Category Added in a WPeMatico Campaign
According to the Princeton Review’s 2020 law school rankings, which law school has the best law school professors?
Hint: The ranking is based upon student ratings of their professors’ teaching abilities and their accessibility outside the classroom.
See the answer on the next page.
“What do in-house lawyers want?” It is the question that repeatedly comes up when I speak to law firms, legal providers, and vendor representatives.
One of the common answer to this seemingly existential question often boils down to this: “I would like my providers to know my business.” This often comes with an explanation: “I need solutions to business problems, not just legal problems because in a company every problem is a business problem.”
This discussion makes sense logically. In fact, many providers politely nod their heads in agreement when this advice is dispensed. But, practically speaking, what does “I would like my providers to know my business” mean? I went to the hosts of the Legal Ops Rising podcast to see what they’re hearing in the industry.
Kate White and Andy Peterson of Design Build Legal help law firms design and build client-centered solutions (often involving people/process/technology). They also work with in-house counsel to get more value from their outside firms.
In many ways, Andy and Kate are like relationship therapists. They teach law firms how to have new kinds of conversations with clients to develop empathy. They also help in-house lawyers develop the language needed to articulate their needs to law firms. Here’s what they suggest you do to truly understand your clients’ businesses.
Engage with Legal Operations
“Many legal departments now have a legal operations team, focused on managing the department’s finances, bringing on new technology, creating efficiencies, and managing vendor relationships,” Kate observes. “An established legal operations professional is looking at how the legal department is structured, how the legal team can streamline processes, and how they can use data to measure their own performance and that of their providers.”
“And when your client puts someone in a legal operations role for the first time,” Andy adds, “it’s a big neon sign saying that they’re starting to think differently about their departments. It opens up a tremendous opportunity for your firm to play both offense and defense. Reach out to your contacts and set up a meeting. If you’ve got operations folks on your side, bring them. On defense, you can show that you appreciate the role of legal operations people inside of legal departments and that you want to work proactively with them.”
“But on offense, you may be able to partner with and support the legal ops person in achieving early successes,” he continues. “You may even be able to help them shape their role somewhat. That could be huge for your firm down the line when the client decides to do a convergence. Hopefully, your firm has become a trusted advisor to the legal ops function and not just another one of the hundred firms submitting RFP responses.”
Ask Different Questions
“So many of the in-house counsel and legal ops professionals we speak with are eager to work directly with business professionals on the law firm side, but they say that many of the law firms serving them are still not bringing those folks to the table,” says Kate.
As opposed to the classic “Client Service” or “Client Feedback” interviews — which tend to be about the firm, the work it’s doing, and the matters it is handling, Kate and Andy facilitate what they call “Client Insights Interviews.”
“A Client Insights Interview isn’t about the law firm at all,” Andy explains. “It’s about understanding the business challenges and operational pain points of the legal department. When do they feel like they are truly being supported by outside counsel? What are the changing priorities, new products and services on the business side that the department is supporting? Is the team understaffed? Is the department constantly recreating the wheel? These conversations, on their own, will give the law firm insight into the client’s business.”
Find Something to Partner On
The other thing a Client Insights Interview will often do is help the firm to support the client in new and different ways. “We have had firms surface opportunities to partner with clients on everything from redesigning how contracts are developed and managed to share best practices across outside providers in service of the client, to unlocking and leveraging data to identify and mitigate risk,” Kate explains. “These solutions make your firm ‘stickier,’ sure, but they also have opened up new revenue streams for firms.”
Sometimes, opportunities are unexpected. “We facilitated one of these a while back where in-house counsel said his biggest pain point was a move to Office 365 — the company was really struggling to get through it,” Andy recalls. “Coincidentally, the law firm had recently made the same transition, and because we had asked these different questions, the firm took the opportunity to send a couple of its IT people over to the client for a day, to discuss the technical and change management approach that had worked at the firm. Needless to say, the client never expected its law firm to help in that manner.”
So what do in-house lawyers want? Law firms that empathize with them, that ask the right questions, and that can see past discrete legal work and into broader ways of partnering with and supporting them. You can find out more about this and numerous other legal operations topics by listening to Legal Ops Rising, hosted by Kate and Andy.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. Olga also co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated to preparing women in-house attorneys to become general counsels and legal leaders, and WISE to help female law firm partners become rainmakers. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can email Olga at olga@olgamack.com or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack.
Have you heard the blessed news? There is peace in our time, between the activist hedge funds and their targets. Appeasement works, even on Paul Singer.
A new playbook is emerging in the world of shareholder activism, one that calls for quick peace treaties enabling investors and the companies they target to sidestep costly, protracted battles…. The new setups are more like nonbinding handshake agreements….
Elliott Management Corp…., one of the most prolific and aggressive activists, plans to use them as a template in future campaigns, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This is because activist campaigns are expensive and bruising and, oh yea, decreasingly remunerative.
Activists, for their part, are grappling with subpar returns and eager for the increased flexibility and opportunity to tout a quick victory that the new arrangements afford.
Now, however, this new Era of Good Feelings faces its sternest test. It’s one thing to get poor, downtrodden John Paulson to wave the white flag. It’s quite another to tell a tanned and rested Carl Icahn he can’t have what he wants. And Carl Icahn wants HP and Xerox to get together in some way, shape or form. HP—which has a market cap roughly four times that of Xerox—is ruling the most improbable of those forms, namely the smaller and shrinking company swallowing the larger. But, in a nod to these more collaborative times, says it remains “open to exploring” some way of these two becoming one. But it sure doesn’t sound as enthusiastic about it as Icahn.
