Your time is short. This quick read gives you 5 things you need to know from LegalTech in the past seven days.
1
Legalweek Big Announcements
Legalweek 2018 is the biggest legal conference of the year, with more than 9,000 attendees. In a much-anticipated announcement, Ross Intelligence used the stage to announce the arrival of EVA, a new (and free) case analysis system. In a detailed piece, top legal blogger Bob Ambrogi said: “I cannot imagine ever again filing a brief or reviewing an opponent’s brief without running it through EVA.” Meanwhile, US-based document management company, NetDocuments, announced a proof of concept of an integration of its cloud platform with a blockchain system. In the legal expertise automation sector, Neota Logic announced major enhancements to its “no-code” intelligent automation of legal expertise and processes.
ROSS Unveils EVA, A Free AI Tool To Analyze Briefs, Check Cites and Find Similar Cases
"I can’t imagine why a lawyer wouldn’t use EVA to analyze a brief"#legaltech #A2J #lawyers #lawstudentshttps://t.co/KaSfdtDbOh pic.twitter.com/ZGVa4NoXJS
— Andrew Arruda (@AndrewArruda) February 3, 2018
If you want to catch up on any of the best LegalTech from the show, check out for (free)The In-House Counsel’s LegalTech Buyer’s Guide
2
$50M Funding
There was also the small matter of 50M investment in LegalTech, mostly in eDiscovery. CS Disco behind DISCO, announced a $20M equity financing, with Bessemer Venture Partners leading the round. Not to be outdone, Logikcull raised $25 million, announced by CEO Andy Wilson, with New Enterprise Associates leading the round, with participation from OpenView Venture Partners and Storm Ventures (Logikcull, grew its customer base by 500% in 2017). Meanwhile, Barcelona-based Onna Technologies, a “knowledge integration” platform for corporate legal departments, announced a $5 million funding round, led by Nauta Capital. Onna clients include Facebook who use it to instantly access any type of information, whether it is contracts, chat conversations or pictures, by connecting all their data sources into one central platform.
Read also Seeking Alpha: Billion Dollar Unicorns: Will DocuSign Cave In To Potential Buyers
3
Lawyer for Angelina Jolie and Britney joins LegalTech
Our founder, #LauraWasser sat down with CBC Radio to talk about her mission to make divorce easier & less expensive. https://t.co/Vcs3IR1Oqb pic.twitter.com/8PbwyCuT6e
— it's over easy (@itsovereasy) July 18, 2017
Divorce attorney to the stars, Laura Wasser, has joined the ranks of LegalTech, creating a site to help people get divorced more easily. It’s Over Easy promises to take clients, initially in California and New York only, through the entire divorce process. The New York Times reports: “More curiously, it was founded not by some fly-by-night 1-800-SPLIT-NOW type but by Laura Wasser, the affluent Beverly Hills-adjacent lawyer who has represented Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, Jennifer Garner and Christina Aguilera, among other famous clients.” Wasser told CNN “I tell people all the time, ‘You shop online, you bank online, you even date online and that may even be how you guys met,” she said. “So, you might as well give us a try.” In Forbes, Cheryl Conner says: “While the average American divorce costs anywhere from $15-20,000, visitors can access the content on it’s over easy for free. Downloading info into the forms is $750. A session with a professional mediator via facetime or live chat will bring the total to $1,500 for 30 minutes or $2,500 for an hour, plus state and processing fees.”
4
The Big Robot fight (well, kind of)
Back to Legalweek, soon after the launch of EVA (see Note 1), a leading competitor in the space of case analysis, Jake Heller of CaseText, laid down a gauntlet. He challenged Ross Intelligence’s CEO, Andrew Arruda to a robot fight between CaseText’s CARA (Case Analysis Research Assistant)) and those of Ross’s new contender, EVA. Though the Ross Intelligence team did not show up, the test went ahead anyway (full story told here by Joe Patrice, in Above the Law “Legalweek Robot Fight Was Mayweather-Pacquiao For AI Case Briefing Software”). For Jake Heller, writing his scorecard of the battle in Artificial Lawyer, “the robot fight was a win for CARA – but mostly for lawyers”.
5.
Tech shines light on Gender diversity
Gender diversity was one of the main themes at Legalweek. However, the power of LegalTech to shine light on the problem also emerged. In a piece in the ABA Journal, Michael Sander, founder of Docket Alarm (recently bought by Fastcase), shows that 55 of the top 100 law firms had less than 10% of their attorney appearances made by women. Eight of the top 100 firms never had a single woman on any of their cases. In patent court, 12 percent of court appearances were made by women.
Read also: Sarah Glassmeyer: Diversity Matters in Legal Tech
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The Blurb: A curated mix of articles worth sharing in the past week.
Top 10 Tweets from Legalweek 2018
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