACon 2021: FROM CHAN(G)E TO CHAN(C)E

by Jan Gilarowski & Karoline Dotterweich

This year, ELTACon 2021 took place online from 29 November to 2 December. The key topic was LEGAL TECH & INNOVATION – From Chan(g)e to chan(c)e. Christina Blacklaws opened the conference with an inspiring Kick-Off-Keynote. 

Participants had the opportunity to catch up on the latest developments in various sessions, panel discussions and lectures. Everyone could get involved via a live chat. The attendees, who came from more than 39 countries around the globe, were also able to network and exchange ideas in various video networking sessions. 

During the conference, Sina Kreft and Julia Brünjes supervised the different program items.

Please note that the following impressions can not capture all speakers nor topics. For a complete overview, have a look at the ELTACon2021 website

Listening to Christina´  s and other speeches it became apparent that Legal Tech is a clear … … weiterlesen

LexisNexis Announced Acquisition of Closd

LexisNexis Legal & Professional announced that it has acquired Closd, a provider of legal transaction management in Europe, founded in 2018. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Closd operates a legal transaction management SaaS platform that aims to make the management of complex legal projects simpler, safer and faster. Its end-to-end legal project management solution includes automated workflow management, secure document sharing, data rooms, electronic closing, transaction bible generation and document archiving. According to Closd, the company serves more than 42,000 users consisting of transactional lawyers, in-house legal counsels and dealmakers in Europe and beyond.

Closd will become part of LexisNexis Legal & Professional, an established global provider of legal, regulatory and business information and analytics, that aims to help customers increase their productivity, improve decision-making and achieve better outcomes. The acquisition of Closd is part of a global … … weiterlesen

Ulster University Has Launched A Legal-Tech Masters Course

Ulster University’s Legal Innovation Centre has launched a masters course which straddles both a Masters in Law (LLM) and a Masters of Science (MSc) to address the growing adoption of technology by law firms. The new programme is called “LLM/MSc Corporate Law, Computing and Innovation” and has been created in partnership with legal and tech leaders in Northern Ireland.

This novel course, based at the Belfast Campus, is designed as 50% computer science and 50% corporate, financial and tech law, with the Schools of Law and Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems collaborating under one umbrella, for the first time. This allows for the development of a multidisciplinary graduate: a tech-savvy lawyer or a computer science graduate who has a unique appreciation of legal and financial services.

Multi-national corporate partners have offered support to the new programme, including: Citi, Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, Herbert Smith Freehills, A&L Goodbody, Pinsent … … weiterlesen

FiscalNote Announces to Go Public

FiscalNote Holdings, Inc., an AI-driven enterprise SaaS company that delivers legal and regulatory data and insights, and Duddell Street Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement that will result in FiscalNote becoming a publicly listed company with a pro forma market capitalization of approximately $1.3 billion. 

Upon closing, the combined company will operate under the FiscalNote name and trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NOTE”.

With global CEOs and organizations facing increasing regulatory pressure, FiscalNote provides insights and data on government activity and impact by leveraging proprietary artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced technologies embedded in its workflow software to collect and analyze global legislative, regulatory, and geopolitical data for clients around the world. 

When we founded FiscalNote in 2013, we set out to build a category creating technology company that would … … weiterlesen

Everlaw Has Raised $202M, Now Valued at More Than $2B

Everlaw, a cloud-based legal technology platform specialising in electronic discovery (ediscovery), has raised $202 million in a series D round of funding from high-profile investors including Alphabet’s Capital G. The Oakland-based company is now valued at more than $2 billion.

Founded in 2010, Everlaw helps law firms, corporations, and government agencies find electronically stored information and evidence relevant to a specific lawsuit during the litigation phase. This could mean searching through emails, digital documents, databases, audio files, social media, and all the associated metadata.

