AXA Insurance last week announced that it has teamed up with alternative legal services provider rradar to launch an IBM Watson-backed virtual assistant to assist its customers with repeat legal questions on issues such as employment and HR.
Launched on 9 March, the rradar app – called Grace – will initially be available exclusively to AXA customers registered for online support through their AXA Management Liability product.
The first module of the machine learning-backed app will cover HR practice and employment law. This will be quickly followed by legal and risk modules such as health & safety law, corporate manslaughter, property law, environmental law, waste management duties and contract law.
Gary Gallen, CEO & founder of rradar said: “The introduction of ‘Grace’ will bring legal expertise direct to those small businesses that need it most and I believe that this is just the start of a broader revolution of how legal advice is accessed and administered.”
Wins, deals and new launches
Belfast-headquartered encrypted mobile communication provider SaltDNA has announced the launch of SaltLegal.
SaltLegal is an industry specific solution that allows for the transfer of secure legal documentation from the SaltMobile or SaltDesktop device, allowing collaboration between the office and the courtroom.
UK
An entrepreneur and startup support programme run by Olswang will now include the services of R&D tax credit company Jumpstart.
Olswang’s technology and IP focused equIP Programme provides legal advice and a network of support to UK based entrepreneurs and start-ups. Jumpstart, which works with businesses across the UK to identify their eligibility to claim tax credits for research and development, began working with Olswang in March.
Paris
INCOPRO, the online brand protection specialist, and ATurquoise, a French law firm specialising in intellectual property, luxury and fashion, media, and entertainment, have announced a partnership that will enable ATurquoise to access INCOPRO’s technology to provide a comprehensive global overview of online infringements.
This includes access to INCOPRO’s IDENTIFY system, which was created for content owners to identify and enforce against copyright infringements across the internet. As well as tracking over 16,000 sites, the technology provides deep intelligence for a range of enforcement activities, industry co-operations and outreach to Governments.
US
DocSolid, a leader in enterprise scanning, workflow and paper reduction solutions for the legal market, has announced a strategic technology integration with NetDocuments. DocSolid’s KwikTag Legal solution now enables NetDocuments customers to transition from paper-dependent matter management to a fully electronic matter file in the NetDocuments DMS, allowing firms to improve information governance and compliance while reducing the cost and risk of paper records. This solution will be offered in both licensed and subscription pricing models.
Tagetik Software, which specialises in corporate performance management software for the innovation of financial processes, has been acquired by Wolters Kluwer for €300m. Wolters Kluwer is a leading global supplier of services and solutions to legal, tax, financial, employment and healthcare professionals.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton advised the shareholders of Tagetik Software. Allen & Overy advised Wolters Kluwer.
Startup funding
Machine learning-based contract review platform LawGeex has received $7m in Series A funding from a number of high profile investors including Japanese HR and information services company Recruit Holdings, the owner of Indeed.com. Previous investors Lool Ventures and LionBird also participated in this round, bringing LawGeex’ total funding to $9.5 million.
LawGeex was co-founded in 2014 by CEO Noory Bechor and CTO Ilan Admon. Targeted at corporate legal teams, the Tel Aviv-headquartered startup’s strapline is that it can speed up the entire contract review and approval process to under 60 minutes.
(If you missed our startup profile of Autto check it out. Founded in 2016 in London, Autto is a cloud-based SaaS toolkit that enables legal and compliance departments to build up automated workflows. See here for more: http://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/startup-corner-autto-in-focus/)
Team moves: In-house tech support
As first revealed by Legal IT Insider on 6 March, the senior team behind RPC’s tech-led in-house consultancy arm RPC Perform is to move lock stock and barrel to leading UK eDiscovery provider Millnet – now part of Advanced Discovery – led by Julia Chain as newly-appointed UK managing director.
Chain, formerly a managing director of Huron Consulting and before that general counsel of T-Mobile, moves alongside Varun Srikumar, former Royal Bank of Scotland legal services group sourcing manager; and Andrew Dey, ex-head of legal operations at Barclays.
New product launches and upgrades
UK
Nikec Solutions has formally launched Nikec Analytics, a reporting tool powered by visual analytics Gartner leader Qlik to help customers get the most out of their Copitrak cost recovery data.
Damian Jeal, managing director of Nikec Solutions said: “Cost recovery has until recently only really been about chargeback. Now, it is more about cost management and workflow improvement. We built Nikec Analytics to allow firms to efficiently and effortlessly identify trends and pinpoint areas that need reviewing, and get the most out of their cost recovery system. This impressive tool is set to update and simplify the cost recovery strategy.”
Workshare has announced an extension to its solution on Microsoft Azure. Workshare will now be using Azure Active Directory to offer single sign-on (SSO) to its clients.
US
FRONTEO USA last week announced enhancements to Lit i View, the company’s eDiscovery processing and review platform.
The enhancements use the FRONTEO AI “KIBIT” to advance the visual display of document review quality and accuracy. The “heat map,” unique to Lit i View, now offers the ability to select and view multiple documents from the heat map view.
Attorney allocation solution Salladore has announced the addition of a new feature that automatically builds a timeline for each case. The new feature is available in the software’s pilot program, which is now available to law firms and legal departments.
The timeline feature is tailored to the way each Salladore client handles cases. It ensures that everyone working on a matter apprised of the major events in a litigation, transactional negotiation, or regulatory process, including automatic adjustment of deadlines when changes are made in the calendar.
“We designed the new timeline to help partners keep track of deadlines, manage changes to deadlines and plan how to staff their matters,” says Adam McDonell, founder and president of Salladore and a former practicing attorney. “It also will help junior associates understand how matters flow over the course of weeks and months.”
In January, Salladore launched its Action Center, a tool that draws data from across a firm’s entire IT ecosystem and organises it for a partner’s day-to-day assignment and follow-up workflow.
Hires
Financial Software Solutions, a technology leader providing web-based and mobile case management solutions to law firms and bankruptcy trustees, has announced that Angie Birdsell has joined the company in the role of business development manager. In her new position Birdsell will focus on building out a new FSS product line in receivership management.
Other industry news
UK
Independent legal technology and consultancy organisation Anexsys has for a second year achieved kCura’s Relativity ‘Best in Service’ designation, which recognises Relativity Authorised Partners who provide an exceptional Relativity experience for end users.