There are “fundamental questions that need to be addressed,” Chief Executive Officer Enrique Lores and Chairman Chip Bergh wrote in a letter to Xerox CEO John Visentin. They cited Xerox’s revenue decline since June 2018, “which raises significant questions for us regarding the trajectory of your business and future prospects.”
HP Rejects Xerox Offer as Too Low While Staying Open to Deal [Bloomberg]
Peace Breaks Out Among Activists and Their Prey [WSJ]
Paulson gives up opposition to reduced Callon-Carrizo deal [Reuters]
(Image via Getty)
Predictive coding is a technology that is frequently suggested as a way to empower attorneys to focus their time on electronically stored information (“ESI”) that is relevant to the claims and defenses of their case, from the investigation stage of a lawsuit to responding to discovery requests. What is sometimes mysterious to those receiving these suggestions, however, is how predictive coding actually works or how it can be used effectively in a case.
What if there were something out there to help empower lawyers to meet their discovery obligations while saving time and money? Everlaw is proud to present an overview of predictive coding along with strategies on how you can use it during litigation.
Click here to download the white paper to learn more about how you can use predictive coding to your advantage.
(Image via Getty)
You’ve got about 3,500 billionaires in the whole world. I’m blessed to have a few of them as clients.
It’s a lot better being on clients’ yachts and planes than it is being stuck in a conference room. That doesn’t mean I never get stuck in a conference room, but at least there are times I can be on their yachts and planes.
I say half-jokingly I represent the rich and the spoiled. They have to be very rich, and sometimes spoiled. But they do have to be very rich.
— Michael Kosnitzky, co-leader of Pillsburys’s Private Wealth practice, offering some commentary on the clients he represents worldwide. “Even the ultra-wealthy need protection, and maybe no more so than now,” Kosnitzky said. “Because there’s an unfair connotation that those who are ultra-wealthy achieved their wealth unfairly, and that is anything but the case.” While some of his clients are worth between $20 and $50 million, the vast the majority are worth more than $100 million.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Hospitals will soon have to share price information they have long kept obscured — including how big a discount they offer cash-paying patients and rates negotiated with insurers — under a rule finalized Friday by the Trump administration.
In a companion proposal, the administration announced it is also planning to require health insurers to spell out beforehand for all services just how much patients may owe in out-of-pocket costs. That measure is now open for public comment.
“What is more clear and sensible than Americans knowing what their care is going to cost before going to the doctor?” said Joe Grogan, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
The hospital rule is slated to go into effect in January 2021. It is part of an effort by the Trump administration to increase price transparency in hopes of lowering health care costs on everything from hospital services to prescription drugs. But it is controversial and likely to face court challenges.
When that rule was first proposed in July, hospitals and insurers objected. They argued it would require them to disclose propriety information, could hamper negotiations and could backfire if some medical providers see they are underpriced compared with peers and raise their charges.
Shortly after the final rule’s release, four major hospital organizations said they would challenge it in court.
“This rule will introduce widespread confusion, accelerate anticompetitive behavior among health insurers and stymie innovations,” according a joint statement from these groups, which made clear their intent to soon “file a legal challenge to the rule on the grounds including that it exceeds the administration’s authority.” The statement was signed by the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Children’s Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals.
Insurers also pushed back. “The rules the administration released today will not help consumers better understand what health services will cost them and may not advance the broader goal of lowering health care costs,” said Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, in a statement.
Requiring disclosure of negotiated rates, he said, could lead to price increases “as clinicians and medical facilities could see in the negotiated payments a roadmap to bidding up prices rather than lowering rates.” The rule, he added, could confuse consumers.
It’s also a potentially crushing amount of data for a consumer to consider. However, the administration said it hopes the data will also spur researchers, employers or entrepreneurs to find additional ways of making the data accessible and useful.
The amount of information the rule requires to be disclosed will be massive — including gross charges, negotiated rates and cash prices — for every one of the thousands of services offered by every hospital, which they will be required to update annually.
In a nod to how hard it might be for a consumer to add up items from such an a la carte list of prices, the rule also requires each hospital to include a list of 300 “shoppable” services, described in plain language, with all the ancillary costs included. So, in effect, a patient could look up the total cost of a knee replacement, hernia repair or other treatment.
Insurers, under the proposed rule, would have to disclose the rates they negotiate with providers like hospitals. They would also be required to create online tools to calculate for individual consumers the amount of their estimated out-of-pocket costs for all services, including any deductible they may owe, and make that information available before the consumer heads to the hospital or doctor.
It would go into effect one year after it is finalized, although it is not known when that will occur.
Although consumer advocates say price information can help patients shop for lower-cost services, they also note that few consumers do, even when provided such information.
Earlier this year, the administration ordered drugmakers to include their prices in advertisements, but the industry sued and won a court ruling blocking the measure. The administration has appealed that ruling.
Nonetheless, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the administration is confident.
“We may face litigation, but we feel we are on sound legal footing for what we are asking,” Azar said. “We hope hospitals respect patients’ right to know the prices of services and we’d hate to see them take a page out of Big Pharma’s playbook and oppose transparency.”
