LegalOn, a company that was already one of Japan’s largest providers of AI contract review technology when it launched into the U.S. market last December, today is announcing its expansion into contract drafting with the release of LegalOn Templates, a collection of more than 100 market-standard templates created and kept current by attorneys experienced in the applicable area of law.

“It is designed to be responsive to what we’ve been hearing from our customers, which is that, in a world awash in content, it’s as hard, if not harder, than ever to find reliable and up-to-date attorney-drafted templates,” Daniel Lewis, LegalOn’s U.S. CEO, told me during an interview yesterday.

Even for companies that already have their own collections of contract templates, LegalOn’s templates address nuances that their own may not, Lewis said.

“For example, in our collection, we’ll flesh out templates that are appropriate for buy-side or sell-side, or California or New York, right, so you start to get into these nuances that matter and can accelerate the drafting process if you’re otherwise trying to modify a past precedent that’s not exactly the right fit, or if you’re wondering about what would be the better position if you’re on the buy side.”

Read more about LegalOn in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory.

Jeffrey Shimamoto, a former attorney and general counsel who is now head of content at LegalOn, said the collection includes many standard agreements such as NDAs and MOUs, but also many that are specific to industries, such as a manufacturing and supply agreement, a patent know-how licensing agreement, and a SaaS terms of service agreement.

“We keep these updated for any changes in the law,” Shimamoto said. “And if a company does have their own internal templates and they frequently send them to outside counsel to have them reviewed for any changes in the law, we provide that as well within our service.”

The collection currently includes agreements tailored to the governing law of either California or New York. LegalOn plans to continue to add additional templates.

Users can access the templates directly within LegalOn and then download them to edit in Microsoft Word. The templates are available to LegalOn customers at no extra cost.

After announcing its expansion into the U.S. in December, LegalOn formally made its platform commercially available to customers in April. At that point, it also introduced a new feature, AI Revise, which it said was the “first AI contract editing tool enhanced by expert legal knowledge.”

LegalOn already used AI to review contracts and highlight risks and suggested redlines. Its AI Revise feature took that a step further, enabling users to turn those suggestions into revisions. It allows someone who is reviewing a contract to adopt LegalOn’s expert-developed content and suggestions with just one click.

Lewis, who was previously cofounder and CEO of the legal research and analytics platform Ravel Law, which LexisNexis acquired in 2017, said that the same team of lawyers who developed that expert guidance and suggested clauses was the basis for expanding that expertise into the creation of contract templates.

“This continues our expansion in trying to be the very best solution to solve teams’ pre-signature contracting needs, whether that’s review and now whether it’s drafting,” said Lewis. “It continues our pathway of what we feel is a very unique approach to AI, which is to be at the leading edge of AI, but to complement that and combine it with trusted attorney written content.”

Yesterday, I attended the Harvard Law AI Summit organized by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School. It was a fairly intimate, invitation-only gathering of roughly 65 people, held under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that participants were free to use the information we received, but we agreed not to disclose the identity or affiliation of the speakers or participants.

The idea, of course, is to allow participants to speak frankly about an issue that is undeniably challenging and complex — the rise of generative AI in legal. And speak frankly they did. Even though the themes generally tracked those I’ve already seen raised in other forums and articles, the insights that came out of the summit were enlightening and thought-provoking, especially given the bona fides of those who were there.

As I reflect on the conference this morning, I thought I’d share a couple takeaways floating through my head. These are my impressions and not necessarily reflective of anything any of the speakers explicitly said.

Armed with AI, pro se litigants could overwhelm the courts, so the courts need to be prepared to respond in kind.

Generative AI could lower the hurdles and the costs for pro se litigants to bring their grievances to court. While that could potentially be a good thing for access to justice, it could also have the unintended consequence of overwhelming the courts — courts that are already overwhelmed by pro se litigants — and reducing their ability to process this flood of AI-fueled cases. What that means is that courts need to be prepared to respond in kind, likewise incorporating generative AI to enhance their efficiency and their ability to process cases. Exactly what those tools will look like remains to be seen, but the bottom line is that courts should be starting to think about this today so that they can be prepared for what is to come tomorrow.

If AI is to enhance access to justice, it will not be only by increasing lawyer productivity, but also by directly empowering consumers.

The legal profession faces no greater crisis than that of addressing the justice gap. Yet, while study after study over the past decade has documented the severity of this gap, we have seen no progress in narrowing it. If anything, the gap seems only to be widening. Generative AI offers the promise of finally helping us to narrow this gap by enhancing the ability to create legal documents and deliver legal information.

However, any number of times recently, when I have heard lawyers or even legal tech vendors talk about how AI can help close the justice gap, they focus on the potential for AI to increase lawyer productivity. If lawyers are more productive, goes their reasoning, they will be able to serve more clients and therefore narrow the justice gap.

The problem with this reasoning is that lawyers, alone, will never be enough to close the justice gap, because it is simply too vast. In addition, the nature of the legal problems many individuals face are not of a type a lawyer would handle in the first place. The fact is that, if generative AI is going to help close the gap, it will be by also directly empowering consumers to help themselves with their legal problems.

Given this, at yesterday’s AI Summit, I was heartened to hear many participants express ideas that seemed to recognize this idea that we need to harness AI in ways that can directly empower pro se individuals who face legal problems. Some of those at yesterday’s summit came from the judiciary, and they were among those who seemed to understand and embrace this. AI’s potential is huge, but not if we look at it through the limited lens of helping lawyers be more efficient.

Even the AI experts don’t understand AI.

One of the phrases most commonly uttered yesterday was “black box.” Given that attendees and speakers included computer scientists, AI researchers, and product developers, this was notable. Even those who are immersed in generative AI will be the first to admit that they do not fully understand how it works or of what it is capable. That said, there seemed to be general agreement that the power of this technology is not simply its ability to “generate,” but also to interpret and synthesize. At one point yesterday, I wrote down this note to myself: “A repeating theme today has been, ‘We don’t know how it works, we don’t have good answers to all the questions about it, but we know it is important and will change everything.'”

Experts are already striving to make the black box of AI more transparent. 

Given the black box nature of AI, some are working to make it more transparent. One way to do this is to become attuned to the signals we can draw out of generative AI tools and then incorporate them into some sort of a dashboard that let’s us see those signals in a more transparent way. For example, generative AI seems capable sometimes of detecting the gender of a user and delivering a response tailored to gender. Could we create interfaces that let us understand that? Or when AI delivers a response that uses certain data but omits other potentially relevant data, could we create ways to inform the user about what was left out?

Even as law firms adopt AI, they are finding implementation to be a challenge.

Even at law firms that have been early adopters of generative AI tools, getting buy-in across their attorneys and legal professionals is a challenge. Even at leading-edge firms, many lawyers remain skeptical and even fearful of this technology. A related issue is training for lawyers and legal professionals. Some firms are already developing inhouse training programs on understanding and using AI and some vendors are developing training of their own.

