Latest news

Kennedys IQ, the newly launched technology-driven company from global law firm Kennedys, has hired Luminance Technologies’ head of discovery Kimberley Davies to the role of commercial development manager.

The Loan Market Association is to launch a document automation platform in partnership with Allen & Overy and contract automation platform Avvoka in order to help members generate LMA recommended documents.

The legal tech sector continues to rally to overcome the challenges presented by COVID-19, with a further raft of vendors offering customers free tools and services to help users survive COVID-19.

With many law firms and legal tech vendors finding that Zoom is the easiest way to keep them connected to staff and clients while working from home, it’s worrying that the enterprise video communications company is again facing a privacy and security backlash as security experts warn that its default settings aren’t secure enough.

American multinational technology company IPsoft has swapped out its SpringCM contract lifecycle management system for ContractPodAI, citing its strength as a contract management as opposed to broader document management system.

In two notable hires either side of the pond, former Pinsent Masons associate and group innovation manager Jenny Hotchin has joined iManage as legal practice lead in the UK while in the US, female founder Alma Asay has joined Litera as a litigation domain expert and evangelist.

Travers Smith LLP has launched an app to help clients quickly get to grips with their force majeure exposure in contracts in light of COVID-19.

A ‘time is of the essence’ collaboration between The Society for Computers and Law, the UK LawTech Delivery Panel and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service will today (30 March) see the launch of Remote Courts Worldwide: a service to help the justice sector rise to the challenge of embracing remote hearings and new ways of delivering justice for users.

“There are two strengths that a law firm needs to build in this crisis. The technology strength and the technology foundations to work in a distributed way in embracing the cloud, but also in the way you run a firm. Your daily cadence needs to get reinvented in a distributed world. We’re trying to educate the industry that these two things go hand in hand in this crisis. Even firms that are running in the cloud have a significant amount of change and evolution to go through to be more distributed.”

Litera has acquired Best Authority vendor Levit & James and will use the Best Authority Table of Authorities within its Litigation Companion proofreading tool, as it focuses its attention on further simplifying drafting within the contentious sector.

Juro and the Link App are now free to access to help businesses collaborate remotely during COVID-19 crisis.

Litera has joined the ranks of technology providers to offer their collaboration software for free to help law firms overcome the extensive challenges presented by COVID-19. Certain key parts of Litera Transact (formerly Doxly) will be available at no cost for six months. In particular, the bits of Litera Transact that enable lawyers to avoid coming into contact with others, specifically its checklist, eSignature, and closing room functionality.

Tikit has been acquired from BT Group by case management competitor Advanced, in a controversial acquisition that Advanced Legal’s managing director Doug Hargrove is keen to emphasise will see the private equity-owned company continue to invest in both competing products Tikit P4W and ALB.

The Bar Council has advised barristers that they should not court attend hearings in person unless certain limited criteria are met following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday (23 March) that the UK should stay at home to inhibit the spread of COVID-19.

Practice management vendor Clio has commited $1m to a disaster relief program to help law firms navigate the difficulties that lie ahead in light of the global COVID-19 shut down.

We speak to slicedbread project manager Jennie Strickland-Grogan (pictured above), who came down with COVID-19 while in the middle of a major client project. She is now recovering from the virus and wants to spread a message of hope.