He and other officials on a call with reporters admitted they don’t have any estimates on how much the proposal would save in lowered costs because such a broad effort has never been tried in the U.S. before.
Still, “point me to one sector of the American economy where having pricing information actually leads to higher prices,” said Azar.
Azar cited some studies that show that when prices are disclosed, overall spending can go down because patients choose cheaper services. However, such efforts also generally require financial incentives for the patient, such as sharing in the cost savings.
The proposed rule for insurers urges them to create such incentives, said Seema Verma, who oversees the federal government’s Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
George Nation, a business professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who studies hospital pricing, called the final rule and the insurer proposal “exactly a move in the right direction.”
Among other things, he said, the price information may prove useful to employers comparing whether their insurer or administrator is doing a good job in bargaining with local providers.
Today, “they just see a bill and a discount. But is it a good discount? This will now all be transparent,” said Nation.
Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
This is a sentence that actually exists in this world:
“A Northern California prosecutor used his 13-year-old daughter to lure a man back to the spot where she said he had molested her, so the man’s incriminating actions could be recorded on video, according to a newspaper report Sunday.”
What. In The Actual. F**k.
In case that alone wasn’t bonkers enough for you, the prosecutor told law enforcement that he’d already deployed this strategy multiple times.
“He stated that they had already done this several times,” San Jose Detective Sgt. Sean Pierce wrote in the police report on the case. “He directed (the victim) to let (the suspect) touch her if she encountered him, but if it was the breast or between the legs to move away. He instructed (the victim) to let (the suspect) identify and make the contact and if she cannot handle things she should move away. He instructed (the victim) to walk back and forth on the designated route and don’t interact with anyone for very long.”
How does anyone think this is okay? The prosecutor, who is unnamed to protect his daughter’s identity, is reportedly being investigated for possible child endangerment charges because, you know, this police report is basically the definition of endangering a child.
The prosecutor’s daughter told authorities in October that she had been molested and during the ensuing police investigation, the prosecutor apparently decided to play To Catch A Predator with his own almost certainly traumatized daughter and potentially screw up the investigation in the process. The California AG’s office is taking over the investigation because obviously the local prosecutor’s office is wildly conflicted.
This is what prosecutors are supposed to be telling cops not to do.
Report: Prosecutor used daughter as bait to catch molester [Sacramento Bee]
(Image via Getty)
That other election is still a year away, but here’s a chance to make your vote count now. Voting is now open to pick the 15 legal technology startups that will be selected for the fourth-annual Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW 2020. The companies with the most votes will get the opportunity to face off in a pitch competition on TECHSHOW’s opening night and to exhibit in a special portion of the conference’s exhibition hall.
In September, we issued a call for entries. From all the entries we received, a panel of judges whittled the applications down to 26. Now your votes will select the final 15. The 15 startups with the most votes will get the opportunity to be featured at TECHSHOW, which will be held Feb. 26-29, 2019, in Chicago.
Below are the contenders, listed in alphabetical order. Read their pitches, check out their websites, then vote. For those that have a demo video, I’ve included the link.
Deadline for voting is Dec. 6, 2019, at 11:45 p.m. Eastern time. Winners will be announced on Dec. 9, 2019.
BALLOT IS ON THIS PAGE. Trouble with the ballot? Go directly to Survey Monkey.
Founded: 5/20/2015.
Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio.
Elevator pitch: ADR Notable is the first SaaS platform to provide mediators with a single, complete tech solution. Case management tools are combined with “in the room” features that include prep checklists; time tracking; notes captured by party and type that can be edited, combined, sorted, and searched; document access; saved forms/clauses to draft final terms; and digital signature, all with an intuitive UI that won’t distract the mediator. Variable note deletion and secure storage complete the process.
How we’re unique: ADR Notable is a technology platform for mediators, an underserved part of the legal market. Its core replaces the legal pad with a novel note-taking feature the mediator uses to capture the note content, party and note type, then manage them logically by topic and edit notes into final terms of agreement. This feature resides within a secure cloud-based case-management system for the mediator’s entire practice, with an intuitive UI for ease of use that avoids distraction during sessions.
Demo video (if any): https://vimeo.com/369975500.
Pricing: $39.99 per month per user for unlimited cases or $34.99 per case for infrequent users.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 10/31/2017.
Headquarters: HQ: New York, N.Y.; Development office: Kyiv, Ukraine.
Elevator pitch: AXDRAFT helps enterprises draft and approve legal documents 10 times faster, avoid mistakes and safely delegate more to non-legal teams. Customers include Carlsberg, British American Tobacco, Louis Dreyfus Company, Glovo and five financial institutions, including bank of BNP Paribas group.
How we’re unique: AXDRAFT has four main competitive advantages:
Demo video (if any): https://youtu.be/7z3JwWtKtD0.
Pricing: AXDRAFT charges a subscription based on the number of documents created by users in the system. The cost is roughly $10 per document and goes down as the number of documents increases. There are no additional payments. Our subscription includes on-boarding (including automation of customer’s documents), tech and customer support and all document and software updates.
Outside funding: $1M-$5M in outside funding. AXDRAFT is Y Combinator W19 alumni.
Founded: 1/12/2018.
Headquarters: HQ: Atlanta, Ga.; Operations Center: Columbia, S.C.; Development Team: Indore, India.
