March 11, 2024 -- Issue #280

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Hi, Charlie Uniman here, host of Legal Tech StartUp Focus ("LTSF"), the online community for everyone involved with legal tech startups. You're reading the latest digest of articles, opinion pieces, and other thoughts posted during the past week at the community.
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If you enjoy reading this digest, please forward it to others with an interest in legal tech startups. Readers who aren't already members of the LTSF community and who wish to join can do so here. Please do send me feedback here with any questions, comments or other ideas for this digest . If you're not already a subscriber to this newsletter and would like to subscribe, please email me here to join the subscriber list.
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Conferences and Other Events

-- Friend of LTSF, Russ Korins of the NYC-based Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner law firm, is participating in a webinar on March 19, 2024 from 12:00 pm to 12:45
Pm ((Eastern) that his firm is hosting and that addresses how leaders (including, of course, legal tech startup leaders) can minimize future problems by thinking proactively about three legal areas important to small businesses.
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More at the attached explainer.
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Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f80RpIHGQMGMMFyB5vSurg​
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Fundraising

-- What makes for a good, bad or great angel investor - from a founder’s viewpoint? https://sifted.eu/articles/angel-code-investors​

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-- From the Axios “Pro Rata” newsletter: “Legitify, a Swedish online notarization startup, raised €1.5m in seed funding led by Verb Ventures. https://axios.link/4ca3nh1 "

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JusticeTech/A2J

-- As the LawSites blog reports: “Back in 2018, something remarkable happened. The Caselaw Access Project [CAP], part of Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab [LIL], completed its three-year project to digitize all U.S. case law — some 6.4 million cases dating all the way back to 1658, a span of 360 years.”

As also reported, contractual restrictions that restricted commercial use of CAP’s output expire this month [March 2024]. So, why not celebrate the lifting of this restrictions. And that’s what LIL is doing by “hosting Transform: Justice at the Harvard Law School on March 8, 2024.”

More information and access to the event’s livestream here: https://www.lawnext.com/2024/03/event-tomorrow-marks-the-end-of-commercial-restrictions-on-the-caselaw-access-project-that-digitized-all-u-s-case-law.html​

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LegalEd

-- Excellent piece about GenAI prompting - why GenAI chatbots sometimes matters greatly (and why it may not in the future), how model-dependent prompting can be, how to improve at prompting, how quirky prompting may be and more. https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/captains-log-the-irreducible-weirdness​

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-- Bloomberg reports on a Delaware court’s recent corporate law ruling involving investment bank Moelis & Co.: “Moelis Ruling Sharpens Focus on Private Equity Veto Agreements.”

Venture investors should very much mindful of this decision too. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/moelis-veto-ruling-sharpens-focus-on-private-equity-veto-pacts​

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Member Introductions/Questions

-- Community member, Nader Karayanni, posts: "We are looking for 1-2 attorneys who practice medical malpractice cases for early access to our product.

We are still in stealth, opening up two spots to access our product. Our product will help in the first stage of the medical records review for negligence. (before doctor's review)

Ideally, we're looking for attorneys with at least 20 med-mal inbounds monthly. Our platform is compliant with HIPAA and the cost will be low, our motivation is to learn from feedback and the cost will only be to cover compute expenses. Reach out at: nader.karayanni@newcase.ai​

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-- LTSF'er, Thibo Couscheir, posts: "Law Student and legal tech enthusiast. Eager to see legaltech startups grow and watching innovations closely since I believe that legal professions will be dramatically impacted in a positive way!"
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Partnerships/Business Development​
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-- Silicon Valley startup Traact (https://www.traact.com/), a cloud-based legal tech platform, announced a new strategic partnership with Klea (https://klealegal.com/), a Belgium-based AI-enabled legal entity management company. The partnership combines Traact’s tech-first U.S. acumen with Klea’s tech-enabled professional services and international reach to benefit clients in North and South America, EMEA, and APAC.”
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More details in the press release that can be accessed here: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/52291495?utm_source=manual​

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Product Development

-- Dan Katz of 273 Ventures posts about his company's Kelvin large language model: "The Kelvin Legal Large Language (KL3M)Toxicity analysis is now on GitHub — Read more in Jill's post or check the GitHub repo here: https://lnkd.in/dc2h8KYm​
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"Note: Toxicity research generally involves reading language that is offensive or harmful. It unfortunately goes with the territory and is particularly bad when a foundational model has a diet of Reddit and 4Chan. Thankfully, we do not rely on those source materials for our Kelvin Legal LLM and it really shows in this analysis!" https://www.linkedin.com/posts/daniel-katz-3b001539_which-of-these-models-would-you-trust-to-activity-7170415857297289216-Mhdo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop​

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-- From the good folks at Henchman:
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“Henchman announced a first-of-its-kind Microsoft Copilot integration.
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“Link to the press release: https://henchman.io/blog/microsoft-copilot-integration-announcement​
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“The benefits of Henchman’s Microsoft Copilot integration:
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“Quickly surface clauses and definitions stored in your Document Management System, along with their contextual data, when prompting in Microsoft Copilot
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“Easily determine the best precedent for your negotiation with quick access to the source document
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“Knowledge managers can ensure the right practice groups have access to the right sources, with the help of mirrored user permissions from your Document Management System.
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“Availability
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“Similar to Microsoft Copilot’s availability for the general audience, Henchman’s Microsoft Copilot integration is now available via early access for early adopters of Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft Teams. As Microsoft is gradually rolling out Copilot across its suite of products, Henchman will follow this same rollout cadence.
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“The integration is available free of charge to all Henchman customers.
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“Want to learn more? On March 14th, we're co-hosting a webinar together with Microsoft & iManage on the topic: https://henchman.io/webinar-unlocking-copilot”​