Founded or unfounded, fears continue of AI-driven job losses.

Will AI replace jobs now performed by lawyers, paralegals and law librarians? I’d say that among yesterday’s attendees, the verdict is still very much out on that question. One perspective is that we’ve all heard that saw before with other advances in technology that has actually ended up creating new opportunities. The other perspective is that we still do not understand the limits of this technology and what it could someday do.

AI could be a catalyst for inequality in law.

Current generative AI tools are expensive to use. That raises the concern that only those with deep pockets — big firms and big corporations — will have access to them, while pro se individuals, smaller firms, and legal aid organizations will be shut out. Given the potential power of generative AI, this could further exacerbate inequality in the delivery of justice. One possible answer: public AI models not owned or controlled by any single corporation.

Methods are needed to benchmark the quality of AI products.

As more legal vendors develop products based on generative AI, how do we assess and monitor the quality of these tools? We need to come up with ways of benchmarking generative AI products.

Law firms are questioning how best to harness AI to leverage their own legal knowledge.

While nowhere near the scale of the data collections used to train large language models such as ChatGPT, law firms — and particularly larger firms — have their own “large language” collections of their cumulative work product and know-how that is a reflection of what makes the firm unique. In the quest to make legal AI more precise and less hallucinatory, firms are wrestling with how to leverage this internal knowledge. Some are already developing their own proprietary AI tools, while others are turning to legal tech vendors to help them in achieving this goal.

The need for legal training data could exacerbate questions of who owns the law.

As we seek to better train AI on the law, we must inevitably confront the question of who owns the law and who has access to that data. Already, some organizations are working to create open-access collections of legal data to be used in support of creating openly accessible generative AI tools in law.

AI will force courts and lawyers to grapple with new issues over authentication of evidence.

A recurring theme yesterday was the danger AI poses of creating evidence such as images and videos that are fake beyond detection or authentication. What impact could this have on how courts consider and accept evidence?

AI’s decisions need to be not only explainable, but justifiable.

Gillian Hadfield, the legal scholar who is the director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto, has put forth the notion that AI needs to be not only explainable, but justifiable, meaning AI that can show how its decisions are justifiable according the rules and norms of society. That concept was cited yesterday in support of the idea that we need to find ways to establish and maintain trust and accountability in AI, not just as it is used in law, but across all sectors and geographies.

Thanks for a great event.

Before ending this post, allow me to thank Jonathan Zittrain, faculty director, Jack Cushman, director, Clare Stanton, product and research manager, and everyone else at the Library Innovation lab for organizing this summit and allowing me to be part of it. Thanks also to the folks at Casetext who provided financial and other support for the conference.

Stories are increasingly common of lawyers who leave law practice to start legal technology companies, but few achieve the level of success as an entrepreneur of Matt Spiegel. He was a criminal defense lawyer in 2009 when he founded MyCase, one of the earliest cloud-based law practice management companies. In 2012, he sold MyCase to AppFolio, and then left the company in 2015 to start a software company that helped organizations manage trade shows and events. In 2017, he returned to law to start his current company, Lawmatics, a client relationship management (CRM) platform for law firms.

Spiegel was previously on episode 16 of this podcast in 2018, not long after he founded Lawmatics. He developed the product because he saw a gap in the legal market for software that would help firms automate their marketing and run their businesses as sales organizations. In the years since, he has raised $12.5 million in funding, expanded the platform with time-and-billing and e-payments capabilities, and added a generative AI feature to help law firms create and edit client emails and email marketing campaigns.

In this episode of LawNext, Spiegel shares his story as a serial legal tech entrepreneur, discusses why he founded Lawmatics, describes how the platform automates legal marketing and relationship management, and talks about his future plans for the company and the platform.

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.

• Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.

• Universal Migrator, the easiest way to move your firm’s data and documents from one app to another.

• Trial Pad, an easy-to-use app to organize, annotate, and present evidence

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Mark Smolik, chief legal officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, will be the keynote speaker on the second day of the Knowledge Management & Innovation for Legal Conference taking place in New York City Oct. 12 and 13.

In his talk, “Winning Strategies for Winning New Business: Insights on Innovation from a Chief Legal Officer,” he will share his insights on how embracing innovation and effective knowledge management can drive new business. Drawing from his experience at the intersection of law and corporate strategy, he will outline actionable steps to gain a competitive edge.

Smolik will also join a Friday plenary session, “Client-First Strategies: Using KM & Innovation for Business & Client Development,” which will also feature Evan Shenkman, chief knowledge and innovation officer at Fisher Phillips, and Anand Upadhye, founder of Modern Legal Strategies.

The conference had previously announced that the first-day keynote speaker will be Andrea Alliston, partner, knowledge management and practice innovation at Canadian law firm Fasken.

Alliston’s keynote, “Leading through Change, Complexity and Disruption,” will explore how visionary leaders navigate through significant changes, manage complexities, and confront uncertainty head-on. Her talk will include actual case studies, including a document management system project and a KM strategy initiative.

As I previously wrote here, this new two-day conference is devoted to knowledge management and innovation in the legal profession. It is being organized by Patrick DiDomenico, president and founder of InspireKM Consulting and former head of innovation and knowledge management at multiple law firms, and Joshua Fireman, president and founder of the strategic consulting firm Fireman & Company, an Epiq company.

It will include two keynote sessions, nine plenary sessions, five breakout sessions, and seven hours of networking.

[LawSites is a media partner for this event, and I will be onsite recording interviews for my LawNext podcast.]

In addition to the plenary session described above, eight other sessions span a variety of KM and innovation topics:

• Green Eggs and KM: Building a Firm-Wide KM Program From the Ground Up.
• Inside Innovation: Views From a Law Firm and In-House Legal Department.
• Getting Buy-In for Process Automation and Legal Tech Adoption.
• Building the Legal Practice of the Future: The Transformation of Gunderson’s Employment & Labor Group.
• No Hallucinations: Firms Share Actual AI Implementations.
• Help Me Help You: Becoming an Ideal Client for Your Vendors.
• Changing the Game: Lessons in Innovation from an American Classic.
• Smooth Transitions: Ensuring Effective Succession Planning In KM & Innovation Leadership.

There will also be five breakout sessions:

• C-Suite Roundtable.
• KM & Innovation 101 Roundtable.
• KM Attorney Roundtable.
• User Experience Roundtable.
• Practical Project Management Roundtable

Leading these various sessions is a line-up of speakers that includes a who’s who of innovation and KM leaders from leading law firms, as well as practicing attorneys, company founders and independent consultants.

Registration Discount for LawSites Readers

LawSites is a media partner for the conference, which means I am able to offer readers a 15% discount off the cost of registration.

