March 4, 2024 -- Issue #279
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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Exit/M&A
-- From Axios' "Pro Rata" newsletter: "• Omers and Harvest Partners are seeking a buyer for Epiq Systems, an Overland Park, Kan.-based legal services firm they took private in 2016, per Bloomberg. It could fetch at least $3b (including debt). https://axios.link/3wE0apW
JusticeTech/A2J
-- A superb interview by Legaltech News with Devshi Mehrotra, a cofounder of justice tech/A2J startup, JusticeText. This interview covers many important topics, including: (1) should a justice tech startup charge for its products, (2) the interplay between the availability (or the abscess of) legal tech for justice-tech customers and the many other factors that bear on the success of A2J efforts generally, and (3) some thoughts on the experience of joining a technology accelerator. Overall, an excellent read. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/02/26/ltn-startup-spotlight-justicetext-founder-on-technologists-roles-in-a2j-efforts/
Member Introductions/Questions
-- Community member, Morgane Van Ermengem, introduces herself by posting: "I'm a legal technology and legal operations professional with experience in legal technology selection and consultancy, process optimisation, change management and project management. I'm driven by my passion to support in-house legal and compliance teams with being a trusted proactive business partner for their companies. In parallel to freelancing, I'm starting a new venture in the legal data space, building data products for legal information, and actively seeking funding."
-- Another introduction from a new LTSF community member, William G. Homburg: "Back at University of BayrIeuth I founded the Legal Tech Student Association built e.V. with more than 80 members today. I am working as Management Board Leader for 1,5 years at built. In addition I work in coprorate law at law firm „honert“. Within the Legal Tech sector I concentrate on the impact of AI for Contract Drafting and Legal Design."
-- And here Tim Grummer, also a new member at LTSF, posts: "Currently I am working on my newly founded company CYDA Consulting GmbH i. Gr. At CYDA Consulting we support our customers with tailor-made solutions in the areas of data protection and information security. As an external data protection officer and an external information security officer, we are specialised in the certification process of ISO 27001 and the rules of the DS-GVO.
"Have a look at [this YouTube video from Victor Monsees] - very interesting thoughts [ about Gen AI] that Victor shared with us! https://youtu.be/SLwhNL-S7sw?si=JBLOpf3DJ20sP22N
Product Development
-- “Tokyo-based legal technology startup LegalOn Technologies announced the launch of LegalOn Assistant, a generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that aims to assist legal professionals with contract review and drafting tasks, on Wednesday.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/02/28/tokyo-based-contract-provider-legalon-launches-gpt-4-powered-legal-assistant/
-- “Jimoh Ovbiagele, cofounder in 2014 of the now-shuttered AI legal research startup ROSS Intelligence, is returning to legal tech as chief executive officer of a new startup, Bench IQ, that says it is using generative AI to provide comprehensive insights into the decision-making patterns of judges — based not just on their written rulings, but also their rulings from the bench.”
More details at link, including information about the company’s $2.1 million seed round closing. https://www.lawnext.com/2024/02/ross-cofounder-returns-to-legal-tech-with-startup-using-ai-to-surface-judges-decision-making-patterns.html
-- From 273 Ventures: “We are thrilled to introduce KL3M1, the Kelvin Legal Large Language Model. KL3M is a pioneering effort, as it is both the first “from-scratch” model focused on the legal domain and the largest model yet trained on clean, permissible data.” https://273ventures.com/kl3m-the-first-legal-large-language-model
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
-- “In a Friday afternoon panel at the ABA Techshow 2024, Judge Scott Schlegel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana and Judge Herbert B. Dixon Jr., a senior judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, spoke about current and historical trends in courtroom technology, as well as where things could be heading now that the pandemic is firmly in the rearview mirror.”
Suffice it to say that, based on the reporting in the linked article, it’s not a pretty picture as far as judges’ adoption of courtroom tech goes. https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/where-is-courtroom-technology-heading-its-complicated
-- “Magic circle law firm Clifford Chance today (28 February 2024) announced that it is deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Viva Suite for its employees globally.” https://legaltechnology.com/2024/02/28/breaking-news-clifford-chance-deploys-copilot-and-viva-suite-for-employees-globally/
-- Michael Herzog postted about a Webinar that took place on February 29, 0224: "Leap into 2024 with Digital Mailroom Innovations and Customer Stories." https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/6991504606835181917?source=legal-tech-startup-focus
-- Extra, extra, get your latest edition of the Legaltech News legal tech round up. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/02/28/legal-tech-rundown-reveal-consilio-partnership-exterro-data-retention-solution-and-more/
-- Trying to understand why legal professionals aren’t applying GenAI tools to their workflows? Get a start on answering that question from the results of a survey by Consilio of 129 Legalweek 2024 attendees. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2024/02/29/dont-wait-up-lack-of-expertise-talent-holding-back-generative-ai-in-legal-industry/
-- Run, don't walk, to listen to this episode (linked below) of The Geek in Review podcast. The episode features Pablo Arredondo of TR's Casetext discussing, on the one-year anniversary of CoCounsel's launch, GenAI in legal. This discussion is a gem, truly, as Pablo and the podcast's hosts, Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer, talk about GenAI's recent past, its present and its more exciting future. https://www.geeklawblog.com/2024/02/pablo-arredondo-on-the-one-year-anniversary-of-cocounsel.html
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