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The advent of Artificial Intelligence means we are now entering an age of start ups poised to capitalise on this technological wave. As reported by Forbes magazine, last year set an investment record with 713% growth in investment in legal tech start ups.
This refers to technology taking on traditionally ‘due-diligence’ jobs such as reading contracts and research. As soon-to-be lawyers or fresh faces working in this changing field, it’s important to understand the big players and how technology could impact the industry.
Want to know more about how legal technology is changing the industry? Click here.>>
Luminance
Why it is noteworthy?
- Counts 10 of the global top 100 law firms as its customer base, along with 3 of the Big Four consultancy firms.
- It’s outreach is international in its outreach extending beyond the United Kingdom, having clients from Bird and Bird (America), Holland and Knight (America), Jadek and Pensa (Slovenia), Gilberti Trisconia e Associati (Italy) and Rajah & Tann (Singapore).
- Has received $13 million in funding thus far from Invoke Capital, a start up fund that was co-founded by magic circle law firm, Slaughter and May, Mike Lynch and venture capital firm, Talis Capital
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What distinguishes it from its peers?
- It’s A.I. harnesses ‘new generation technology’ with research outputs from the University of Cambridge, utilizing pattern recognizing algorithms and advanced statistical probability analysis. Helps lawyers with easily sifting and scrutinizing contracts, identifying anomalies.
- Luminance was recently crowned the ‘Most Innovative Product of the year’ on 10th January 2019.
Why could AI technology be dangerous? Click here to learn more.>>
Ravel Law
Why it is noteworthy?
- First applicant to win the Dewey B Strategic award for 2 years in a row
- Winner of multiple awards including the Legal Innovators Award and New Product of the Year 2016 by American Association of law librarians
- Acquired by LexisNexis in 2017
- Raised $9.2 million in investor funding in June 2017
What distinguishes it from its peers?
- Besides the usual research competencies, it analyses the firm’s and the opposing counsel’s experience by topic, motion, court and judge
- Analyses how judges think, judge and write
- Able to track cases overlooked in traditional searches with its search visualization competencies
Is artificial intelligence is taking over the law? Click here to find out more.>>
Lexoo
Why it is noteworthy?
- Counts Babylon Health (‘Babylon’), one of the UK’s top growing tech companies as its clients
- Babylon uses Lexoo for its Employment Law, Commercial Property Law advice, commercial contract drafting and negotiations services.
- Also serves Ocado, which has a client base of more than 580,000
- Has received $1.6 million in funding thus far
What distinguishes it from its peers?
- It was founded by a team of former lawyers themselves, Daniel van Binsbergen and Chris O’Sullivan in 2014, thus developing legal tech with an insider’s perspective.
Want to learn about other top legal tech start-ups? Click here.>>
Libryo
Why it is noteworthy?
- Received $1 million in funding thus far
- Instructive tool on Regulatory Law
What distinguishes it from its peers?
- Provides updates in the form of notifications on the latest changes to Regulatory Law
- Built in translations enabling clients to read legal texts in other languages
- Integrates seamlessly with GRC, risk assessments and audit reports
How could blockchain affect your legal career? Click here to find out.>>
Crowd Justice
Why its noteworthy?
- Raised $2 million from investors thus far
- Expanded its office to America
- Started for humanitarian causes: allows one to kick-start their own judicial cause in crowdfunding
What distinguishes it from its peers?
- Primarily rooted in humanitarian needs serving areas of law including but not limited to Equality and Human Rights, Immigration, Criminal
- Justice and the environment rather than corporate or commercial business
- Success stories include a group of volunteers raised 33,046 to mount a judicial review challenge against the UK government for exclusion of refugee children from the Dubs amendment, which provides for safe refuge in the UK in 2017
- Also provides crowdfunding services to lawyers
Interested in learning about the different areas of legal practice? Click here.>>
Why Should You Pay Attention to These Companies?
The above start ups are by no means a definitive list given both the growing list of startups and investor funding for various startups rooted in diverse initiatives. Indeed even from this list, we have a range of corporate to humanitarian based start ups.
Minimally, this bodes well for the future the utilisation of technology for greater causes. On that note, perhaps any malaise felt regarding the replacement of jobs by A.I. should be allayed given the influx of start ups creating more jobs.
Perhaps, what is changing is actually the technical skill sets such as coding and programming that would become necessary assets in the near future? And this, for any professional, is something to bear in mind.
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Author: Edwin Teong Ying Keat
