What is LegalTech and 17 Leading LegalTech Startups & 11 LegalTech Events

There’s no denying that technology has flooded all industries and Legal Industry now faces the task of implementing legaltech into its practices, both in large law firms and startups, in order to stay ahead of the curve and offer faster, value-added experience.

What is LegalTech?

LegalTech is an industry that uses technology and software to provide legal services. Legal Tech companies are generally startups founded with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative legal market. Basically, such companies use technology and software for billing, electronic discovery, accounting, practice management, document storage, etc.

LegalTech usage

• Legal practice management software: Operate many vital back-office tasks, for example, document storage and sharing, CRM capabilities, appointment scheduling and more. It often integrates with other back-office tools like accounting and billing software.

• eDiscovery software: Automates much of the document review process for lawyers. These solutions identify case-specific documents at higher accuracy rates than those achieved by humans.

• Document and contract management platforms: Tools that streamline or automate creating templates, negotiating clauses, and analyzing content.

• Workflow tools: Allow lawyers to digitalise and automate their workflows.

• Legal chatbots: Automated rule-based tools enabled by AI/ML that allow users to get answers to basic legal inquiries in a chat or messenger.

• Online marketplaces: Digital platforms that help clients find the right lawyer faster.

• Data security: Ensuring the highest level of security for legal records with DLT.

Leading Legaltech startups & companies

As legal issues could be expensive and time-consuming, legal tech startups focus on making the same affordable, easy and quick. Let’s look at the main LegalTech players:

1. Relativity

Used by lawyers to store, index and search various documents, automate contract review, due diligence and regulatory work. It’s used by almost all the 200 biggest US law firms by revenue. Law firms and corporate legal departments have hired Relativity experts to build their own internal eDiscovery departments and created new businesses in partnership with them.

2. Apttus

This management software has changed the way companies manage sales processes and contracts, removing the need for lawyers to be involved at every stage.

3. Everlaw

Everlaw allows lawyers to work collaboratively to build arguments for litigation cases together.

4. HighQ

This is used by over half of the top 100 global law firms and by professional services firms and company clients. With HighQ, you can streamline collaboration, legal service delivery, legal operations, client engagement and much more.

5. iManage

This has become the essential tool for document management at law firms. iManage combines artificial intelligence, security and risk mitigation with market-leading document and email management.

6. Luminance

Luminance gives powerful, instant insight for document review. Lawyers around the world now rely on Luminance to dig deeper into their data, providing unprecedented insight and clarity across their contracts.

7. Libryo

Libryo filters all law and delivers only the regulations that matter to your business.

8. Lexoo

Lexoo provides online access to inspected international network of lawyers. It also acts as a business marketplace, allowing companies to compare and recruit lawyers.

9. CrowdJustice

CrowdJustice is the leading online fundraising platform specifically designed for legal action.

10. Alacrity

Alacrity is a simple, secure, cloud-based platform that enables clients to manage their external law firms and matters in one place.

11. Ligo

Ligo reduces costs, complies with complex legislation and increases revenue, by automating the processes involved in the creation of legal documents and management of legal matters.

12. Legisway

The company provides an easy way to organise legal documents and data, improve collaboration with the business and elevate the legal access. Legisway centralises and automates the legal information and processes in a single solution, thereby offering better risk control, greater efficiency and improved collaboration.

13. TIQ

Complete and effortless time tracking for lawyers

14. Clocktimizer

Clocktimizer automatically categorises law firm narratives into activities and task codes.

15. Rfrnz

Rfrnz automates contract analysis using Artificial Intelligence technologies like Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

16. Contract Mill

Document automation for lawyers, which allows creating fully customised docs for your needs and fully compliant to your policies.

17. Online Solution Attorney

It allows you to choose an attorney-at-law/solicitor for an online consultation.

Must-visit legaltech events & conferences

The pace of tech innovation around the world is insane – and it’s no different in the legal industry. With demand for new business models, a greater need for cybersecurity, and new technologies on the market, it’s more important than ever for legal professionals to stay on the cutting-edge. And what better way to do this than attend a legaltech event?

1. World Technology Law Conference

The event is for ITechLaw Members, as well as students, academics and government officials. It will host sessions on data protection, blockchain, AI, smart cities and cybercrime.

2. The Legal Geek Conference

The Legal Geek Conference is now a two-day event! The first day will be similar to previous years with 2000 attendees, 100+ speakers and the new second day will focus on learning by doing through a series of workshops.

3. Legal Innovation and Technology Fest

The Legal Innovation & Tech Fest hones in on three distinct areas of the industry: Innovation & Tech, Client Experience & Marketing, and NextGen Lawyers. It is a gateway to two days of content, networking and knowledge-sharing. Bringing together 500+ Legal professionals to celebrate the talent, technology, innovations and ideas that are literally transforming the way law firms and in-house legal teams operate.

4. Future Lawyer Week

The Future Lawyer Week (FLW) is a 4-day interactive legal innovation event filled with a series of social activities and 3-full day conferences with thought-provoking discussions specifically designed for in-house legal counsels and private practice law firms.

5. Legal Revolution

Legal Revolution is Europe’s main legal innovation event, which features numerous lectures, workshops, coaching sessions and vendor stands for legal professionals to delve into and explore.

6. Legal Innovators

Legal innovators focuses on how legal professionals on the cutting-edge can combat their law firm’s challenges with innovation. It’s targeted toward legal-tech directors, heads of legal innovation and CIOs, etc.

7. Legalweek

Legalweek is one week each year where thousands of legal professionals gather to network with their peers, dive deeper into their professional development, explore topics and strategies tailored specifically to their role, and gain the tools to get legal business done.

8. Legal Tech Center

The Legal Tech Center has hosted a handful of legal tech events in Berlin, Paris and Zurich throughout the past few years, and they’re definitely great ones to keep an eye out for in the future. In addition to talks and workshops, the events also boast hackathons – which bring together innovators, developers and lawyers to brainstorm and prototype new innovation ideas in the legal tech realm.

9. The Global Legal Hackathon

The Global Legal Hackathon is the world’s largest legal technology innovation competition. Over one weekend, ideas are formed and technology solutions are created to solve business of law and access to justice issues. Here, winning teams move on to future rounds, where they can present their solution to an international judging panel.

10. LawFest

New Zealand’s premier legal innovation and technology event. LawFest is the legal technology and innovation conference of the year that attracts legal professionals from across the country, and abroad. If you want to learn how to adapt and thrive in an industry that’s facing considerable change, and explore opportunities to adapt how you deliver legal services for today and the future, then you need to be at LawFest.

11. British Legal Technology Forum

As Europe’s largest legal technology conference and exhibition, The British Legal Technology Forum 2020 brings together the most respected professionals from both the legal and commercial technology sectors to examine and explore the systems, strategies, processes and platforms that will drive law firms and legal businesses into the next decade and beyond.