Following the announcement last week that it will extend its integration programme to content providers, Litera Microsystems has signed an agreement with Kira Systems that will see Kira become available through Litera’s Microsoft Word toolbar, we can reveal.
The integration is part of a wider move by Litera to give law firms a streamlined approach to document drafting and help them make the most of the technologies available, with Litera’s vice president of partnerships and marketing, Julian Morgan, telling Legal IT Insider: “Legal tech is so fragmented and there is so much more that suppliers can be doing to provide these smooth integrations so that CIOs are not left trying to piece everything together – why aren’t we saying that we’ll take the initiative so that CIOs can spend their time elsewhere.
Litera offers a ‘cradle to grave’ approach to drafting but does not offer a DM solution and where it has no offering it plans to integrate with content providers to provide users with a single interface.
The response to Litera’s proprietary integrated offering since the three-way merger of Litera, Microsystems and X-Ref has been good, with Clifford Chance last year signing up to the entire suite.
Morgan said: “We have a whole drafting lifecycle but clearly there are a couple of areas that we don’t have and last year we thought ‘why don’t we provide all our firms with a single interface, which helps with adoption.’
“If we plug into content sources, we can then surface that in the workflow while the lawyer is drafting and make it easier to use. Our focus is on simplifying the way lawyers work.
“The first content source is Kira Systems. We plan to be content agnostic and work better with content providers across the board; this is the first step.”
CIOs are worried about the risks of delivering too much from the Word ribbon, which can put a strain on Word and cause it to crash. However, Morgan said: “It’s a huge risk if the ribbon breaks but Clause Companion is a great product in that it places no extra strain on Word and allows content to be surfaced from multiple sources: you drag and drop from the right hand pane to surface the content you need.”