Welcome to the March Orange Rag, where we have two exclusives for our readers as well as the usual round up of all the month’s top stories, funding announcements, wins and deals and people moves.
The first exclusive is the news that magic circle law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has appointed a new CIO. He follows in the footsteps of chief digital and technology officer Charlotte Baldwin, who was brought in to transform Freshfields’ tech stack. The change of title to CIO is reflective of the fact that Freshfields is now moving into a phase of leveraging the largely cloud-based infrastructure it has in place and focusing on becoming more data driven. Head to our top story for all the details.
We also share for the first time the exclusive results of a human v machine showdown with litigation review software LitiGate, which is a bit of fun and (spoiler alert) great press for LitiGate. But it brings home the point that these days if you are not using appropriate available technology, your client should be asking why.
Our vendor of the month is LexisNexis. In March Lexis unveiled a new API Developer Portal that allows law firms and legal departments to integrate legal data, content and analytics from a variety of LexisNexis applications and data sources into their existing systems, applications and processes. Also in March, Lexis announced the official launch of Lexis+ UK, which gives legal professionals access to its research, technology-aided insights and practical guidance in one place. Lexis is investing huge sums to make its technology more available at the point of need, and we particularly applaud the portal.
Our law firm of the month is Freshfields, which has made some smart changes to its underlying technology infrastructure including going live on the iManage Cloud and Salesforce CRM, and under its new CIO will be looking at how it moves from predictive to prescriptive analytics and achieving data interoperability.
I’d also like to say congratulations to venture fund Bryce Catalyst, which was part of not one, but three big legal tech fundraises announced in March. We have the details of all three in our funding section.
No welcome would be complete without noting the awful atrocities that have taken place in Ukraine this month, and we applaud the law firms that have exited Moscow. We have been tracking law firm efforts to distance themselves from Russia, and encourage you to take a look at the articles on legaltechnology.com if you haven’t already.