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Category: Legal Technology Archives

ABA Techshow 2023: Startup Pitch Competition

by mark i unger

Before big events, I like to look for the ‘feel good’ get-together. Back in the day when going to Newport Jazzfest there was the Friday night concert by the headliner at the International Tennis Center. Ask me sometime about how Diana Krall sang to me (and maybe 999 others) and stopped time in my world.

At ABA Techshow, it’s the startup pitch competition, hosted by none other than Bob Ambrogi and sponsored by Clio.

Startup Alley is occupied by the is the top 15 startups after massive voting, seeking to garner attention, mass-clapping, and excitedness from those first to have arrived at Techshow. It’s quite literally like the ‘Shark Tank/AG/American Idol’ of legal tech. I’ve always be something of a Mark-Cuban-wannabe, searching for my lost youth and still somewhat rubber-bandy agility of the reinvent-the-wheel mentality. I’ve met many really great people on their way up. Previous years’ offerings were impressive, and this year looked to be no exception. In hindsight, they didn’t disappoint.

Ambrogi wrote about the top 15 here: Your votes are in: here are the 15 finalists you chose to be in the 2023 start up Ally at ABA TechShow.  They include a few that have been making waves over the last couple of years while we’ve been in pseudo-exile and a number of which are fresh out of the box.

Listed in order of votes cast, they are:

  1. Calloquy Platform.

    Calloquy Platform is a remote litigation platform that proffers to be safe, secure, and efficient for meetings, mediations, depositions, and arbitrations; and boasts to be coupled with licensed court reporting providers.  I haven’t drilled down yet on their platform, but given the number of zoom mediations I’ve done for others, there is an actual need for the siloing of offers/counteroffers/and evidentiary documents.

  2. LegalEase Citations

    LegalEase Citations is a data entry platform that touts itself as a bluebook citation generator for easy legal citations.

  3. Parrot

    Parrot is an all-in-one platform for depositions, specifically remote depositions, and claims a “90-in-90” mantra– that being that after deposition, within 90 minutes, you’ll have a deposition transcript that has a 90% accuracy rate (though the actual rate has appeared at closer to 94%); they sync audio and video and while this has been done before and continues to be done, Parrot telegraphs future focus on keyword search, exhibit sharing, and collaboration.

  4. Docgility

    Docgility is an AI-powered contract acceleration platform that claims to have an 80% faster contract execution. That’s a pretty significant claim and supports contract review in all of the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It supports Word and PDF formats, redlines, and document edits. 

  5. Catylex Contract Analytics

    Catylex Contract Analytics is another contract review tool designed as described to get through the “trough of disillusionment” with reviewing contracts. This description alone in a presentation was enough to make me wonder if this would be scalable into other legal practice spaces.

  6. Jurisage

    Jurisage, a Canadian offering, offers several claimed key functionalities in an attempt to solve the age-old problem of legal research stress —

    1. Browser extension add-on to pull data into the platform;
    2. Dashboard for case consolidation details; and
    3. A Chat function (introduced 2 weeks ago) to help lawyers crowd-source their research among trusted colleagues.
  7. EsquireTek

    EsquireTek attacks the very real-time and money suck of discovery with the tagline “Discovery Sucks Donut” (and they’re offering killer swag to prove it). This was one of my top 4 players as I believe this is a significant access to justice issue potentially, at least in Texas, where, since 1.1.21 there have been mandatory certain disclosures, but that has not slowed the post-covid launching of additional discovery. In essence, all discovery questions go into their platform for true collaboration between attorneys, staff, and clients. I’ve played with various ways and manual workflows for this, but this claims to solve some of the lack of efficiency problems. There are checkboxes and objections that can be inserted via a few clicks and it allows for the upload of customizable objections etc. While it’s unclear how often these objections are checked or updated, the solution is a strong promise. My workarounds have included fill-able forms, google forms, and text-expander for standard objections, though these require more manual work. Interested to see a real use case on this one.

  8. Universal Migrator

    Universal Migrator was the first-place winner and promises to migrate a firm’s data in our out of over 60 platforms/ case management system. While this is not a problem as ubiquitous as discovery as mentioned above, a firm’s data is the blood in the law office’s veins. How it flows is significant. How it’s used and usable is life itself oftentimes. This massive claimed ability made it one of my top four.

  9. CiteRight

    CitRight claims that it “helps you save cases from online legal databases and makes them available right where you are — inside Microsoft Word.” This is a nice concept and takes advantage of being a conduit from your legal research platform to your legal document, pleading brief of otherwise.

  10. Fidu

    Fidu was co-created and pitched by the very impressive Kimberly Bennett (also a speaker this year at Techshow) and provides a platform for the automation of workflows by creating a very usable client portal so that an attorney or firm can leverage flat fee billing by massively increased efficiencies. This was one of my top 4 without question, given the very real and actual need for alternatives to the billable hour. In Texas, unless the Courts allow for Attorney’s Fees to be measured other than by the hour, there will still be the need (when Attorney’s Fees are being argued) to contemporaneously record the time. However, this potentially makes efficiency the benchmark to getting people help with legal representation, thus I think overall it is the greatest objective need in our current environment. Fidu came in third place out of the fifteen offerings and was easily one of my top four.

