As the legal technology community gathered at ILTACON in Nashville for the largest event in its history, a prevailing theme emerged, centered around what many referred to as a “shiny object”: generative AI. Drawing a parallel to a small town’s citizens struck by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious metallic egg, this object quickly became…
Last year, just ahead of ILTACON, NetDocuments introduced ndMAX, a generative AI tool built directly into the NetDocuments platform to enhance various document-related workflows. The initial release, PatternBuilder MAX, aimed to enable firms to create custom AI automations tailored to the needs of their specific practices. At this year’s ILTACON, held in Nashville, NetDocuments unveiled…
UniCourt has introduced a novel product termed UniCourt DEEP, an acronym for Docket Extraction and Enrichment Platform. This product, currently in its beta phase, integrates large language models (LLMs) with APIs to enable law firms, insurers, and legal tech companies to extract specific data points from UniCourt’s extensive collection of over one billion dockets and…
In a significant development for legal professionals, LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters have unveiled their latest generative AI legal assistant offerings: Protégé and CoCounsel 2.0, respectively. Thomson Reuters, capitalizing on its acquisition of the CoCounsel legal assistant initially developed by Casetext and its subsequent plans to deploy it across all its product lines, has introduced a…
Aderant, a well-known provider of business management software to large law firms, has recently unveiled viAllocate, a product that aims to improve the allocation of work among associates. The primary goal of viAllocate is to enhance billable utilization, balance workloads, and boost both operational efficiency and profitability. This initiative addresses the common challenges that many…
The Supreme Court of Texas has given preliminary approval to rules allowing licensed legal paraprofessionals and court-access assistants to provide legal services in certain conditions. According to the court order, these measures aim to bridge the “justice gap,” particularly for low-income individuals. Chief among the rule changes are amendments to the State Bar Rules and…
Earlier this year, davinci launched in beta, promising to revolutionize patent prosecution for intellectual property practitioners. Now, this innovative tool is emerging from beta under a new name, DeepIP, and is available for general use, featuring a direct integration with Microsoft Word. DeepIP operates as an AI copilot within Word or as a standalone web…
Universal Migrator has announced the addition of two new extractors for assisting law firms in migrating their data between platforms, increasing its total number of migration extractors to 114. This development highlights the platform’s commitment to continuously evolving and enhancing its capabilities to better serve legal professionals. Already established as a critical tool for law…
Later this month, the U.S. District Court in Delaware will see the commencement of a hotly anticipated trial that could have broad implications for the legal research industry. The longstanding legal dispute (see source article) between Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw and the now-defunct ROSS Intelligence will finally be brought before a jury, following four years of…
E-Discovery and Gen AI Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been a cornerstone in the realm of e-discovery, assisting legal teams in sifting through extensive document collections to pinpoint potentially relevant information. Traditional Technology Assisted Review (TAR) techniques have predominantly relied on supervised machine learning methods. However, recent developments indicate a shift toward incorporating generative AI…
Among the world’s top 100 private cloud computing companies, two firms in the legal technology sector have made their mark, according to the Forbes Cloud 100 2024. This recognition highlights the growing influence of legal tech in the broader landscape of cloud-based services. Featured prominently on this year’s list are Icertis, a provider of contract…
Next week, at the ILTACON conference, Portugal-based Legau is set to mark its official launch into the United States market. This comprehensive legal document drafting platform, initially released in Portugal in 2021, has been chosen as one of the 26 companies to participate in ILTACON’s Startup Hub. Legau aims to revolutionize the legal drafting process…
Law practice management company LEAP recently announced the launch of three major AI features built directly into their platform, including LawY, a new AI legal assistant backed by human verification. This announcement was highlighted in the latest installment of the LawSites video series How It Works, where viewers had the opportunity to see LEAP’s new…
Ever wonder how much coffee gets consumed at a week-long legal tech conference? The annual ILTACON, organized by the International Legal Technology Association, offers a revealing glimpse. Set to convene this weekend in Nashville, the event’s organizers are preparing to serve a staggering 1,500 gallons of the caffeinated brew. This year’s ILTACON aims high, with…
Within the span of five days recently in Chicago, I attended two somewhat different conferences, and at each, I found evidence that we are moving the ball forward on developing and implementing practical applications for generative AI in law. This comes as a refreshing contrast against the backdrop of an AI hype cycle that seemed…
When it comes to big names in legal operations and legal innovation, it is hard to think of one bigger than David Cambria, who has long been described as the godfather of legal operations, due to his trailblazing work as COO and head of global operations for Fortune 50 company Archer Daniels Midland and then…
Last week, amid significant interest in Clio’s substantial financial milestone, the legal practice management company Clio announced a record $900 million funding round. This is the largest funding round ever achieved by a legal technology company, setting a new benchmark in the industry. In light of this, an exclusive podcast interview with Jack Newton, the…
Today marks another edition of Legaltech Week, where a diverse panel of journalists and bloggers convenes to discuss the latest developments in legal technology and innovation. This week’s agenda covers several pertinent topics: The American Bar Association (ABA) has issued a new opinion regarding the legal ethics of using generative AI. Paxton AI has introduced…
Recent discourse on the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) courses in legal education has revealed discrepancies in available data, prompting a closer examination of the American Bar Association (ABA) survey. Although the ABA survey found that 55% of responding law schools offer AI courses, it is essential to consider that only 29 out of 200…
For law firms, adopting and using legal technology comes with a multitude of questions and challenges. With insights from experts at ShareFile and LawSites, we delve into five common queries that lawyers often have regarding legal tech. To begin with, balancing security and productivity remains critical. Bob Ambrogi stresses the importance of using reputable cloud…
Last month, KKR, a major global investment firm, announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Agiloft, the contract lifecycle management company. As part of the deal, the growth equity firm FTV Capital, already an Agiloft investor, is making an additional investment, and another growth equity firm, JMI Equity,…
Mark O’Brien, who cofounded Pro Bono Net 25 years ago alongside Michael Hertz, is stepping down from his role as executive director on September 1. O’Brien has been leading the organization since 2005, and he is departing to begin a long-planned retirement. Although he will step down from his executive position, he will continue to…
In his guest post for LawNext, Massachusetts lawyer and educator Marc Lauritsen challenges the conventional view held by some bar authorities and legal professionals that technology providing legal assistance without a licensed attorney’s intervention constitutes the unauthorized practice of law (UPL). He paints a contrarian picture where suppressing such technological tools, labeled as “illegal tech,”…
In its first major pronouncement on the ethics of using generative AI in legal practice, the American Bar Association (ABA) has issued Formal Opinion 512, affirming that while lawyers don’t need to become experts in generative AI technology, they must develop a reasonable understanding of the tools’ capabilities and limitations. The ABA’s Standing Committee on…
“`html Amid growing concerns about hallucinations in AI-driven legal tools, Paxton AI has published results from a benchmarking study that highlight the reliability of its legal research tool. The data indicate an impressive 93.82% average accuracy in legal research tasks, based on benchmarks developed by researchers at Stanford University. The study evaluated Paxton’s performance using…