Elevator pitch: Say for instance you’re working out, running an errand, or picking up your daughter from daycare and you receive a call from an important client. Do you stop what you are doing to document the call? I bet you’re too busy to stop and you end up losing hours of billable time as a result. This dilemma can be solved with one touch. Download Billseye for automatic, real-time call tracking, documenting, and billing solutions that can integrate into your existing case management software.
How we’re unique: Our patent-pending client button allows the user to immediately identify incoming and outgoing billable calls. At the end of the call, our software prompts the user to document the call with a text or voice memo. With Billseye, you are one touch away from billing thousands more dollars on mobile calls.
Demo video (if any): http://onetouchbilling.com/media/BillseyePromo2.mp4.
Pricing: A tiered SaaS model.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 4/7/2019.
Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas.
Elevator pitch: CaptureCast Legal is a rich media video documentation platform to automate and streamline litigation support efforts with transcribed HD video captures from local and remote testimonies and legal affairs. It enhances trial strategy for witness preparation and trial practice using video-based capture and replay.
How we’re unique: Laser focus on delivering smart video solutions to automate, enrich, and streamline legal video and transcription services. We offset and enhance litigation support needs by delivering a smart, meta enriched video capture and library backed by AI/ML to enhance case discovery.
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: One-time up-front cost, then annually based on transcription and video volume.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 6/1/2017.
Headquarters: Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Elevator pitch: Corvum is the first cloud-based communications service designed specifically for lawyers. We understand the unique pressures that lawyers face with time management and work-life balance. Corvum provides the extremely responsive customer support needed for law firms to continue to operate smoothly. Corvum’s service stays online with our three geographically redundant data centers. Corvum’s integration with Clio automatically tracks lawyers’ billable time on calls.
How we’re unique: Telephone providers typically offer “everything to everyone” services, without being able to focus on the needs of any specific user. Corvum is different because of our focus on the needs of lawyers. Legal professionals require more timely and helpful support, they require rock-solid uptime, and they require the tools they need to run their legal practice to all work together.
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzatElTvT6U.
Pricing: Monthly fee per user (SaaS/UCaaS).
Outside funding: Debt financing with the Business Development Bank of Canada (https://www.bdc.ca).
Founded: 1/1/2019.
Headquarters: Exeter, U.K.
Elevator pitch: Turn your everyday email into new income, every day. Crosselerator adds targeted messages to your outgoing emails intelligently and collects the data.
How we’re unique: We are run by a successful ex-partner with 40 years’ professional experience and a long track record of success, not by young techies, so our products are designed with precise needs of practitioners in mind.
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGgqR3r1rN4.
Pricing: Approx $25 per month minimum, then by seat at $3 per seat per month.
Outside funding: We have funded all development out of our own funds and profits but will be going into the market for development funding (via Bath University business school) soon.
Founded: 6/1/2017.
Headquarters: Denver, Colo.
Elevator pitch: Discovery Genie solves the document production problem facing 750,000+ lawyers and paralegals litigating cases involving 35,000 pages or less: reviewing, producing, organizing and indexing emails, attachments and efiles. The Genie’s lawyer-designed system automates conversion to PDF, Bates numbering, privilege-log generation, and more, saving 75-90% of the time, cost and tedium of using Acrobat — but without the overkill costs and complexity of an e-discovery system. No IT department needed.
How we’re unique: We make document production inexpensive, fast and simple for the 90% of lawyers and paralegals who litigate small- to mid-sized cases (35,000 pages of production or less). Manual document production is slow, soul-crushing, and wasteful of professional talent – but e-discovery platforms, designed for big law, are cost prohibitive and unworkable for the vast majority of lawsuits. Discovery Genie serves the huge overlooked legal market with powerful but simple and affordable document production tools.
Demo video (if any): https://vimeo.com/294695282.
Pricing: On-demand, per document pricing. Custom pricing is available for large jobs, such as one case that involved 380,000 pages of production. (We have partnered with the DC Bar and the Colorado Bar Association to provide discounted services as a member benefit.)
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 8/11/2019.
Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.
Elevator pitch: DueCourse is a learning platform that empowers attorneys to take control of their career by helping them map and advance their professional development through personalized learning. We’re building an adaptive learning platform that designs personalized development paths, allows lawyers and professional development teams to track their progress, and pushes incremental, custom content that encourages consistent learning and professional growth.
How we’re unique: Our adaptive learning platform replaces the outdated, impersonal training and development models that rarely fit the busy schedules of distracted learners, and do not meet lawyers in the online mediums where they’re spending most of their time.
Our model also uses real-time data and various accountability methods to provide on-demand learning and help lawyers stay on track with their professional development, rather than leave it up to ad-hoc mentoring and goal setting.
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: We have a subscription-based pricing model.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 1/28/2019.
Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.
Elevator pitch: ECFX is a one-stop, enterprise-class solution for electronic court filing (ECF). ECF is a time-consuming and complex process that varies from court to court. ECFX solves this problem by providing a SaaS B2B platform that automates the processing of receipts of service and the filing of documents with the court with firmware administration and control. ECFX obtains huge efficiencies and cost savings for the firm, eliminates the risk of missed receipts, and reduces filing rejections.
How we’re unique: ECFX distinguishes itself over competing solutions by offering a firmwide, enterprise class solution for all of a law firm’s jurisdictions. Firms today must cobble together products from multiple vendors, and that patchwork of products may still be incomplete. ECFX focuses on automating work that falls into the gaps between the other products in the market and provides a consistent user experience across multiple jurisdictions.