To take advantage of this discount, use the code LAWSITES15.

Way back in the early days of the pandemic, when we were all still adjusting to a world of working from home and meeting via Zoom, we launched Legaltech Week, a weekly show in which a panel of journalists and bloggers gets together and discusses the top stories in legal tech and innovation.

Tomorrow, we are celebrating the 100th episode of that show, and I hope you will join us for a special gala edition, in which I’ve invited back everyone who has ever been a panelists.

Although we have a regular core of weekly panelists, the make-up has changed over the years, with the regulars coming and going, and others sitting in as frequent guest panelists. In tomorrow’s episode, 20 of us who have been panelists at one point or another will crowd into the Zoom window for an extended 90-minute episode.

The format will be slightly different from our usual. Rather than talk about the week’s top news, we’ll have a lightning round around the theme, “One Big Idea, One Small Change.” I’ll ask each panelist to share:

• One Big Idea: A major trend, story, or shift they’ve noticed in legal tech over the past few years, excluding AI and the pandemic.
• One Small Change: A subtle, perhaps overlooked, change that they think will have long-term implications.

Appropriately, the suggestion for that theme came from ChatGPT, via panelist Niki Black.

Panelists for tomorrow’s episode will be:

• Doug Austin.
• Niki Black
• Jeffrey Brandt
• Cassandre Coyer
• Stephen Embry
• Caroline Hill
• David Horrigan
• Victoria Hudgins
• Greg Lambert
• Joshua Lenon
• Steven Lerner
• Victor Li
• Isha Marathe
• Molly McDonough
• Jean O’Grady
• Joe Patrice
• Julie Sobowale
• Zach Warren
• Stephanie Wilkins

It is free to attend, but you need to pre-register if you haven’t already. You can do that right here. You can also:

• Subscribe for weekly email previews of show topics and recaps.
• Watch past episodes on YouTube.
• Get the Legaltech Week podcast.

Join us!

Jack Rives, who stepped down as executive director of the American Bar Association last February after 12 years in that role, has joined the legal services company Rocket Lawyer as president of a new business unit, Rocket Legal Professional Services, where he is now leading the company’s expansion of its delivery of more-affordable legal services through lawyers and legal professionals.

He will also oversee the company’s alternative business structure initiatives in the UK and as part of the Utah regulatory sandbox, seek ABS designation in Arizona, and play a key role in executing Rocket Lawyer’s plans to use artificial intelligence to accelerate lawyer productivity.

“His experience, along with the Rocket Lawyer natively digital legal services platform will rapidly scale the availability, responsiveness and affordability of qualified legal practitioners everywhere,” the company said in announcing the hire.

Ironically, while at the ABA, Rives spearheaded a partnership with Rocket Lawyer to launch ABA Law Connect, a test program of legal services for small business in three states. Under the program, small businesses could be connected with ABA member lawyers to ask legal questions for a fee of $4.95.

But just three months after launching the pilot program, the ABA shut it down, in response to vocal opposition from state and local bar associations, some of which claimed the program would take away business from their own lawyer referral services.

Do Something Meaningful

Founder and CEO Charley Moore.

It was through that partnership that Rives came to know Rocket Lawyer’s founder and CEO Charley Moore, and after Rives left the ABA and was exploring his options, Moore offered him the opportunity to take on this new role.

Listen: On LawNext: Rocket Lawyer Founder Charley Moore.

“When I left the American Bar Association, I wanted to do something that would be meaningful and have challenges, and this position certainly is both of those,” Rives told me during an interview Tuesday.

Before joining the ABA in 2010, Rives was a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force for 33 years. He was the acting Judge Advocate General of the Air Force from 2004 to 2006 and then Judge Advocate General until 2010. He was the first military attorney to attain the three-star rank of lieutenant general.

In that role, he came to appreciate how the military makes it easy for members, their families and retirees to access legal services, he told me. His time at the ABA helped him understand the challenges of similarly enhancing access to justice and making the law affordable and simple on a broader basis.

“Like me, Jack saw first-hand how much of a game changer access to a legal professional can be, when access is provided as a benefit,” Moore said in a statement. “His passion for promoting access to justice and improving the legal profession aligns seamlessly with Rocket Lawyer core values. We are excited to have him join our team.”

Expand Access to Lawyers

At Rocket Lawyer, he will be working to expand the number of lawyers it works with to deliver legal services as well as working to expand their capacity through technology and AI.

Rocket Lawyer is already licensed as an ABS in the U.K. and it was the first national company approved to operate under Utah’s regulatory sandbox, meaning it can directly employ lawyers in those jurisdictions.

It already has an extensive network of independent lawyers it works with through the United States.

Now, Rocket Lawyer will seek to be licensed as an ABS in Arizona, both to provide legal services directly in Arizona, and also with an eye to creating an operation there that will help the company build up its capacity to service clients elsewhere and develop operations for more effectively serving its clients.

“If I’m going to help a client in Oregon, I need to be licensed in Oregon,” Rives said. “But we’re also going to be looking at other possibilities that may present themselves to further advance the law in this area.”

“The ethical restrictions and professional responsibility rules were written decades ago. Is that really what we need in today’s world? … The law is conservative and it moves slowly, but there’s no question that technology has changed and the world is changing.”

AI to Enhance Capacity

Rocket Lawyer is also developing AI to enhance lawyers’ capacity to deliver legal help. “We’re going to be able to leverage an AI-hybrid model that’ll permit the lawyers to really focus on the higher level and the strategic work that only attorneys can do.”

As an example, he said that Rocket Lawyer’s AI will help users define the nature of their legal problem, saving the lawyer time otherwise spent refining the issue.

“A Rocket Lawyer member may believe they have a real estate problem, and as the generative AI helps define the issue, we find out it really is a tax problem at root.”

He expects that generative AI will also be able to generate the initial response to the client’s problem, subject to the lawyer’s review and editing. “But again, that saves the human element the time and saves the lawyer for what they’re best trained to do.”

Rives said that the ultimate goal of the new Rocket Legal Professional Services is to expand Rocket Lawyer’s network of attorneys so that it can be immediately responsive to consumers’ legal needs.

“Rocket Lawyer is proud of its responsiveness now, but what we intend to do is be that much more responsive. If you have an online question, we can respond really quickly. If you want to connect with a lawyer, we can connect you with a lawyer quickly.

“The AI will help us define the issues better and get started on the legal response, but it’s going to be the human element that will enable us to move forward most effectively.”

A Changing World

I asked Rives if Rocket Lawyer will be involved in lobbying for other states to adopt rule changes such as Arizona and Utah have done. He said that, while it may not be engaging in formal lobbying, it will be continuing to advocate for change “because we believe it’s important for the profession to move forward.”

