Blog Archives
Daniel Katz Launches Fin [Legal] Tech
November 19, 2016
aw/Illinois Institute of Technology, started at 7:30 a.m.—as planes, trains, cars and feet were delivering exuberant fans to the Major League Baseball’s World Series parade to celebrate the Chicago Cubs’ win after a 108-year drought. (Their last win was in 1908, seven years before James Fields Smathers of Kansas City invented a new technology: the power-operated typewriter.) But even though a few dads and moms decided to skip the conference to take their kids to the historic event, the inaugural...
November 19, 2016
aw/Illinois Institute of Technology, started at 7:30 a.m.—as planes, trains, cars and feet were delivering exuberant fans to the Major League Baseball’s World Series parade to celebrate the Chicago Cubs’ win after a 108-year drought. (Their last win was in 1908, seven years before James Fields Smathers of Kansas City invented a new technology: the power-operated typewriter.) But even though a few dads and moms decided to skip the conference to take their kids to the historic event, the inaugural...
Advice for Legal Tech Start-ups from Seedcamp’s Tom Wilson
November 19, 2016
‘Law firms’ desire for risk is very, very low. So the sales cycle [for legal tech companies] is slow. This makes it harder for VCs to keep investing,’ Wilson explains. He points out that investors want to see considerable improvement every 12 months. But, as anyone in the legal market can attest to, selling to law firms can often take 18 months or more to move from discussions to an actual contract. Moreover, because the tech here is so new, law firms will need to trial it and a trial does...
November 19, 2016
‘Law firms’ desire for risk is very, very low. So the sales cycle [for legal tech companies] is slow. This makes it harder for VCs to keep investing,’ Wilson explains. He points out that investors want to see considerable improvement every 12 months. But, as anyone in the legal market can attest to, selling to law firms can often take 18 months or more to move from discussions to an actual contract. Moreover, because the tech here is so new, law firms will need to trial it and a trial does...
Lex Machina Adds Third Practice Area to its Legal Analytics: Antitrust
November 18, 2016
The legal analytics company Lex Machina is announcing today its expansion into a third practice area, antitrust law. This follows its expansion in July to add securities law. Until its acquisition last year by LexisNexis, Lex Machina had focused exclusively on intellectual property. Since the acquisition, it has been using LexisNexis’s collection of federal and state docket data to expand into other practice areas. Today’s release adds some 7,800 antitrust cases active since 2009, according...
November 18, 2016
The legal analytics company Lex Machina is announcing today its expansion into a third practice area, antitrust law. This follows its expansion in July to add securities law. Until its acquisition last year by LexisNexis, Lex Machina had focused exclusively on intellectual property. Since the acquisition, it has been using LexisNexis’s collection of federal and state docket data to expand into other practice areas. Today’s release adds some 7,800 antitrust cases active since 2009, according...
Former White & Case London Head + PE Fund Create Legal Tech Angel Network
November 18, 2016
A new angel investment network, Hamilton Ramsay, largely comprising former partners of major law firms, including from White & Case, is launching in the UK to help grow legal tech start-ups with seed capital and mentoring. The angel investment group has been co-developed by Freddie Bellhouse, a former associate at Kirkland & Ellis and founder of the Fordhouse Equity fund, which invests exclusively in small businesses based in the UK. The goal will be to support a new wave of legal...
November 18, 2016
A new angel investment network, Hamilton Ramsay, largely comprising former partners of major law firms, including from White & Case, is launching in the UK to help grow legal tech start-ups with seed capital and mentoring. The angel investment group has been co-developed by Freddie Bellhouse, a former associate at Kirkland & Ellis and founder of the Fordhouse Equity fund, which invests exclusively in small businesses based in the UK. The goal will be to support a new wave of legal...
What Texas Lawyers Should Know From the Clio Trends Report
November 18, 2016
Many were surprised to learn at the Clio Cloud Conference in September that of the 150,000 actively using the cloud-based law practice management software, lawyers were only billing 28 percent of their available work hours. The folks at Clio broke down the findings of its full 2016 Legal Trends Report—which outlines several industry metrics for billing rates, hours billed, fee structures, and more—and focused on Texas attorneys, specifically. Here’s some of what they found: The average...