Demo video (if any): https://docsend.com/view/ru3gbs6.
Pricing: We charge per transaction for each receipt or filing, with price per transaction depending usage volumes. To obtain discounts, firms can pre-pay for usage bundles on a monthly or annual basis.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 12/15/2016.
Headquarters: Dallas, Texas.
Elevator pitch: FamilyDocket streamlines communication and evidence gathering for family law cases. Text messages between ex-spouses/co-parents are tracked automatically. Clients can communicate efficiently, and those messages are stored securely in real-time to be used in court, if needed. Important files such as tax documents, pictures, and final decrees can be shared. Lawyers can also assign tasks to be completed, and clients can upload expense items to be reimbursed by their ex-spouse/co-parent.
How we’re unique: We looked at what was missing in the family law market and what the pain points were for both the lawyers and the clients. We developed a simple, easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, web-based application that allows these lawyers, often in small practices, simple case management tools while also tying in co-parenting tools that clients need from the outset of the case. No other tool is tracking these text message communications and that is how most people are communicating in their personal lives.
Demo video (if any): https://www.linkedin.com/company/familydocket/?viewAsMember=true.
Pricing: Yearly subscription-based fee paid either by the law firm or passed on to the client.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding. We raised money from private investors as well as friends and family. Two of the investors are owners of well-known legal tech companies with different clientele. One, is a payment processor and the other targets in-house legal departments to assist them in analyzing their legal spend.
Founded: 9/1/2015.
Headquarters: Omaha, Neb.
Elevator pitch: We solve the three main problems lawyers face: document management, email management, and time tracking. Our Faster Suite includes email management, passive time tracking, document management, PACER Saver, mass document automation, print tracking, scan-to-Clio, split billing, conflict checker, meeting transcriber, request tracker, invoice reminders, Clio document backup, advanced data export and a whole lot more.
How we’re unique: We make crazy-simple solutions to complex problems. We are the number-one suite of apps for Clio and we have 3,500 paying customers.
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49HJetclR48.
Pricing: $300 per year per human for every single feature.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 2/1/2019.
Headquarters: Bloomington, Ill.
Elevator pitch: FirmTRAK seamlessly integrates with your practice management system and other strategic vendors, automatically generating diagnostic and predictive KPI visualizations designed to accelerate performance, increase efficiencies and drive profits.
How we’re unique: We not only have the ability to provide strategic reporting to larger law firms, but we have also unlocked the necessary data for lawyers down market by providing a full set of ready-made reporting at the click of a button. Our motto is to become the one-stop shop for all law firm reporting needs by bringing together practice management system data with accounting, marketing, and other data sets to create dynamic metrics to really move the dial within the business.
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz_5kpUZ2PY.
Pricing: Since we are running analytics on all employees tracking time in the practice management system, we base price on total number of employees: 1-3 =$49/month; 4-9 = $129/month; 10-19 = $299/month; 20+ needs to be reviewed as they will tend to have very specific customization requests.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 3/3/2017.
Headquarters: Denver, Colo.
Elevator pitch: Hugo enables litigators to test any variety of case theories and strategies using virtual jurors. Litigators can submit material over our JuryMeter website to conduct initial pilot studies and see how 25 mock jurors react to their case. Hugo also provides more customized services that allow litigators to conduct experiments to optimize their case strategies and estimate more precisely the likely outcome of a given case.
How we’re unique: Traditionally, litigators make live presentations to a small number of mock jurors (6-30). Using crowdsourcing, we can recruit more mock jurors at a fraction of the cost. We run pilot studies and obtain initial reactions to cases on our website, www.jurymeter.com. As the numbers of mock jurors increase (think hundreds), we also conduct experiments and use statistical analyses to gain a more scientifically valid estimate of likely outcomes, including both liability and damages.
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: For our www.jurymeter.com solution, $500 with volume discounts. For customized experiments, prices as quoted (approximately eight customized experiments for about $50,000).
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 1/2/2019.
Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.
Elevator pitch: Intaker uses artificial intelligence to capture and qualify prospective clients for consumer law firms on autopilot and 24/7; saving attorneys time, money and frustration.
How we’re unique: In comparison to traditional live chat solutions, Intaker AI:
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwbhoX5-QfA.
Pricing: Monthly plans: (1) Ignite, (2) Lift-off, (3) Thrust, and (4) Zero Gravity.
All four plans come with unlimited qualified leads (flat-rate pricing) but tiered based on features like multiple languages, instant call, number of websites, number of Intakers, etc. There are some limits on the number of visitors.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 7/1/2019.
Headquarters: Melbourne, Australia.
Elevator pitch: Josef is a legal automation platform that enables lawyers and legal teams to create and launch their own conversational bots. Lawyers have already built more than 5,000 automation tools on the platform to streamline processes, improve client experience and eliminate repetitive tasks. Bots built on Josef automate lawyer-client interactions, draft documents and provide legal guidance and advice.
How we’re unique: Using legal automation platforms usually requires a level of training and expertise that is beyond most lawyers. In law firms and in-house teams, these technologies end up being used exclusively by technical experts. Josef turns that model on its head by driving adoption of its visual logic builder and no-code-document-automation among practitioners across legal organizations. We see adoption and bot-building by everyone from paralegals to partners, assistants to legal operations.