“Everyone knows the world is changing. When I would talk to lawyers when I was at the American Bar Association and I would talk about change, everyone was all for change unless it affected them. Okay, well it’s going to affect you. It’s going to be a different world, and you can adapt to it.”

Of the organization he formerly ran, he said, “The American Bar Association needs to either lead or the ABA is going to wonder what happened. And the ABA still has time and still has the capability of leading in that area.”

Rocket Lawyer, by contrast, “wants to get the word out … we need to make the law more affordable, we need to make access to law simplified, we need to expand access to justice.”

Access to Justice Is Key

Although Rives had not previously spoken publicly about why he left the ABA, he told me that, when he took the ABA job, he never intended it to be his last, and that he had given the ABA leadership a year’s notice of his intent to leave after the midyear meeting in February. And although he considered other opportunism after leaving the ABA, Rocket Lawyer was the most appealing.

“This really is the next step of what I’ve been working on throughout my professional life, beginning in the military and then at the ABA. Rocket lawyer has a really good model. They want lawyers.”

In contrast to some companies that are pushing for people to practice law without a license, he said, “Rocket Lawyer wants people to understand you do need a lawyer. And we want to make them as accessible as possible. We want to make the process simple.”

“Access to justice really is key. And when we do it the right way, the public will benefit and the legal profession will benefit.”

It has been nearly a year and a half since Sheryl Hoskins joined Litera as its new CEO in April 2022. She came into that role following a period in which the company saw significant growth, fueled in part by a series of some 17 acquisitions, through which the company expanded from a primary focus on document technology into such areas as contract review, transaction management, firm intelligence, talent management, governance, and more.

Since then, she has continued to drive further growth, most recently laying out an ambitious strategy around generative AI that will bring a series of product releases and enhancements over the coming months. Today, Litera is a company with more than 2.3 million global users, nearly 1,000 global employees, and 15,000 global customers, including 99 of the Am Law 100 and 90% of the largest law firms worldwide.

Before coming to Litera, Hoskins had more than 20 years of experience in the global technology industry and an established track record managing global teams. She spent the first decade of her career at General Electric and McKesson Corp, where she held domestic and international leadership roles. Most recently, she was CEO of restaurant management platform Upserve. She also spent six years as an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army.

In her first-ever appearance on a podcast, Hoskins joins me to discuss her career, her decision to join Litera, the state of the company today, and her vision for its future.

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.

• Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
• Universal Migrator, the easiest way to move your firm’s data and documents from one app to another.
• Trial Pad, an easy-to-use app to organize, annotate, and present evidence

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

The e-discovery company CS Disco said today that Kiwi Camara, its cofounder, has decided to step down from his roles as chief executive officer and board member.

The company, which goes by the brand name DISCO, has named Scott Hill as interim CEO while the board of directors searches for a permanent successor. Hill has served as a member of DISCO’s board since June 2021 and was previously chief financial officer of Intercontinental Exchange.

The company said that Camara plans to make himself available to assist Hill during the transition.

The 39-year-old Camara made international news this summer when the Wall Street Journal reported that he earned almost $110 million last year — more than Apple CEO Tim Cook. That was based on $500,000 in salary and $109 million in stock options. The year before, he earned $1 million.

In July 2021, under Camara’s leadership, DISCO became one of just a handful of legal technology companies ever to go public, listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Camara, who was also the youngest-ever graduate of Harvard Law School, was on my LawNext podcast in 2021 where he shared his backstory and discussed DISCO’s  IPO.

Interim CEO Hill joined DISCO’s board of directors in June 2021. He has served as Chair of the Compensation Committee and as a member of the Audit Committee. Prior to joining DISCO, he CFO of Intercontinental Exchange from May 2007 to May 2021. Before that, Hill was an international finance executive for International Business Machines Corporation from 1991 to 2007.

“DISCO was founded on the idea that better technology can improve legal outcomes and improve the experience of practicing law,” Krishna Srinivasan, chair of DISCO’s board of directors, said in a statement. “Now, we look forward to continuing our technology leadership by applying the latest advances in AI to legal problems. We are grateful to Kiwi for his vision, passion, and dedication to DISCO over the past decade.”

Read more about DISCO in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory. 

The tag line on the website of Overture Law says, “Unlock hidden revenue in your practice.” But I think this actually undersells what Overture does. It is not so much that it helps you find revenue hidden in your practice, as that it helps you capture revenue you would never have had in the first place.

Most solo and small firm lawyers are fully familiar with the dilemma Overture aims to resolve. A client or former client comes to you with a legal problem outside your practice area or jurisdiction. You want to help the client to maintain that relationship, but you do not know another lawyer who fits the bill well enough to confidently make a referral.

Overture is a lawyer-to-lawyer referral platform that is designed to target this precise situation. It allows you to refer matters to vetted, qualified attorneys in various legal practice areas and ethically earn the associated referral fees.

It is a classic win-win: You have the satisfaction of helping your clients get the help they need and, at the same time, you generate extra income that you otherwise would have turned away at the door.

On top of that, when some other attorney in the network has that client come in with the matter they can’t handle, it just might get referred to you, and help grow your practice.

While there are other lawyer-to-lawyer referral platforms, Overture appears to be the first to place its focus on enabling the ethical sharing of referral fees among lawyers in smaller firms.

It was founded last year by Brian Liu, one of the original founders of LegalZoom and its chairman until 2018; Arya Firoozmand, a cofounder together with Liu of BizCounsel, a platform that provides subscription lawyers for small businesses; and Curt Brown, who was also a cofounder of BizCounsel.

Former founders and executives of LegalZoom also make up much of Overture’s advisory board, including LegalZoom cofounders Eddie Hartman and Brian Lee, its former general counsel Chas Rampenthal, its former vice president of legal and government affairs Ken Friedman, and its former vice president of attorney services Sally Robertson.

A Platform to Simplify Referrals

The idea for Overture came out of the pandemic, Firoozmand told me in an interview, when many solo and small firm lawyers were coming to BizCounsel asking for help in making referrals. They decided to build a platform that would make lawyer-to-lawyer referrals easier and that would facilitate the sharing of fees.

The platform allows attorneys to post referral requests and connect with vetted attorneys who meet the qualifications. It has billing features to make it easier to collect fees, trust accounting to manage client funds, and direct deposit of earned fees to both the referring and handling attorney.

“My philosophy in building this was  that this is an additive platform to your practice – this doesn’t replace anything you’re currently doing,” Firoozmand said. “So I needed to make it as simple as humanly possible, such that even if our service team wasn’t here to help you at any point in the process, you could figure it out.”

No Charge to Join

Last January, Overture started bringing lawyers onto the platform, on an invite-only basis. More recently, it began marketing to lawyers more broadly and is now accepting applications from any lawyer who is interested in participating. Its target market is lawyers who bill hourly or on a flat-fee basis, not those who charge contingency fees.

