Leading South African firm Webber Wentzel, which has a total staff of approximately 800, including over 450 lawyers and offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, has selected Intapp Time as its new time recording system.
Helen Harding, CFO at Webber Wentzel, said: “The Intapp software will help integrate our multiple systems via a single interface to eliminate duplication and manual re-entry of data which will in turn increase efficiency, enhance quality assurance, and improve visibility across the firm. This software presents an opportunity for us to collaborate more effectively with colleagues and clients, and provide a more seamless client service.’’
Intapp on Friday 7 April announced that Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP, a leading law firm in the South East and the oldest law firm in the world, has selected Intapp Open for new business intake. Intapp Open is a new business intake (NBI) application which has been adopted by more than 200 firms worldwide, designed from the ground up to address the specific needs of firm management, lawyers, risk staff and IT stakeholders. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/worlds-oldest-law-firm-thomson-snell-passmore-selects-intapp-open-for-new-business-intake/
Wins and deals
In other wins and deals, UK-based technology company Blackdot Solutions has announced the integration of their online investigations software Videris with Relativity, kCura’s ediscovery software that helps organisations worldwide manage and analyse large volumes of unstructured data. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/ediscovery-blackdot-solutions-integrates-with-kcuras-relativity-to-make-investigations-more-efficient/
BigHand has announced their latest integration between BigHand SmartNote and Thomson Reuters Mattersphere, saving law firms both time and effort in creating routine documents. In line with English SRA regulations, law firms are required to record all file and attendance notes, which are often low-value documents, yet time consuming and costly to create, and are often never referred to again. BigHand SmartNote lifts the burden of manually creating these notes, by fully automating the process from start to finish. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/bighand-adds-mattersphere-to-its-list-of-workflow-integration-deals/
Seal Software, a provider of contract discovery and analytics software, has entered into partnership with Coin Sciences, the open source blockchain company and the use of its MultiChain private blockchain as a key component of the award-winning Seal Contract Discovery and Analytics platform. Seal is using the advanced streams functionality of MultiChain as a basis for the peer-to-peer management of its intelligent contracts. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/intelligent-contracts-seal-software-announces-partnership-with-multichain-blockchain-platform/
Wrigleys Solicitors, a leading specialist law firm, has contracted with Linetime for the supply of their Liberate case management system. https://legaltechnology.com//legal-it-newswire/linetime-case-management-system-implemented-in-wrigleys-court-of-protection-team/
Langdale Vallotton, LLP — a Georgia-based full service law firm founded over 40 years ago — has selected iManage Work for its Work Product Management needs including document and email management and collaboration. The firm’s new Work Product Management system will be delivered via the iManage Cloud. https://legaltechnology.com//legal-it-newswire/georgia-law-firm-langdale-selects-imanage-cloud-for-work-product-management/
And Eclipse Legal Systems is implementing its Proclaim Case Management Software solution at Gloucestershire firm, Simply Complete Solicitors. https://legaltechnology.com//legal-it-newswire/simply-complete-solicitors-takes-client-service-to-the-next-level-with-eclipses-proclaim-and-touchpoint-solutions/
New product launches and integrations
On 6 April Robot Lawyer LISA led by CEO Chrissie Lightfoot launched a free legal tool that allows users to create legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in less than 7 minutes at absolutely no cost. By asking questions about the users’ needs, LISA – which stands for Legal Intelligence Support Assistant – intelligently drafts the document while helping the user understand the legal and commercial principles on which it is based. LISA is also the first law robot to provide unbiased and objective assistance to both parties, allowing users to avoid having to engage traditional human lawyers on either side. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/chrissie-lightfoot-unleashes-robot-lawyer-lisa-to-create-ndas/
RAVN Systems has launched an AI Powered Time Narrative classification tool to help accurately analyse time taken to complete a matter or project.