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: Customers pay for a subscription to Josef. Subscription levels may vary based on the number of bots launched or distribution of access to the platform.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 1/1/2018.
Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas.
Elevator pitch: Justice for Me (JFM) exists to close the justice gap. JFM removes the financial obstacles that prevent clients and attorneys from connecting, by using technology and a network of lawyers and financial partners that work with clients who cannot afford traditional legal representation. We provide a line of credit that gives clients affordable monthly payments and we pay attorneys quickly and directly, simplifying billing and collections. We enable customers and attorneys to focus on outcomes.
How we’re unique: We are the only company offering payment plans for civil cases in the market today. Justice for Me is opening a new segment in the legal market, those that have not been served to date. Our main mission will continue to be to close the Justice Gap and provide legal assistance to those who cannot access it today.
Demo video (if any): https://www.justiceforme.com.
Pricing: Justice for Me makes money by earning a service fee from the overall engagement. The attorney receives their invoice amount less this service fee. The client pays the full amount plus interest.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 9/11/2018.
Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pa.
Elevator pitch: Knovi was created by attorneys for attorneys to ease their caseload and bring an influx of valuable leads. Using artificial intelligence, Knovi matches clients with the right legal representation. Knovi then streamlines client communications with messaging and video chat capabilities, all the way from inquiry to settlement. An intuitive, built-in CRM documents the case from start to finish, so attorneys can focus on what truly matters: their client’s case.
How we’re unique: Powered by machine learning, Knovi’s chatbot creates client engagement before the first phone call or meeting. Knovi seamlessly initiates the client-attorney relationship and even starts the process of building the new case — all while providing great customer service, too.
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: Knovi costs $150 per month for up to five users. Each additional user is $30 per month with a 10% discount for annual subscribers. These prices are for an unlimited number of chats, which distinguishes Knovi from the competition which charges per completed chat.
Outside funding: No outside funding confirmed at the moment of this application.
Founded: 8/15/2017.
Headquarters: Chicago, Ill.
Elevator pitch: LawCo was developed to efficiently and ethically solve the access to justice problem by creating a way to connect live leads to lawyers instantly. LawCo’s platform matches people in need of legal help with lawyers on-demand, in real-time, and at no connecting cost to the consumer. With no monthly commitment fee to the attorney and no lengthy sales pitch, we built LawCo for small firms and solo lawyers, seeking to cost-effectively and rapidly build their books of business.
How we’re unique: LawCo is the only platform available that instantly connects lawyers to live leads. Unlike other lead generation products, LawCo takes out the wait time for connection. Lawyers will find our signup process quick and easy. Lawyers merely visit the website or download the free app, enter name, phone number, email, and ARDC information. They are verified via the ARDC and then approved to use the LawCo platform; instantly getting notified of live leads in real-time. Zero commitment; pay per lead.
Demo video (if any): https://bit.ly/2qczRp1.
Pricing: People in need of legal assistance use LawCo to notify all of our registered attorneys that someone is looking for help. The attorneys are notified via text and email that leads are available, in real-time. The first attorney that chooses to accept the lead pays a fee to LawCo to connect with the person in need. The leads are normally $65 per lead, but to gain traction, there are many promo codes available, making the leads $20.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 1/15/2019.
Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.
Elevator pitch: Lawgood is a web app that makes it easy for lawyers to draft and review contracts by allowing them to adjust important clause language with the push of a button and tap into crowdsourced best practices and trends.
How we’re unique: We give lawyers access to market intelligence while making it easier for them to work faster so that they can better service their clients. Lawyers don’t have to upload precedent libraries, learn a complicated new system, or have access to expensive practice resources. They can easily change the favorability of clause language based on client and deal specifics without time-consuming research. And they can see what other lawyers do in similar situations to better understand market standards.
Demo video (if any): https://youtu.be/n_SybiVffQw.
Pricing: Saas monthly subscription of $89 sticker price with discounted pricing for partners such as bar associations, legal companies, and practice management software companies.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 10/1/2016.
Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y., with offices in Orlando, Fla., and New Orleans, La.
Elevator pitch: Litify, is an intuitive, fully integrated SaaS platform for law firms that transforms how legal services are rendered through integrative technology. The singular platform streamlines and automates task management, document generation, intake management, and client communications while providing data-driven insights to help law firms scale and increase their bottom line. Built on Salesforce.com, Litify is a secure, extensible and rapidly evolving platform that helps lawyers stay one step ahead.
How we’re unique: Litify helps law firms function as modern day businesses by providing an end-to-end solution through an intelligent and user-friendly platform. Instead of functioning on different platforms for different tasks or documents, Litify streamlines everything under a single umbrella. The platform is built on Salesforce.com to provide a secure environment to store client data and leverage its infrastructure to implement new functionalities, accommodate changes and integrate extensively.
Demo video (if any): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Vm_IG_AVI&feature=youtu.be.
Pricing: Priced per-user license.
Outside funding: More than $5M in outside funding.
Founded: 4/15/2015.
Headquarters: Los Altos, Calif.
Elevator pitch: Parley Pro is the contract management platform that automates documents and workflows around them. It is the only solution that enables real-time, multi-party contract negotiation powered by our proprietary, modular product design and architecture. This approach provides unprecedented visibility into a contract at a clause level. In addition, Parley Pro maintains a detailed audit trail for all contract changes throughout negotiations and after, preserving the history of all negotiations.