When I last spoke to Firoozmand, the platform had more than 300 lawyers on it and the company was working around the clock to review several hundred more applications it had received. Its coverage is deepest in states with the largest population centers, he said, but not yet deep enough in any one practice area or state to turn away qualified applicants.

Overture reviews attorneys to ensure that they have at least five years’ experience in a practice area, no bar complaints, and no negative online reviews. Those who pass that review are then interviewed by Overture’s membership staff.

Firoozmand said that they are looking for attorneys who are not only qualified, but who will be responsive and client-focused.

“If we care about the quality of the referrals, the quality of clients that we share, if we treat other people’s clients as we would our own, then we have a great community,” he said. “So far, we’ve been able to keep that going.”

There is no charge for an attorney to join the network. Overture makes its money by taking a percentage of the fee paid by the client. The attorney who handles the matter gets 65% of the fee, the referring attorney gets 15% and Overture gets 20%.

To address ethical issues, Overture is set up as a law firm in California, operating as the co-counsel liaison between lawyers who want to refer cases to other attorneys in different states and practice areas, while complying with state ethics laws. All of the trust accounting is done through Overture’s affiliated law firm.

(To read more about the ethics of all this, visit Overture’s knowledge base, which provides guides to the referral fee rules in every U.S. state except Hawaii and Wyoming, where the rules do not permit it to operate.)

Platform Handles Referrals and Billing

Once attorneys are accepted as part of the Overture network, they get access to the platform, where they can post referral requests using a simple form. Referrals are posted for only two reasons: The matter is outside the attorney’s practice area or it is outside the attorney’s jurisdiction.

Attorneys who match are notified of the listing and can reach out to the referring attorney to express their interest. The referring attorney makes the decision about which attorney, if any, gets the referral, and the referring attorney makes the introduction to the client.

When an attorney accepts a referral through Overture, the attorney uploads the attorney’s engagement agreement to send to the client for signature. Overture automatically attaches its addendum that contains the necessary client disclosures to allow for ethical referral fees.

Attorneys who accept referrals track their time within the platform. The handling attorney then invoices the client through the platform to a trust account managed by Overture’s law firm. When the fees are earned, Overture directly deposits them to the referring attorney and the handling attorney.

“The handling attorney doesn’t have to worry about cutting checks, or any of that part of it,” Firoozmand said. “It’s automatically taken care of and their funds are direct deposited to their bank account.”

Firoozmand believes that the experiences of him and his cofounders with BizCounsel and LegalZoom have enabled them to build a platform that serves a critical need for solo and small firm lawyers in an age of virtual lawyering.

“It’s amazing for me when I see somebody post a referral on Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon they’ve gotten two, three folks, and by Friday evening it’s on its way. I mean, that experience is world class regardless of what firm you’re at.”

[Disclosure: Overture Law is a paid sponsor of my LawNext podcast.]

Finalists have been named for the 2023 American Legal Technology Awards, which honor exceptional achievement in various aspects of legal technology.

Winners will be announced at a gala dinner at Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville on Oct. 8, the night before the Clio Cloud Conference starts at the same venue.

Use this link for a special discount code ($75 off) for LawSites readers. (LawSites is a media sponsor of the event.)

A panel of judges selected 30 finalists out of 190 submissions in 10 categories. They are:

The contract management company Ironclad today announced plans to launch a chat interface for complex contract analysis that it says will open a window into the black box of artificial intelligence by showing users the steps it took to come to a conclusion.

Ironclad also today introduced an open-source visual programming environment for building with generative AI and announced other new AI features and product updates.

The chat interface, called Ironclad Contract AI, or CAI — which happens to be the name of Ironclad’s cofounder and chief architect Cai GoGwilt — uses AI agents to break down complex, multi-step analyses into subtasks, and then using those subtasks to inform the next set of tasks.

It will launch in beta in October. Those interested can sign up now for the waitlist.

> Learn more about Ironclad in the LawNext Legal Technology Directory 

Where most generative AI is a black box, CAI is an open book, said Ironclad CEO and cofounder Jason Boehmig.

“The most legal chatbots have been able to do is return a raw list of results, which still require in-depth analysis by a lawyer. CAI is able to comb through a corpus of contracts and actually do the reasoning required to answer almost any contract-related question — showing you the steps it took to reach that conclusion — and handing that analysis back to your legal team. Where most generative AI is a black box, CAI is an open book.”

In an example provided by Ironclad, a user queries CAI, “For the last 5 sales orders, analyze their seat counts and break down by type.” As CAI prepares the answer, it shows the steps it is taking:

• Pulling up six types of contracts to analyze (such as Order Form, Enterprise Services Agreement, Data Processing Addendum).
• Reviewing data in those contracts for four properties: end date, expiration data, services end date, and agreement expiration date.
• Looking for key terms in contracts (such as expire, renew, 120 days, January 5, 2024).

It then provides the answer, a breakdown of seat counts by type (such as “Administrator Seat: 21,” “Standard Seat: 206”).

In another example, the user asks CAI to provide a chart of all contracts by governing law. In just moments, it shows a bar graph and count by state.

GoGwilt said that CAI can handle standard questions, such as identifying the total value of contracts in a certain jurisdiction, but can also answer more complex contracting questions, “in many cases providing answers you may have thought were not possible.”

“For instance, our team asked CAI to justify a pay raise — and it was able to not only comprehend the question, but deliver a compelling argument based on contract turnaround times, TCV metrics, number of contract terms, and more,” GoGwilt said.

Open Source Programming Environment

Also today, Ironclad announced the launch of Rivet, a collaborative, open-source visual programming environment for building generative AI products, fully available to the public. 

Rivet was built, in part, to expedite the development of CAI and enable step-by-step visibility into its process and analysis within the tool, Ironclad said. It allows developers to visualize and collaborate on building complex chains of logic, test and iterate on those products, and display the execution of the chain in real-time.

Ironclad said it is making Rivet available to the public after beta testing it for five months with partners such as AssemblyAI, Attentive, Bento, Willow, and Sourcegraph.

Other New Features

Ironclad today also announced new features focused on uploading contracts to its repository more quickly and easily, and extracting more data from those contracts. These include: 

• Import contracts via email. Forward contracts via email to a designated email address and Ironclad’s AI-powered Smart Import will automatically tag, index, and store those contracts in the repository.
• Extract data from legacy contracts. Users will be able to tag and extract metadata from contracts that were uploaded to the repository without Smart Import.
• Automatically identify discrepancies between metadata and contracts. Ironclad AI will detect whether metadata needs to be updated to reflect changes to a contract, whether from you or your counterparty. Users no longer need to manually track and compare metadata to contract text, so your process can be faster than ever.

