The In-House Counsel’s Legal Tech Buyer’s Guide 2018 launched this week reflects a period of massive disruption in the $600 billion global legal services market.
Here are three charts that show the unstoppable growth of legal technology taken from the 80+ page free analysis of 130+ legal tech players transforming the profession. To see the full guide and charts, download the free book here.
1. AI: From Buzzword to Bulwark
The rapid adoption of AI for in-house legal counsel reflects the appetite for lawyers to automate processes and devote more time to more valuable (and interesting) work. There has been an increase of 65% in legal tech companies utilizing AI compared to our corresponding study last year (there are now 67 legal AI players, according to the above chart).
The current applications of AI in daily legal work includes everything from drafting and reviewing contracts, mining documents in discovery and due diligence, answering routine questions or sifting data to predict outcomes.
The players include a raft of agile and well-funded startups, but a key theme is that established players are also joining the playing field. LexisNexis has offered new AI solutions (Lexis Answers), and Bloomberg Law’s AI-driven solution Points of Law debuted in 2018, making legal research a particularly tightly contested field among providers.
2. Funding Growth for Legal Technology
Legal tech in 2017 saw $233 million in investments in companies across 61 deals, edging ahead of 2016 with $224 million in investments across 79 deals. Funding for disrupting the legal profession continues to flourish in 2018, as shown in the graphic above. Investment site Crunchbase found that legal tech startups raised $1.25 million in Q1 2017, compared to over $49 million in just the first month of 2018 alone.
3. Mergers and Acquisitions
Notable consolidations in the past 12 months covered the whole legal technology spectrum. In legal research, Fastcase acquired Docket Alarm, and Ravel was acquired by legal research giant LexisNexis. In litigation management, Integreon bought cloud-based litigation management platform Allegory. In IP, Boston-based Anaqua merged with California-based Lecorpio. In eDiscovery, an established pattern of consolidation continued. In the contract management space, document management platform iManage’s acquisition of the RAVN AI engine has shown significant benefits in integrating AI into a document management system. This year, e-signature leader DocuSign filed for an IPO, a success story for other legal technology companies to emulate.
- 130+ top technology solutions, recommended by the world’s leading legal departments
- The definitive step-by-step guide on buying legal tech from Lucy Bassli, former Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft
- First-person accounts from law departments including Facebook, Google, NetApp, McDonald’s, AIG, Twitter, Barclays, PepsiCo, Walmart, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, Uber, and many more
- In-depth analysis of leading players in 16 categories of legal technology, including Contract Drafting, Contract Management, eDiscovery, Legal Research, Communications, matter management, e-Discovery, and Digital Signature.
- Jargon-free explanation of legal “buzzwords” — including artificial intelligence, legal operations, blockchain, and the cloud.
- Learn from other experts’ experiences and keep this buyer’s guide handy to help you navigate the latest legal tech products.
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