Dutch-headquartered information services company Wolters Kluwer announced at the end of 2022 that it has acquired AI-backed contract review provider Della. We asked Sergio Liscia, vice president and general manager of legal software (legal and regulatory division) at Wolters Kluwer, what the acquisition means for customers.
When did you start speaking with Della?
We started speaking with Della in 2020, when we started integrating their technology within Legisway. As the partnership deepened, we saw a strong fit and the opportunity to unleash greater value for our customers by getting an even stronger relationship with Della.
Is the plan for Della to be an integrated offering – give us an example of what that might look like?
There is already an integrated offering, as Della is used by Legisway customers when they are importing documents into our platform. We see this as just the beginning as there are many opportunities to enhance our existing offering with NLP and deep learning technologies. The Legal & Regulatory division has many software and content offerings for law firms and legal departments across many countries, and we see many opportunities to leverage Della’s technology for the benefit of our customers.
Will Della also remain as a separate offering for non-Wolters Kluwer customers?
Although the Della platform is bound to evolve, what the Della team has accomplished with large law firms and large corporations is impressive and we want to nurture these relationships. The customers will have the opportunity to cover now a wider range of their workflows thanks to the extended portfolio of Wolters Kluwer.
What does the acquisition mean for Della’s law firm clients?
Della is now part of a multi-billion corporation with strong resources, capabilities, and a solid financial position. So it means they have more opportunities to develop the team and the product and more certainty about the future of Della. Moreover, it will give a sense of certainty to large corporate clients that they can continue to rely on and expand their use of the Della technology.
How do you envisage Della’s technology will be used by Wolters Kluwer clients?
We believe Della’s technology or new deep learning algorithm derived from their technology will simply help our client access the right information at the right time, even if stored in complex legal documents. On top of this, we believe that Della may enable some further automation of the contract workflow (and in the future other workflows) by triggering automated tasks such as clause review and contract drafting.
Where do you see the future of NLP contract review going?
I think I have partially answered it in the previous question. Della’s technology allows the retrieval of information from complex legal documents, in a very user-friendly way. You could say that NLP and deep learning have not just a vocation to extract data but to simplify computer/human interactions. We believe that NLP can trigger the automation of different tasks of the contract lifecycle. In this way, legal professionals can gain not only efficiency but also effectiveness. In the world of law firms and legal departments where user adoption and change management are always a challenge, this is key. But now we have [Della founder] Christophe and team to give a detailed and qualified answer together with us to this question.
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