The American Legal Technology Awards launched in 2020 with a mission to honor those innovating in the legal space. It was founded by three friends (a lawyer, a law professor, and a legal tech entrepreneur) and is truly a grassroots effort with a big heart. The Awards also boasts 28 world-class judges and 10 award categories, including lifetime achievement. Affectionately dubbed “Law Prom” or the “Oscars of Legal Innovation,” this awards dinner party promises an unforgettable experience that goes far beyond just another industry event.

Key Facts:

WHAT:            American Legal Technology Awards Gala
WHEN:            Sunday, October 8, 2023, 6-10 p.m. (the evening before ClioCon kicks off)
WHERE:          Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, 2800 Opryland Drive Nashville, TN 37214
TICKETS:        Special Discount Code ($75 Off) for LawSites Readers Only

Top 5 Reasons You Need to Attend

1. Right Place, Right Time: If you’re in Nashville for ClioCon and want to jumpstart your experience, the American Legal Technology Awards Gala is the evening before ClioCon and will turn your sleepy Sunday into a night to remember.
2. Celebrate Legal Innovation: Witness the recognition of the brightest stars in legal innovation, learn how they’re making a difference and applaud their dedication to pushing boundaries and driving positive change.
3. Networking Opportunities: The Awards brings together a who’s who of the legal innovation sphere, creating an unparalleled opportunity for attendees to connect, exchange ideas, and forge invaluable professional relationships.
4. Unforgettable Experience: From the red carpet moments to the camaraderie shared with like-minded peers, the Law Prom atmosphere adds an element of excitement, glamour, and inspiration to your innovation journey.
5. FOMO: You know you’re gonna regret it when you see the pictures and hear the stories of those who attended. Don’t miss out! This event will not be televised.

The American Legal Technology Awards is more than just an awards ceremony; it’s a convergence of innovation, celebration, and connection that defines the future of law. Join us and become a part of this transformative journey.

Buy your tickets now using this Special Discount Code ($75 Off) for LawSites Readers Only.

Cheers and hope to see you there!

Tom Martin, Cat Moon & Patrick Palace
Co-founders
American Legal Technology Awards

[LawSites is a media partner for the awards.]

Two litigation-focused Canadian legal technology companies, CiteRight and Jurisage, have merged, combining CiteRight’s litigation drafting program with Jurisage’s AI technology to create an integrated legal research and drafting solution.

Had you listened to my LawNext podcast last week, you would have already known this, as I interviewed CiteRight cofounder Ariel Nacson and Jurisage founder and CEO Colin Lachance as part of my series of interviews at ILTACON, where they revealed the news (starting at 27:57 in the recording).

CiteRight is software that helps lawyers save cases from online legal databases and then makes them available directly within Microsoft Word. The user can then click the case to cite it automatically, formatted in proper citation style. It also generates tables of authority and keeps copies of all the cases used in document so they are available later on.

Jurisage is an AI-powered tool that helps legal professionals more easily perform research across legal research platforms. Its MyJr browser extension works on any web page to deliver case law insights directly into the user’s workflow, allowing the user to simply hover over any citation to quickly understand the cited case.

AltaML, an AI development company that is a cofounder of Jurisage through its venture studio, will continue to support the new company through technical and back office services.

CiteRight’s cofounder and CEO Aaron Wenner will remain CEO of the combined company. Lachance, Jurisage’s cofounder, will take on the role of chief innovation officer. The executive team will also include Nacson as chief customer officer and Juliano Rabelo as chief technology officer.

“We’re thrilled about what this merger means for our customers,” said Wenner, a lawyer and self-taught coder. “From extending CiteRight capabilities to opposing party pleadings, seamless knowledge extraction and enrichment, and dynamic access to relevant case law suggestions and analysis — we’ve heard what they want, and through this merger, we’re responding.”

Coincidentally, both Jurisage and CiteRight were finalists in the 2023 Startup Alley at ABA Techshow, which I oversee.

Lachance, who was CEO of CanLII from 2011 to 2015 and interim general manager for North America at vLex from 2018 to 2020, said he and Wenner have known each other for years and looked for opportunities to collaborate.

“We were both pleased to participate in the Startup Alley at TECHSHOW in March,” Lachance told me, “and while not directly a catalyst for merger discussions, it’s probably fair to say that we each came away from that event with a better sense of what it would take to succeed and the experience and customer feedback since that time helped us recognize the potential of pursuing the opportunity as a single company.”

The companies said that the merger will enrich CiteRight’s Microsoft Word-based platform with Jurisage’s AI capabilities, enabling users to access and cite a wide range of resources, such as case law, pleadings, affidavits, and submissions, all in one place, thereby making it easier for them to draft legal documents.

“From the first development of our earliest AI-powered prototypes, customers asked about our plans to integrate with CiteRight,” said Lachance. “As our suite of services expanded from research insights to interactive knowledge assets and deep legal research accelerators, our goal was to ensure we built with the users preferred workflow in mind.”

The companies expect to complete the merger by year end.

Recently in Orlando, Fla., at ILTACON, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association, I recorded a series of brief live interviews with some of the legal tech companies that were in attendance. Last week on my LawNext podcast, we featured the first set of those interviews – with 12 of the legal tech startups that were participating in ILTACON’s Startup Hub. This week, we are featuring interviews with some of the established legal tech companies that were attending the conference.

 In these 11 short interviews, we speak with:

• David Wong, chief product officer, Thomson Reuters.

• Mike Fouts, chief business officer, ShareFile.

• Carol Lynn Grow, co-owner and COO, LawToolBox.

• Ted Theodoropoulus, CEO, Infodash.

• Jerry Levine, chief evangelist and general counsel at ContractPodAI.

• Monica Harris, product business manager, Cellebrite Enterprise Solutions.

• Ahmed Shaaban, cofounder and managing director, Fulcrum Global Technologies.

• Hossein Jabbar, CEO, PaayaTech.

• Richard Sayles, head of data analytics, Sapling Data.

• Michael Murray, director of technology, Veritext.

• Daniel Bonner, director of client solutions, Level Legal.

Be sure to also listen to last week’s interviews with the legal tech startups.

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.

• Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.

• Universal Migrator, the easiest way to move your firm’s data and documents from one app to another.

• Overture.Law, The first attorney-to-attorney referral platform that lets you easily generate referral fees for clients you can’t serve.

• Trial Pad, an easy-to-use app to organize, annotate, and present evidence

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Businesses spend significant time, money and effort negotiating that most-common of contracts – the non-disclosure agreement. With the goal of simplifying and standardizing those business dealings, the non-profit organization oneNDA developed an open-source NDA that, since its launch in 2021, has been adopted by more than 1,000 companies, including American Express, Google, Novartis and Panasonic.

Now, oneNDA is hoping to spur even more widespread adoption through the launch of AutoNDA, a free software platform to automate the creation and management of NDAs under the oneNDA standard, designed in partnership with SimpleDocs, a legal tech startup that is developing contract automation solutions.