The Everlaw platform includes features for uploading documents locally or from the cloud, making them easy to search and filter from a centralized interface. It includes advanced analytics such as “email threading,” which makes it easier to review emails in their original timeline order, while data visualizations can unearth insights across multiple documents. Permeating all of this are machine learning-powered tools that can automatically … … weiterlesen

LEGAL LIVE – Impressions from the Virtual Event

by: Laura Bingenheimer & Karoline Dotterweich

The LEGAL LIVE Fall Congress took place virtually from November 9 to 11. According to Jochen Brandhoff, CEO of LEGAL (R)EVOLUTION GmbH, the conference aims to close the gap between theory and practice. Closing this gap is a major challenge, but important to ensure long-term success in the legal world. 

Attendees were able to network on the LEGAL LIVE platform via chat and video telephony, as well as interactive conference offerings such as roundtables and panel discussions. 

The moderator Shenna Büchler led through the various program items. She welcomed all attendees in the morning and closed the event in the evening. 

Here are just a few impressions from the event. Please note that these insights do not reflect all topics and speakers of the event (as they would be far too numerous to mention here). If you would like to see … … weiterlesen

“Is Code Law?”

By Tian Ma

In “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace”, Lawrence Lessig famously coined the term “code is law” (Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace [1998]). While the term has been interpreted and appropriated in countless ways, a deeper reading reveals Lessig’s actual argument. By “code is law”, Lessig did not in fact propose that code and law were epistemologically identical. Rather, by dismissing assumptions behind the idea that the cyberspace was inherently a creature of freedom and liberty, Lessig sought to expose the capacity for regulation which code shared with law. Lessig argued that code regulates the cyberspace just as how law regulates meat-space societies, and can serve as an additional medium for the law to indirectly influence behaviour in the cyberspace.

Fast forward two decades, and Lessig’s then stark warnings of code’s regulatory potential would barely raise an eyebrow today. The Internet protocol, despite … … weiterlesen

ELTACon 2021 From November 29 to December 2

ELTACon, the legal tech and innovation conference by the European Legal Tech Association, ELTA, will take place online from November 29 to December 2, 2021. Under this year’s motto “Legal Tech & Innovation – from Chan(g)e to Chan(c)e” the conference will be all about getting valuable insights by legal tech experts from all over Europe and beyond. Tickets can be bought not only by ELTA members.

Each day of the conference will have its own theme: Day one will be all about Leadership, Strategy & Innovation, day two will cover Legal Tech Education, and on the third day speakers will talk about Business & (Legal) Tech.

Some of the announced speakers are:

  • Rebecca Williams, Professor of Public Law and Criminal Law, University of Oxford
  • Itzik Amiel, Bestselling Author, Business Mentor and Founder & CEO of THE SWITCH
  • Jon Bartman, ELTA Ambassador UK & Head of Jameson Legal Tech, Jameson Legal
  • Raymond Blijd, CEO, Legalcomplex & … … weiterlesen

LEGAL LIVE Autumn Conference Will Take Place from November 9 to 11

LEGAL LIVE Autumn, the virtual sister event of LEGAL REVOLUTION, brings the legal market together virtually for the second time this year from November 9 to 11.

Exchange ideas at the conference, find out what new solutions are available in the legal and compliance market and bring yourself up to date.

You can expect exciting presentations from Georg Eisenreich (Bavarian Minister of Justice), Judith Gerlach (Bavarian Minister of Digital), Dr. Ulrich Wessels (President, BRAK), Pascale Schmidt (Chief Compliance Officer & Head of Sustainability, F. Hoffmann-La Roche), Dagmar Mundani (General Counsel, Siemens Healthineers), Dr. Thomas Dickert (President, Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg), Prof. Dr. Ralf Köbler (President, Regional Court of Darmstadt) and many more experts.

In addition to presentations, LEGAL LIVE Autumn brings a practice-relevant professional program with use cases, panels, roundtables, workshops, coaching sessions and the products and services of our exhibitors directly to your office or desk … … weiterlesen