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ALM Shuts Down Smart Litigator, Its Web Resource for Litigators
August 20, 2016
Among my dubious claims to fame was having had my over-sized visage plastered on a full-page ad that ran in the New York Law Journal in 2011. The ad was for Smart Litigator, a product launched in 2010 by ALM as a multi-faceted resource for litigators. The reason I was in the ad was that I had just reviewed Smart Litigator and the ad quoted from my review. Now, ALM has shut down the Smart Litigator site, effective Aug. 10. When I asked ALM about the shut-down, I received this statement from...
August 20, 2016
Among my dubious claims to fame was having had my over-sized visage plastered on a full-page ad that ran in the New York Law Journal in 2011. The ad was for Smart Litigator, a product launched in 2010 by ALM as a multi-faceted resource for litigators. The reason I was in the ad was that I had just reviewed Smart Litigator and the ad quoted from my review. Now, ALM has shut down the Smart Litigator site, effective Aug. 10. When I asked ALM about the shut-down, I received this statement from...
Texas Firms See Greatest Drop in Demand in First Half of 2016
August 19, 2016
While demand at law firms grew by 0.3 percent at U.S. firms during the first half of 2016, the story was much darker in Texas,...
August 19, 2016
While demand at law firms grew by 0.3 percent at U.S. firms during the first half of 2016, the story was much darker in Texas,...
Southwest Firms Defied Legal Demand Drop-Off in Second Quarter
August 14, 2016
Law firms struggled to cope with a drop in demand across nearly all practice areas during the second quarter, according to Thomson Reuters' Peer Monitor Index, but Texas and its neighbors in the southwest region fared better. Demand, measured by hours billed, declined overall and in four of five U.S. regions during the second quarter, the report found. The Southwest was the outlier, registering an uptick of 1.1 percent. Demand declined by 0.1 percent in the northeast, 0.2 percent in the midwest,...
August 14, 2016
Law firms struggled to cope with a drop in demand across nearly all practice areas during the second quarter, according to Thomson Reuters' Peer Monitor Index, but Texas and its neighbors in the southwest region fared better. Demand, measured by hours billed, declined overall and in four of five U.S. regions during the second quarter, the report found. The Southwest was the outlier, registering an uptick of 1.1 percent. Demand declined by 0.1 percent in the northeast, 0.2 percent in the midwest,...
ABA Future Panel Calls For Broad Changes In Legal Services
August 9, 2016
The Report on the Future of Legal Services in the United States provides a frank, thorough and frequently bleak assessment of the state of legal services and the legal profession’s complicity in inhibiting innovation, while also heralding the promise of emerging delivery models and technologies to bring about change. * * * At the same time, however, the commission hedges its recommendations on some of the key issues facing the profession, particularly nonlawyer ownership of law firms, nonlawyers...
August 9, 2016
The Report on the Future of Legal Services in the United States provides a frank, thorough and frequently bleak assessment of the state of legal services and the legal profession’s complicity in inhibiting innovation, while also heralding the promise of emerging delivery models and technologies to bring about change. * * * At the same time, however, the commission hedges its recommendations on some of the key issues facing the profession, particularly nonlawyer ownership of law firms, nonlawyers...
High-Tech Legal Startup Considered for Incentives After Austin-to-SA Move
August 8, 2016
Easy Expunctions uses a patented method to file requests to expunge criminal record on behalf of clients for less than a traditional...
August 8, 2016
Easy Expunctions uses a patented method to file requests to expunge criminal record on behalf of clients for less than a traditional...
IBM to Partner With McMillan Law Firm for Analytics Platform
August 6, 2016
As law firms start to see the benefits of integrating analytics into business practices, McMillan and IBM look to collaborate on ways to expand analytics into the legal marketplace. Canadian law firm McMillan announced today a new partnership with IBM to develop an analytic insights platform for the firm to review internal data about cost and resource management. The platform will use fundamental structures drawn from IBM's statistical package SPSS, which allows manipulation and analysis of data,...