Available starting Sept. 15, AutoNDA will be available free to anyone who adopts the oneNDA standard. Those interested can now sign up for access to the software through the SimpleDocs website.

“It was always our vision for oneNDA to be more than just an open-source standard, but an end-to-end workflow to streamline the entire NDA process,” said Electra Japonas, the London-based creator of oneNDA and also the CEO and c0founder of The Law Boutique (TLB), a company that provides outsourced contracts and legal operations services to corporate law departments.

“We found a great partner in SimpleDocs to develop and power a software platform around our standard template,” said Japonas, who cofounded oneNDA together with her TLB cofounder Roisin Noonan. “They also share our vision to make oneNDA the de facto global standard, and by offering the AutoNDA platform for free to our adopters, they are helping us pursue that vision.”

Automating the Standard

Last week, Preston Clark, CEO and cofounder of SimpleDocs (as well as of the contract database site Law Insider), gave me a demonstration of AutoNDA, joined by SimpleDocs cofounders Jordan Trevino, chief technology officer, and Ali Waqar, chief operating officer.

“Thousands of companies have decided to adopt oneNDA,” Clark told me. “It is a well-adopted standard and now we are delivering a product for the current adopters and adopters into the future.”

As for creating the application, he said, it was helped by the fact that the standard was already well-structured and designed for automation.

“Electra and team have created a globally recognized standard in oneNDA and we’re absolutely honored to power the software that automates it,” he said.

The first time someone uses AutoNDA, it takes just a few moments for them to complete the initial set up. The first step is for the user to configure the oneNDA variables. Since the whole idea of oneNDA is keep variables to a minimum, there are only five that the user can configure:

• The parties to the NDA.
• The purpose of the NDA.
• The length of the confidentiality agreement.
• The governing law should a dispute arise.
• The method of dispute resolution – court or arbitration – and jurisdiction.

Once set up, those variables (other than counter-party) will be retained for subsequent NDA requests within that organization.

The next step is for the user to connect an e-signature tool. It currently integrates with Docusign and Dropbox Sign, with others to be added.

The user would next decide whether to promote AutoNDA as a self-service option within the organization. AutoNDA allows the user to share a link via email, Slack, or Teams to allow anyone in initiate NDA requests on a self-serve basis, with no concerns about cost, since the application is free.

Once that much is set up, the user and the counter-party are then able to manage the negotiations directly within the AutoNDA platform. In this free version, only the oneNDA variables are subject to negotiation. Any redlining beyond that takes it out of oneNDA — and out of AutoNDA — and into traditional redlining. (SimpleDocs offers a paid Word add on for standard contract redlining.)

When all parties reach agreement, the NDA is routed to each for signature, ending with the user who initiated the process. The final agreement is retained in the AutoNDA Repository, where users can search for and track in-progress, signed and expired NDAs.

The free version of AutoNDA will include:

• Unlimited NDA requests.
• Unlimited business user licenses.
• NDA repository and search access.
• NDA request portal for sales and business teams.
• Docusign and Dropbox Sign integration.
• Custom oneNDA configurations.
• Same-day onboarding and implementation.

“We believe that in-house teams that adopt open-source standards like oneNDA are more likely to adopt software that automates these templates,” Clark said. “Electra and team have created a globally recognized standard in oneNDA, and we are absolutely honored to power the software that automates it.”

Standardizing NDAs

Japonas was inspired to create oneNDA in the midst of the Covid crisis, when demand for her company’s contract services quadrupled. During that time, she found, 63% of the agreements TLB reviewed for clients were NDAs but they accounted for only 7% of its revenue.

“It was clear that the sheer volume of contracts that we were processing and the cost, time and effort involved was  disproportionate to the value they were adding or bringing, to anyone,” she said.

Given that most NDAs are more or less the same, she wondered why everyone couldn’t agree to use a standard template. She put the idea out on LinkedIn, and it generated more than 30,000 views and messages of support from lawyers all over the world.

She put together a steering committee of lawyers from major companies and law firms that helped oversee development of an initial NDA, starting with one developed by World Commerce & Contracting, an international contracting standards organization.

By June 2021, they had developed the initial version and then turned to operationalizing the usage of the oneNDA template and driving adoption. The formally launched version one in August 2021. In March 2022, they release a second version.

oneNDA is not alone in seeking to promote a standard NDA. Other companies that have developed standardized, open-source NDA templates include CommonPaper, Bonterms and Standard Draft.

But a key difference between oneNDA and these others, Japonas told me, is that oneNDA is not negotiable beyond the five variables. “We are like the Apple to their Android — you are not allowed to negotiate it. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for you.”

Both Japonas and Preston believe that other business agreements are susceptible to standardization as they have done with oneNDA. Already, the oneNDA organization has developed a oneNDA module specific to M&A matters, and it has also launched oneDPA for standardizing data protection agreements.

“Around 90% of all agreements are made up of boilerplate,” Japonas said. “There is so much we could do here.”

Actionstep, a cloud-based law practice management platform, has acquired the Australian practice management company FilePro and its 4,000 law firm customers in Australia.

While both companies primarily serve mid-sized law firms, FilePro was developed as an on-premises product and has been exploring the development of a cloud product.

This deal will accelerate the availability of cloud technology to FilePro’s customers, the two companies said in announcing the deal.

Want to learn more about Actionstep? Check it out in the Law Next Legal Tech Directory. 

Actionstep, founded in New Zealand in 2004, says it now has 28,000 users worldwide, including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

It has close to 1,000 customers and in the U.S., where last year it opened a U.S. headquarters in Denver. Its CEO, Early Stephens, who succeeded founder Ted Jordan last year, is based in the Denver office.

In October 2020, it announced that it had received an investment from Serent Capital, a San Francisco private equity firm focused on investing in high-growth technology and services businesses, that gave Serent a controlling interest in the company. 

In 2022, Actionstep acquired the Australian practice management company LawMaster.

“We are excited to join forces with FilePro, who have an impressive history in the Australian legaltech space,” David Hepburn, Actionstep global president, said in a statement. “Together we offer customers and team members an opportunity to be part of a global business and an exciting future technology investment plan.”

Yesterday, I reported here on the acquisition by global e-discovery company Reveal of two other leading e-discovery companies, Logikcull and IPRO, in a deal valued at more than $1 billion.

Today, some of the employees of those acquired companies began receiving layoff notices. A Reveal spokesperson declined to provide the number of employees impacted, but said that the majority of both companies’ employees are staying on.

That there would be some layoffs was not unanticipated. In my report yesterday on the acquisition, I asked a Reveal spokesperson whether all employees of both companies would stay on.

“As you know, acquisitions of this magnitude bring about changes, especially when there are inevitable areas of duplication,” she answered. “Merging operations will obviously require eliminating some redundancies, but Reveal is committed to welcoming Logikcull and IPRO employees fully on-board.”