RAVN, which has been listed in the Financial Times 1000 list of Europe’s fastest growing companies, has applied its AI platform, RAVN ACE, to power the RAVN Time Narrative Classification application. By learning from an initial accurate training set, the solution can understand specific identifiers within the timecard narratives that indicate the identity of the correct relevant task code for that description and insert it within the corresponding database record or data extracts provided by the firm. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/ravn-launches-ai-powered-time-narrative-classification-application-inc-utbms/
Doxly, a secure portal for end-to-end corporate transactions, on 6 April announced its integration with DocuSign, the pioneer and global standard for eSignature and Digital Transaction Management (DTM), to streamline the signature management process for corporate transactions.
Microsoft Office 365 has formally released cyber defence tool Threat Intelligence, which promises real time and customisable threat alert notification. The launch comes as MS also releases Office 365 Advanced Data Governance and a new interface for Advance Threat Protection (ATP). https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/ms-office-365-releases-threat-intelligence-and-advanced-data-governance/
Office Information Australia (OIA), a leading provider of content services and workflow management in the APAC region, has announced an offer which allows iManage customers to implement a world-class workflow system with a document approval workflow for free. https://legaltechnology.com//legal-it-newswire/oia-announces-free-document-approval-for-imanage/
Startup news
LexisNexis has announced the first five legal tech accelerator participants in its Silicon Valley accelerator programme. They are Visabot, TagDox, Separate.us, Ping, and JuriLytics, which were selected from a list of over 40 promising startups for the interesting nature of their businesses and their innovative use of technology.
Based in the Menlo Park, CA offices of Lex Machina, the program will leverage the content resources, deep expertise in legal, technology, and startup domains, and industry-leading market positions of LexisNexis and Lex Machina to guide and mentor program participants. The program will be led by Lex Machina CEO Josh Becker with support from LexisNexis’ Chief Technology Officer, Jeff Reihl, Chief Product Officer, Jamie Buckley, Vice President of US Product Management, Jeff Pfeifer, and Lex Machina Chief Evangelist, Owen Byrd.
Industry news and updates
Consilio, a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, and legal consulting services, today announced that it has achieved kCura’s Orange-level Relativity Best in Service designation, which recognizes Relativity Authorized Partners who provide an exceptional Relativity experience for end users. https://legaltechnology.com//legal-it-newswire/consilio-achieves-kcuras-relativity-best-in-service-designation/
Opinion and comment
If you missed Andrew Haslam’s annual review of LegalTech New York 2017 you can download the full report as a PDF here LegalTech 2017 ATH Final. Andrew, who is eDisclosure project manager at Squire Patton Boggs, says: “Each year I try to identify a theme for the article to bind the different strands together. This year is reflected in the slightly tongue in cheek headline “Do you want AI with that?” as in the fast food industry where “do you want fries with that?” became a standard upsell to any order, so AI seems to be tacked on to every presentation (and a lot of demonstrations) at the event. As you will see, the theme throughout the show, was the use of AI within the legal industry. The overwhelming conference preoccupation with AI meant that there was a bit of a disconnect between the makeup of the exhibition (which was, as ever, dominated by eDiscovery suppliers), and the key notes, briefing sessions, conversations and side events going on during the three days.”
In ‘Data Analytics in Law is Loom-ing’, our regular columnist Mitchell Kowalski says: “I often hear litigators claim that legal innovation holds nothing for them; that good litigators are simply those who outwork the other party. But what if they could now trade working harder for working smarter? In the fast and furious world of legal technology, another Canadian success story is emerging: Toronto-based, Loom Analytics is now playing a lead role in the application of data analytics to legal services. https://legaltechnology.com//latest-news/guest-post-data-analytics-in-law-is-loom-ing/
And in a blog carried by the Law Society of Scotland, Rob Marrs, head of education at the Society, discusses where and how technology fits within the legal sector in this blog for the Society: http://www.lawscot.org.uk/news/2017/04/technology-and-law-%E2%80%93-who,-where-and-how/