How we’re unique: Parley Pro is the only contract solution that provides:
Demo video (if any): https://vimeo.com/337402797.
Pricing: We charge per user/seat.
Outside funding: $1M-$5M in outside funding.
Founded: 4/25/2018.
Headquarters: Chicago, Ill.
Elevator pitch: NMBL Technologies was founded by a diverse group of AmLaw 100 lawyers and technologists. WE recently released our first product, Proxy. Proxy is a cloud-based legal workflow management tool that supports the more effective adoption of legal operations concepts. Proxy optimizes four key day-to-day legal functions: (1) organizing and managing legal tasks; (2) delegation and status tracking; (3) visual prioritization; and (4) effective reporting and search.
How we’re unique: Three factors make us unique:
Demo video (if any): None.
Pricing: We have a customizable pricing tool available at https://proxylegalapp.com/pricing/.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 9/15/2019.
Headquarters: Edwardsville, Ill.
Elevator pitch: SimplyConvert is the first automated intake legal case qualification platform powered by an “all-knowing” AI chatbot. Casey, our chatbot, is currently versed in the legal criteria of 50 practice areas/litigations and her knowledge has no limit. Casey is also backed by a robust CRM that automates the entire legal intake process from initial conversation to signed contract, resulting in increased efficiency and conversion rates on signed cases.
How we’re unique: Casey, the smartest virtual legal assistant, makes our company unique. Unlike any other legal bot, live chat or online form, Casey gives instant legal guidance to web visitors. The SimplyConvert legal intake process is more efficient and streamlined – law firms follow up only with “qualified” potential clients, leaving more time to practice law.
Demo video (if any): https://simplyconvert.com/index.php.
Pricing: $30 per engagement plus $70 per signed contract.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 4/27/2017.
Headquarters: Beaverton, Ore.
Elevator pitch: We provide captive client leads for lawyers that have at least $21 of skin in the game. These leads convert at a high rate. Lawyers actually get paid to field these leads in real time. For the person who has a legal question, they are able to get legal advice from a local, verified attorney for $21 without having to wait. We’ve gone to great lengths to remain compliant with ethical rules, using our credit card processor to handle the funds, avoiding retainer issues and fee-sharing.
How we’re unique: We’re the world’s fastest way to hire a lawyer, period. We also go to great lengths to appeal to the ethically-conscious lawyer, like deleting encrypted client conversations off our server on a daily basis, providing a full transcript via email, and giving lawyers various options to reject a client mid-chat (scope, ethics, wrong state/category).
We launched Aug. 31, 2019 for landlord/tenant issues in Oregon. We will soon be opening in new cities and with new categories, including personal injury, family, business, and immigration.
Demo video (if any): www.textalawyernow.com.
Pricing: We have three:
Lawyers only give out their contact info in a final answer, and only if they want that client to re-hire them off platform. This is our real value – and it’s free for lawyers, an incredible deal!
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding.
Founded: 9/26/2017.
Headquarters: England, U.K.
Elevator pitch: VPD is the only holistic end-to-end legal pricing platform on the market spanning the entire pricing process from inception to house-styled proposal that enables partners to confidently eliminate guesswork and provide clients with unprecedented price transparency and budgetary certainty.
How we’re unique: Three ways:
Demo video (if any): https://vimeo.com/340043802 (Password: VPDPromo3.5).
Pricing: SaaS – annual subscription based on firm gross revenue bands.
Outside funding: No outside funding.
Founded: 6/7/2017.
Headquarters: Boston, Mass., with an office in Chicago, Ill.
Elevator pitch: Woodpecker is an AI-enabled legal document automation platform that helps lawyers get back to doing what they love. Our platform enables firms to automatically turn frequently used legal documents into standardized “smart-templates,” all from the comfort of Microsoft Word with no implementation or training overhead.
How we’re unique: We’re solving the biggest problem in legal document automation: the onboarding process. Instead of taking 6-24 months to convert existing documents and onboard our software, this same process takes days. Our patent-pending AI-enabled auto-template engine automatically converts existing templates (HotDocs or Contract Express) into Woodpecker templates with the click of a button. Additionally, our 1,500-plus integrations enable firms to seamlessly connect with existing tools and services.
Demo video (if any): https://youtu.be/odKvKQnL78E.
Pricing: Software-as-a-service subscription model.
Outside funding: Less than $1M in outside funding
THE BALLOT IS HERE. Trouble using this ballot? Go directly to Survey Monkey to vote there.
Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).
(Image via Getty)
Following the unprecedented release of essay topics just days before the July 2019 administration of the California bar exam, the results are finally out. Last summer, test-takers produced historically horrible results, the worst in nearly 70 years. How do this year’s results compare, and did the essay leak screw-up have any impact on the state’s pass rate? Dare we say, the results are actually pretty good — for California, that is.
According to a press release from the State Bar of California — which notes that “[t]he July 2019 pass rate rebound in California mirrors a national upward trend in scores” — the overall pass rate for the exam was 50.1 percent, while the pass rate for first-time takers was about 64 percent. In July 2018, the overall pass rate was 40.7 percent, while the pass rate for first-time takers was 55 percent. This means that California’s overall pass rate went up by 9.4 percentage points, and its pass rate for first-time takers also went up by 9 percentage points. Not only that, but the state’s mean scaled MBE score was 1428 (up 24 points since July 2018) compared with the national average of 1411 (up 16 8 points since July 2018). This means the essay leak had to have had an impact on these results, right? Right…? Come on, now.
