LawNext

The recently launched Caselaw Access Project is the capstone to a massive undertaking executed over three years to digitize all U.S. case law, some 6.4 million cases dating back to 1658. Leading the project was Adam Ziegler , director of the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School, which partnered with Ravel Law to digitize the school's entire library of U.S. cases. In this episode of LawNext...

Sarah Schaaf wanted to revolutionize how lawyers get paid. After growing up with lawyer parents and then becoming a lawyer herself, including a stint in Google's legal department, she saw the problems lawyers had in collecting from clients. She envisioned a platform as easy to use as PayPal or Venmo, but made specifically for the legal field and fully compliant with lawyers' professional responsib...

They say you can't go home again, but Matt Spiegel came back to legal technology after selling the first company he founded, MyCase , and then moving to other verticals. Earlier this year, Spiegel launched his second legal technology startup, Lawmatics , a cloud-based platform designed to automate legal marketing, CRM and client intake. Spiegel had been a criminal defense lawyer when, in 2009, he...

It was big news earlier this month when practice management company Clio announced that it had acquired Lexicata , the first cloud-based CRM and client-intake platform for lawyers. It was the first acquisition by 10-year-old Clio, which says it will continue to operate Lexicata but will also develop its technology into a new, more advanced client-engagement platform, Clio Grow. Lexicata CEO Michae...

At just 17 years old, Joshua Browder made international news when he created DoNotPay , a chatbot that helped appeal parking tickets, reportedly saving motorists in the U.S. and UK millions of dollars. Now 21, he has just released a series of apps designed to help consumers solve common legal problems without the help of a lawyer -- including one to file small claims lawsuits in any U.S. jurisdict...

Kevin O'Keefe believes that lawyers get their best work from relationships and a strong word-of-mouth reputation, and that blogging is the perfect way to build relationships and reputation. In 2003, he founded LexBlog, a company devoted to helping lawyers and law firms launch their own blogs. Today, LexBlog has grown to a network of nearly 20,000 legal professionals worldwide blogging on the platf...

What if a lawyer could know how a judge is likely to rule in a case or how heavy is a judge's workload? Rick Merrill was a litigator at a large law firm who became frustrated over his inability to get meaningful information about the judges before whom he appeared. So last year, he launched Gavelytics , a California company that uses analytics and artificial intelligence to analyze docket data and...

Earlier this year, Mark Britton left Avvo , the often-controversial company he founded in 2006 and led as CEO, after selling it to web behemoth Internet Brands . Explaining his departure in a memo to his staff , he wrote, "It's time for me to go." In this episode of LawNext, Britton reflects on his 12 years at Avvo. In a face-to-face interview with host Bob Ambrogi, he recounts why he started the...

  In July, Thomson Reuters unveiled Westlaw Edge, the next generation of its legal research platform that uses artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to help legal professionals find answers and perform research more efficiently. The engineering of the AI that went into that was spearheaded by Dr. Khalid Al-Kofahi, vice president of research and development at Thomson Reuters and head of t...

Should legal ethics rules be changed to allow non-lawyer ownership of legal services providers? So controversial is the question that it was major news in July when the State Bar of California voted to appoint a task force to study and make recommendations on the issue. What spurred the bar to take this action was the Legal Market Landscape Report it commissioned from William D. Henderson , profes...

In September 2017, venerable Magic Circle law firm Allen & Overy launched Fuse , setting aside a portion of its London office for a collaborative innovation space to develop and test new legal technologies, and it named lawyer Shruti Ajitsaria to head the project. On this episode of LawNext, Ajitsaria joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss why Allen & Overy started Fuse, explain what it does, and descr...

What does it mean to practice data-driven law? On this episode, Bob speaks with Jeff Pfeifer, the LexisNexis vice president charged with driving overall product strategy for LexisNexis Legal and Professional, North America. Over the past several years, Pfeifer has spearheaded a series of acquisitions and product developments, all with the goal of establishing LexisNexis as the leader in legal anal...

It was around the world in 40 days – the legal tech world that is. Earlier this year, Dera Nevin traveled to 19 destinations in 15 countries on six continents over 40 days, meeting with legal hackers and legal entrepreneurs all over the world. The trip, in conjunction with the Global Legal Hackathon , taught her lessons about legal technology and innovation on a global scale, and even taught her s...

What does legal innovation look like? For all the talk about innovation in law, who are the real innovators and what are they doing? This week's guest, Daniel W. Linna Jr. , an attorney and law professor, helps us answer that question.   Linna is the creator of the Legal Services Innovation Index , where he is cataloging and indexing innovations at law firms and law schools. Through his work, he i...

The $500 million secondary investment announced recently by online legal services company LegalZoom is the largest investment ever in a legal technology company. It comes as the company continues to expand both its services and its geographic reach. With a valuation of $2 billion and a customer base of 4 million, what will this investment mean for LegalZoom now and into the future?   In this episo...

Five years ago, legal research platform Casetext launched with a goal of making legal research more affordable and more intuitive. In the years since, the company has attracted $20 million in venture financing and won the 2017 award for new product of the year from the American Association of Law Libraries for its AI-driven research tool CARA.   In this episode of LawNext, host Bob Ambrogi sits do...

On July 12, Thomson Reuters formally launched Westlaw Edge, its next-generation legal research platform that uses artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to help legal professionals find answers and perform research more efficiently. This was arguably the biggest news to come out of Thomson Reuters' legal division since its launch eight years ago of Westlaw Next. The day before the official...

I am very pleased and honored to kick off my first episode with guest Nicole Bradick. A veteran legal technology innovator and entrepreneur, Nicole is CEO of Theory and Principle, the technology design and development company she founded last January. Formerly partner and chief strategy officer with legal-technology development firm CuroLegal, Bradick is a 2014 Fastcase 50 honoree, recognizing "th...