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-- Yes this piece is authored by writers who work at an ALSP. However, don’t let that fact lead you to dismiss the thoughtful imagining of the future of legal practice found here.
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From this premise: “Law firms of the future and ALSPs will ultimately converge under a unified ideology, even if the terminology remains the same due to ownership laws,” much worthwhile thinking follows. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/03/06/law-firms-and-alsps-share-the-same-destiny/​

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-- “Thor Alden, associate director of innovation at Dechert, recently sat down with Legaltech News to provide an inside look at some of the DechertMind tools, discuss the broader processes that went into building these tools, and explain the decision-making behind building generative AI tools rather than buying them off the shelf.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/03/05/inside-dechertmind-a-proprietary-suite-of-gen-ai-tools-for-law-firm-work/​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

-- LTSF’er Ryan Alshak, CEO of Laurel, introduces himself by posting:
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“I'm the founder/CEO of Laurel, the first company to apply AI to timesheets in professional services. We are working with AmLaw 200, Magic Circle, and Big-4 clients to automate time entry — resulting in more profit for the firm and less time for our professionals. Feel free to email me at <a href="mailto:ryan@laural.ai">ryan@laurel.ai</a> if you are at a law or accounting firm above 50 fee-earners and would like to see Laurel (and its ROI) in action." https://www.laurel.ai​

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-- From Stephen Embry, lawyer and publisher of TechLaw Crossroads:
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“. . . when I recently attended a conference of top trial lawyers (and only lawyers), I fully expected the same [as what I saw at CES, Legalweek and the ABA TECHSHOW]: lawyers gushing over what Gen AI could do and how they were using it every day.
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“Boy, I was in for a dose of reality. Most of the lawyers I talked to at the conference had not adopted Gen AI tools. Most had little familiarity with what it could do, how it works, and how they could be affected by it. Most of them were genuinely frightened about using Gen A . . . ”
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Paraphrasing cyberpunk writer,
William Gibson: The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. https://www.techlawcrossroads.com/2024/03/gen-ai-in-law-a-lawyer-reality-check/​

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-- “Silicon Valley-founded ‘invoice-to-cash’ startup Oddr is expanding into the APAC region with law firm consultancy firm Pickering Pearce as its implementation partner in the region.” https://legaltechnology.com/2024/03/05/oddr-expands-into-apac-with-pickering-pearce-as-implementation-partner/​

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-- Aderant announced today [March 5, 2024] (see the press release at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/52064607?utm_source=manual) that it has 170 Expert Sierra clients (Expert Sierra being the cloud-based version of Aderant’s legal practice management solution, Aderant Expert.
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Good to see increased cloud usage by major law firms.

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-- As Clio puts it: “From now until April 30, 2024, law firms dissatisfied with their current legal practice management software and bound by long-term contracts can reach out to Clio to help cover the remaining cost of their contract — with a credit of up to 6 months of free Clio software . . . “
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More details at the link (as is often said “terms and conditions apply”). https://www.lawnext.com/2024/03/stuck-in-a-long-term-contract-with-a-practice-management-vendor-clio-offers-to-buy-you-out.html

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-- Legaltech News interviews with Jake Heller and Pablo Arredondo, leaders TR’s Casetext and winners of the “Innovators of the Year (Individual)” award at Legalweek 2024. A very worthwhile read not only about Casetext (particularly its early days in GenAI), but also about GenAI-in-legal and legal tech more generally. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/03/05/innovators-of-the-year-individual-provider-jake-heller-pablo-arredondo-casetext/​

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-- “Zuva, a leading provider of AI-powered contract analysis, today released a study revealing that most organizations prioritize document management tools over dedicated CLM systems for managing their contracts. Zuva interviewed 80 organizations in 2023 to understand how the managed their contracts.”

The study itself can be downloaded by registering at the link below.

​https://info.zuva.ai/do-you-need-a-clm​

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-- “. . . a new report out today by the legal technology company Gavel, 2024 Legal Tech Trends Report for Small and Solo Firms, has analyzed available data from multiple sources to identify the key legal tech trends impacting solo and small firms and recommend how they can prepare their practices for continued innovation and change. . .” https://www.lawnext.com/2024/03/new-report-synthesizes-the-data-to-identify-key-legal-tech-trends-and-action-items-for-solos-and-small-firms.html​

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-- Richard Punt, appointed head of Deloitte Legal in June 2023 “. . . sees now as the moment for legal departments to embrace the sales pitch, saying ‘there is something existential’ about the risk to GCs of remaining stagnant. He said the introduction of generative AI has added momentum to legal departments’ interest in updating their workflows.”
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Deep dive into Deloitte Legal’s chief view of how the market for in-house digital improvement (and the competition among law firms, the Big Four, ALSPs and law firms for that market) will be playing out in the near term. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/deloitte-legal-chief-sees-opportunity-in-gcs-need-to-modernize​

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Startup Life

-- Previously published on February 12, 2024, here’s an update (on March 8, 2024) to Legaltech News’s “. . . list of female and gender fluid founders who have created products and launched companies in the legal technology space.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/03/08/meet-the-female-founders-of-legal-tech/​

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Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

-- “Hotshot, a learning platform for legal professionals, today released the first five courses in a planned series designed to teach lawyers and other legal professionals about artificial intelligence and its impact on law practice.”
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Read the entire article for word on current and planned courses and a list of current instructors. https://www.lawnext.com/2024/03/hotshot-the-legal-learning-platform-releases-first-five-in-planned-series-of-ai-training-videos-for-lawyers.html​