August 6, 2016
As law firms start to see the benefits of integrating analytics into business practices, McMillan and IBM look to collaborate on ways to expand analytics into the legal marketplace. Canadian law firm McMillan announced today a new partnership with IBM to develop an analytic insights platform for the firm to review internal data about cost and resource management. The platform will use fundamental structures drawn from IBM's statistical package SPSS, which allows manipulation and analysis of data,...
Artificial Intelligence Has Found a Home in Contract Management
August 5, 2016
As machine learning and artificial intelligence find traction within legal tech, they've found a fairly natural home in contract management work. In many ways, contracts provide perfect fodder for innovation and expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) into the legal world. Contracts are often mechanical, highly organized and filled with boilerplate language. They can also be exceedingly long and unwieldy, taking huge amounts of time and resources for attorneys to parse the content of a contract...
August 5, 2016
As machine learning and artificial intelligence find traction within legal tech, they've found a fairly natural home in contract management work. In many ways, contracts provide perfect fodder for innovation and expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) into the legal world. Contracts are often mechanical, highly organized and filled with boilerplate language. They can also be exceedingly long and unwieldy, taking huge amounts of time and resources for attorneys to parse the content of a contract...
Ninth Circuit Holds Client May Sue Former Law Firm After Mandatory Arbitration Was Terminated for Non-Payment
August 3, 2016
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a decision stating a law firm’s client may pursue a legal malpractice case against her former attorneys despite that she was unable to pay her share of mandatory arbitration expenses. In Tillman v. Rheingold, Valet, Rheingold, Shkolnik & McCartney, No. 13-56624 (9th Cir., June 15, 2016), a woman, Tillman, signed a retainer agreement with a law firm, Rheingold, Valet, Rheingold, Shkolnik & McCartney (“Rheingold”),...
August 3, 2016
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a decision stating a law firm’s client may pursue a legal malpractice case against her former attorneys despite that she was unable to pay her share of mandatory arbitration expenses. In Tillman v. Rheingold, Valet, Rheingold, Shkolnik & McCartney, No. 13-56624 (9th Cir., June 15, 2016), a woman, Tillman, signed a retainer agreement with a law firm, Rheingold, Valet, Rheingold, Shkolnik & McCartney (“Rheingold”),...
Dentons and RAVN Team Up For Brexit Risk Analysis Project
July 31, 2016
Global law firm Dentons has teamed up with applied AI developer RAVN Systems to examine contracts that could be affected by Britain’s exit from the EU and its legal and regulatory umbrella. The project has been undertaken via Dentons’ technology development company, Nextlaw Labs. In a joint statement Dentons and RAVN said: ‘The technology automatically reviews high volumes of contract documentation to identify provisions that could potentially be impacted by the UK’s secession from...
July 31, 2016
Global law firm Dentons has teamed up with applied AI developer RAVN Systems to examine contracts that could be affected by Britain’s exit from the EU and its legal and regulatory umbrella. The project has been undertaken via Dentons’ technology development company, Nextlaw Labs. In a joint statement Dentons and RAVN said: ‘The technology automatically reviews high volumes of contract documentation to identify provisions that could potentially be impacted by the UK’s secession from...
But What About Lawyers? A Q&A With Richard Susskind on AI in Law
July 30, 2016
Scholar and lecturer Susskind predicts that artificial intelligence in law will take off in the 2020s. Among those curious about the technology’s impact on the profession is Richard Susskind, a scholar and lecturer whose work includes “The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services.’” In his view, AI “really takes off” in the 2020s, and until then won’t go mainstream. And while he finds it funny that lawyers think “AI is on the way” for them in the next few years,...
July 30, 2016
Scholar and lecturer Susskind predicts that artificial intelligence in law will take off in the 2020s. Among those curious about the technology’s impact on the profession is Richard Susskind, a scholar and lecturer whose work includes “The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services.’” In his view, AI “really takes off” in the 2020s, and until then won’t go mainstream. And while he finds it funny that lawyers think “AI is on the way” for them in the next few years,...