Wrong. The State Bar produced not one, but two CYA reports on the July 2019 exam results, each concluding that the essay topic release had next to nothing to do with the increase in pass rates. Here’s some additional information from the State Bar:
The State Bar also released two reports on the results: the first, an analysis by the State Bar’s psychometrician, the Research Solutions Group (RSG), concluded that “[t]he results of the … analyses indicated that the premature release of the content had no statistically significant impact on the results of the July 2019 examination.”
In light of the special circumstances for the administration of this bar exam, the State Bar engaged a second firm, ACS Ventures, national experts in assessment and psychometric analysis, to review the analysis performed by RSG. Their report confirmed that the methods and procedures for scoring, scaling, and equating the bar exam were consistent with industry expectations and historical practice and confirmed the validity of the methods used in the initial psychometric analysis. ACS Ventures’ report concluded that “the empirical evidence suggests that the early release of topics did not have a material impact on performance on the July 2019 California Bar Exam.”
Alan Steinbrecher, Board Chair of the State Bar, had this to say about the results:
The State Bar is committed to ensuring integrity and fairness in the admissions process. The State Bar did not take lightly the decision to release the essay and performance test topics to all test takers, and thus we are relieved by the findings of the psychometricians that statistical analysis demonstrated that the integrity of the examination was not impacted, that performance was as predicted based on historical data, and the passing rate was not affected.
Okay, fine, we totally believe you. The essay topic leak had nothing to do with this.
For the sake of comparison, let’s take a look at the results for the last decade or so of summer administrations of the California bar exam. Check it out, below:
| Year | Overall Pass Rate |
| July 2019 | 50.1 percent passed |
| July 2018 | 40.7 percent passed |
| July 2017 (move to two-day test) | 49.6 percent passed |
| July 2016 | 43.07 percent passed |
| July 2015 | 46.6 percent passed |
| July 2014 | 48.6 percent passed |
| July 2013 | 55.8 percent passed |
| July 2012 | 55.3 percent passed |
| July 2011 | 54.8 percent passed |
| July 2010 | 54.8 percent passed |
| July 2009 | 56.4 percent passed |
| July 2008 | 61.7 percent passed |
Here are some additional statistics that the State Bar of California released from this summer’s exam (pass rates rounded to whole numbers):
| School Type |
First-Timers |
Repeaters |
| California ABA |
71 percent |
36 percent |
| Out-of-State ABA |
73 percent |
29 percent |
| California Accredited (but not ABA) |
26 percent |
14 percent |
| Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility |
27 percent |
9 percent |
| Unaccredited: Correspondence |
20 percent |
13 percent |
| Unaccredited Distance Learning |
29 percent |
12 percent |
| All Others |
38 percent |
22 percent |
| All Applicants |
64 percent |
26 percent |
Even though pass rates went up across the board, graduates of ABA-accredited law schools still displayed an advantage over their peers who attended California-accredited or unaccredited law schools. Specifically, the pass rate for first-time takers from California’s ABA-accredited law schools increased by 7 percentage points, up from 64 percent last summer. Those who went to law schools accredited only by California and took the exam for the first time saw their pass rate increase by 10 percentage points, up from 16 percent last summer.
Whatever it was that caused the pass rate in California to climb this summer, we’ll remind readers that we’re still being forced to celebrate barely half of test-takers passing this exam. If the California Supreme Court had decided to lower the state bar’s cut score to bring it in line with that of the vast majority of other states (or hell, even if the state’s high court had decided to lower the cut score by just a point or two), imagine how many more people would have passed. For new lawyers, the legal profession in California is still in trouble, and this is something that needs to be fixed.
Congratulations if you managed to pass the bar exam in California this summer. If you didn’t pass, don’t despair. Many very successful people have failed the bar exam (see our list of famous bar exam failures). Focus on February and try to develop a plan for passing, and someday, you’ll conquer the beast that is the California bar exam.
State Bar of California Releases July 2019 Bar Exam Results [State Bar of California]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
(Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
While it may seem as though the Senate confirms unqualified judges at a breakneck pace, it wasn’t nearly fast enough for some conservative lawyers. That’s why C. Boyden Gray, a former White House counsel and current ASS Law School professor just gave Mitch a giant donation, prompting the Kentucky Senator to take the pace of judicial confirmations up a notch:
McConnell’s renewed focus on confirming conservative judges comes after his joint fundraising committee received a $256,600 contribution in mid-September from C. Boyden Gray, a George Mason University law professor, founder of Committee of Justice—the “leading conservative voice on judicial appointments,” according to its website, and a board member at the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal organization that has groomed many of Trump’s judicial nominees.
It’s encouraging to know that McConnell is willing to pump the brakes on the drive to fill the judiciary with ghost hunters and pouty little weasels just to extract more money from rich FedSoc donors. Dolla, dolla bills y’all.
Now flush with cash, McConnell has turned the bigot spigot back on and pledged to confirm another 30 federal judges over the next month… qualifications be damned.
McConnell Speeds Up Confirming Judges After Hefty Donation From Conservative Legal Activist [American Prospect]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.