November 18, 2016
Many were surprised to learn at the Clio Cloud Conference in September that of the 150,000 actively using the cloud-based law practice management software, lawyers were only billing 28 percent of their available work hours. The folks at Clio broke down the findings of its full 2016 Legal Trends Report—which outlines several industry metrics for billing rates, hours billed, fee structures, and more—and focused on Texas attorneys, specifically. Here’s some of what they found: The average...
The Competitive Landscape for Machine Intelligence
November 17, 2016
If this year’s landscape shows anything, it’s that the impact of machine intelligence is already here. Almost every industry is already being affected, from agriculture to transportation. Every employee can use machine intelligence to become more productive with tools that exist today. Companies have at their disposal, for the first time, the full set of building blocks to begin embedding machine intelligence in their businesses. And unlike with the internet, where latecomers often bested those...
November 17, 2016
If this year’s landscape shows anything, it’s that the impact of machine intelligence is already here. Almost every industry is already being affected, from agriculture to transportation. Every employee can use machine intelligence to become more productive with tools that exist today. Companies have at their disposal, for the first time, the full set of building blocks to begin embedding machine intelligence in their businesses. And unlike with the internet, where latecomers often bested those...
Artificial Intelligence Directed to Cybersecurity
November 17, 2016
Infoworld reported that “IBM Security is currently in the middle of a year-long research project working with eight universities to help train Watson to tackle cybercrime.” The November 15, 2016 article entitled “How IBM’s Watson will change cybersecurity” includes a reference to IBM’s Security Intelligence comments by Diana Kelley that “We need to make sure these technologies are actually solving the problems that security professionals are facing, both today and in the future.” ...
November 17, 2016
Infoworld reported that “IBM Security is currently in the middle of a year-long research project working with eight universities to help train Watson to tackle cybercrime.” The November 15, 2016 article entitled “How IBM’s Watson will change cybersecurity” includes a reference to IBM’s Security Intelligence comments by Diana Kelley that “We need to make sure these technologies are actually solving the problems that security professionals are facing, both today and in the future.” ...
The Pitfalls of Negotiations Over Email
November 17, 2016
Negotiation research suggests that email often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes in conflict resolution negotiation scenarios. First, establishing social rapport via email can be challenging. The lack of nonverbal cues and the dearth of social norms regarding its use can cause negotiators to be impolite and show little concern for their counterparts. Email negotiations are also fraught with misunderstanding, both because emotion...
November 17, 2016
Negotiation research suggests that email often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes in conflict resolution negotiation scenarios. First, establishing social rapport via email can be challenging. The lack of nonverbal cues and the dearth of social norms regarding its use can cause negotiators to be impolite and show little concern for their counterparts. Email negotiations are also fraught with misunderstanding, both because emotion...
What Artificial Intelligence Can and Can’t Do Right Now
November 16, 2016
After understanding what AI can and can’t do, the next step for executives is incorporating it into their strategies. That means understanding where value is created and what’s hard to copy. The AI community is remarkably open, with most top researchers publishing and sharing ideas and even open-source code. In this world of open source, the scarce resources are therefore: Data. Among leading AI teams, many can likely replicate others’ software in, at most, 1–2 years. But it is exceedingly...
November 16, 2016
After understanding what AI can and can’t do, the next step for executives is incorporating it into their strategies. That means understanding where value is created and what’s hard to copy. The AI community is remarkably open, with most top researchers publishing and sharing ideas and even open-source code. In this world of open source, the scarce resources are therefore: Data. Among leading AI teams, many can likely replicate others’ software in, at most, 1–2 years. But it is exceedingly...
Citi Report: Third-Quarter Growth Slowed
November 16, 2016
Nine-month quarterly flash survey results from Citi Private Bank show further evidence of the continued challenges facing the legal industry. Momentum has slowed since the strong start to 2016—when we saw growth in demand of 1.8 percent and growth in revenue of 5.8 percent—resulting in just 0.3 percent growth in demand and 3.7 percent growth in revenue at the nine-month point. These numbers are similar to the modest results we've come to expect throughout most of the post-recession years. Notably,...
November 16, 2016
Nine-month quarterly flash survey results from Citi Private Bank show further evidence of the continued challenges facing the legal industry. Momentum has slowed since the strong start to 2016—when we saw growth in demand of 1.8 percent and growth in revenue of 5.8 percent—resulting in just 0.3 percent growth in demand and 3.7 percent growth in revenue at the nine-month point. These numbers are similar to the modest results we've come to expect throughout most of the post-recession years. Notably,...