One source told me today that the layoffs at IPRO were widespread, but Reveal denies this, telling me that the majority of employees are staying on. “For the majority of Logikcull and IPRO employees, we fully welcome them to Reveal,” the spokesperson said.

For those who have been laid off, she said, the company is providing them with severance packages based on their tenure and with various outplacement resources.

If you missed our Legaltech Week show Friday in which we shared our takeaways from ILTACON, worry not. The full video is available below.

Our show is live every Friday at 3 p.m. ET and also available after the fact as an audio podcast and in video. Here are the links to know:

• Sign up for the free weekly live webinar.
• Subscribe for weekly email previews of show topics and recaps.
• Watch past episodes on YouTube.
• Get the Legaltech Week podcast.

I am just back from Orlando, Florida, where I attended ILTACON, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association. Mic in hand, I recorded a series of brief interviews with some of the legal tech companies that were in attendance. Over the next two episodes of my LawNext podcast, I will share those interviews, starting today with the legal tech startups at ILTACON.

Once again this year, the conference featured a Startup Hub in the exhibit hall, where 27 startups had booths showing their products. Although time did not permit me to interview all 27, I did have the opportunity to speak briefly with a dozen of them. Today’s episode features those 12 brief interviews. I speak with:

• Joshua Aaron, CEO and cofounder, Aiden Technologies.
• Anthony Seale, CEO, Legatics.
• Yannic Kilcher, cofounder and CTO, DeepJudge.
• James Ding, CEO and cofounder, DraftWise.
• William Dougherty, cofounder, Capacity.
• Horace Wu, CEO and founder, and Paul Farrell, director of customer success, Syntheia.
• Noah Wittman, cofounder and  CEO of Priviom.
• Ariel Nacson, cofounder and chief customer officer, CiteRight, together with Colin LaChance, CEO, Jurisage Inc.
• Mat Rotenberg, cofounder and CEO, Dashboard Legal.
• Yohei Fujii, cofounder and CEO, BoostDraft.
• Floor Blindenbach, founder and CEO, Organizing4Innovation. 
• Julien Steel, head of product, Henchman. 

In the next episode, I’ll feature interviews with some of the established legal tech companies that were there. 

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.

• Nota, the online business banking platform designed specifically for solo and small law firms.
• Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
• Universal Migrator, the easiest way to move your firm’s data and documents from one app to another.

If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

The e-discovery landscape will be needing a new map after the global e-discovery company Reveal said today that it has acquired two other leading e-discovery companies, Logikcull and IPRO.

The combination of the three companies, Reveal said, will create the first end-to-end e-discovery platform that addresses matters of all sizes and for all legal teams, from solo legal practitioners to the largest enterprise.

The transactions are together valued at more than $1 billion, Reveal said. They were funded by Reveal’s majority shareholder, the software investment firm, K1 Investment Management.

“The combination integrates Logikcull and IPRO’s unique capabilities with Reveal’s proven AI prowess to create an all-in-one hub of e-discovery tools for matters of any size and scope,” the announcement said.

“From self-service offerings for smaller cases to enterprise-grade solutions for complex legal challenges, Reveal now stands as the go-to partner for automating the practice of law.”

These acquisitions follow the 2021 merger of Reveal and Brainspace, backed by a $200 million investment by K1. That deal, the company said at the time, made it the leading AI-powered e-discovery platform.

Asked whether all employees and executives of both companies will stay on, a Reveal spokesperson said, “As you know, acquisitions of this magnitude bring about changes, especially when there are inevitable areas of duplication. Merging operations will obviously require eliminating some redundancies, but Reveal is committed to welcoming Logikcull and IPRO employees fully on-board.”

Happy Anniversary

As it happens, this year is Logikcull’s 10th anniversary. As cofounder and CEO Andy Wilson told me on my LawNext podcast in May, he and CTO Sheng Yang founded the company with the goal of automating and democratizing e-discovery.

It was one of the first cloud-based e-discovery platforms and, while its customers span law firms of all sizes, government agencies, and corporate legal departments, its automation features have made it popular among lawyers in smaller firms.

Reveal says that by integrating Logikcull’s self-service functionality into its ecosystem, it can now offer the most advanced automation capabilities in the industry. Logikcull’s functionality enables users to efficiently handle simpler cases in-house, while its own platform enables users to tackle more complex litigation matters.

The combination of the three companies also enables Reveal to cover every stage of the e-discovery process, from data collection and processing to review and analysis, it says.

IPRO is one of the few companies that covers the full EDRM spectrum, from information governance and legal holds all the way through to document review, production and trial.

IPRO made two notable acquisitions in recent years, first of the information governance company NetGovern in 2020 and then of the e-discovery company ZyLAB in 2021.

Range of Choice

“The acquisitions of Logikcull and IPRO build on Reveal’s growth strategy of integrating the best and most useful technologies into one platform so customers have greater choice and control over their e-discovery workflows,” Wendell Jisa, Reveal’s founder and CEO, said in the statement announcing the acquisition.

“By bringing together the strengths of all three companies, including Logikcull’s intuitive, easy-to-use functionality and IPRO’s global reach and information governance tools, Reveal is now able to serve the diverse needs of clients across the legal spectrum, from SMB to mid-market and enterprise.”

With the combination of these three companies, Reveal will now have employees located in more than two dozen countries, serving a customer base of over 4,000 clients.

Reveal says that day-one benefits to its customers include:

• Providing a greater range of choice. “The acquisition of Logikcull allows Reveal to offer both down-market and enterprise customers multiple e-discovery options to appropriately address the scale and complexity of any legal case, ensuring optimal efficiency and cost-effectiveness.”
• Democratizing e-discovery. “Reveal is the only legal technology company to democratize e-discovery for all legal matters, offering any business – whether small or large – access to its leading AI-powered solutions.”
• Global expansion and access. “The acquisition of IPRO enables Reveal to introduce its AI technology to a new client base across the globe.”
• Comprehensive AI-powered platform. “Reveal has created a complete ecosystem for the legal industry with solutions ranging from information governance, early case assessment, legal hold, and collection to processing, document review, and trial presentation – all ultimately underpinned by one of the most powerful AI engines in legal technology.”
• Customized e-discovery experience. Reveal’s expanded team of e-discovery experts ensures that clients receive tailored solutions and guidance to navigate complex litigation challenges. Together with Logikcull and IPRO, Reveal continues to foster a culture of innovation and collaboration with its customers, pushing the boundaries of legal automation.”

“These two acquisitions are a continuation of our commitment to bring together the best technologies and people to propel the practice of law into a new era,” said Tarun Jain, principal at K1. “With this combination, legal professionals will only have to look to one company to solve all their e-discovery needs.”