  11. DecisionVault

    DecisionVault — Also one of my top 4, and coming in second place, Decision Vault claims to take information much better than the existing apps for collecting information into a firm’s CRM database in order to “Simplify intake for your clients & automate the data flow in your practice” and also offers a client portal for seamless use.

  12. CaseYak

    CaseYak is a case estimator platform, currently in four states and will be in four more by next month with further expansion planned. Limited to personal injury law for case value estimations, I’m unclear how this provides the claimed ‘access to justice’ it did but is impressive to be able to collect state judgment data and then evaluate over 53 data points to then apply within a machine learning model (AI) to give attorneys an estimate of what the case may be worth.

  13. Truve

    Truve is a data platform to take the pain out of an average law firm’s management of spreadsheets in order to evaluate firm performance (KPI’s) etc., of which the average number of spreadsheets is estimated by them to be 14, an average number of KPI’s to be 120 and average amount of time spent maintaining these spreadsheets to be between 8 and 10% of the time.

  14. Case Chronology

    Case Chronology, led by board-certified orthopedic/spine surgeon John Shim, this is a medical platform that focuses on the chronology of a patient/client’s medical problems while being tested in litigation. Dr. Shim, from Florida, currently built this out in custom form and is now moving towards standardization of timelining the patient, with the immense ability to link to all source documents necessary to support the conclusion. This includes medical records of all kinds and is essentially a chronology creation software with records integration. In my time of creating timelines for litigation, smart documents, and indexes with links to all supporting documents, this to me is very significant. It is limited to case types like medical malpractice or personal injury and the like, but the ability to create “dynamic timelines” is something that is truly compelling.

  15. 10BE5

    10BE5 claims to maximize efficiency and automate substantive legal work in capital markets. While this application is somewhat limited to my space, its implications are certainly impressive, if it is scalable.

The January, 2023 Edition of Circuits has been Published

The journal’s editors and contributing authors have put together a fine edition of our Section’s journal, “Circuits.”  This issue has the following features:

• Message from the Chair by Pierre Grosdidier
• Letter from the Editor by Sally Pretorius

Featured Articles
• Examining Heslin and Lewis v. Infowars and Alex Jones, by Judge Xavier Rodriguez
• Service of Process via NFT: A Novelty or a Natural Next Step? by Hon. John G. Browning
• FAA Drone Regulation Survives Constitutional Challenge, by Pierre Grosdidier

Short Circuits
• Featuring Lisa Danley, Dawson Lightfoot, Brett Burney

Circuit Boards
• Highlighting Facebook evidence and Metaverse

You can download the latest copy of Circuits here.

Technology answers Technology Competence Questions: What else you can learn at the ABA TechShow

Techie Lawyer in Chicago Hotel (MIU+AI/DALL • E 2)

By Mitch Zoll, Mark Unger, and… ChatGPT

There are several ways that a lawyer can stay competent in technology:

  1. Continuing Legal Education (CLE): Many states require lawyers to participate in ongoing legal education, and many CLE programs now offer courses and seminars on technology and its application in the practice of law.
  2. Professional Development: Attending conferences, such as ABA Techshow, and participating in webinars, can help lawyers stay current with the latest technology and trends in the legal field.
  3. Networking: Joining professional organizations, such as the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, or attending networking events can help lawyers connect with other legal professionals who are knowledgeable about technology and its application in the practice of law.
  4. Self-study: Lawyers can also stay competent in technology by reading relevant articles, books and blogs to stay current with the latest trends and developments in the field.
  5. Hands-on experience: Lawyers can also stay competent in technology by using relevant software, apps, and tools in their practice, such as e-discovery software, legal research databases, and document management systems.
  6. Hiring outside help: Lawyers can also stay competent in technology by hiring outside help such as IT staff, LegalTech consultants or virtual paralegals for the specific needs of their practice.

It’s important for lawyers to stay up-to-date with technology in order to be able to effectively represent their clients and to be able to navigate the legal landscape of the 21st century.

 

What is ABA Techshow?

ABA Techshow is an annual conference and expo designed for legal professionals to learn about the latest technology and its application in the practice of law. Attending ABA Techshow can help lawyers stay current with the latest tools and trends in the legal field, network with other legal professionals, and gain valuable continuing legal education (CLE) credits. Additionally, the conference typically features keynote speakers and panel discussions on a wide range of topics, providing attendees with valuable insights and perspectives on the intersection of technology and the law. Overall, ABA Techshow is a great opportunity for lawyers to stay informed, stay engaged, and stay competitive in the legal field.

***

The content above was written entirely by ChatGPT, the new AI content platform at has the potential to revolutionize the way we obtain and process written information.  Although ChatGPT can only pass portions of the Bar (On LawNext Podcast: Can the AI of GPT-3.5 Pass the Bar Exam? We Find Out | LawSites), it is ready to help provide FAQ responses to your clients’ questions.

But where does ChatGPT fall short? I next asked ChatGPT: “Why am I going to TechShow?” This time ChatGPT was stumped: “I’m sorry, I am an AI and I do not have the information about your personal schedule or reasons why you would be going to the ABA Techshow.”

Luckily, I have the answer to this one. TechShow was the first legal conference I attended when I opened my firm. The information I learned there, and the connections I made, have been invaluable to building a practice that allows me to efficiently serve my clients while balancing the work-life balance I wanted at an attorney. The sessions provided marketing, operations, client service and, of course, technology related information and I have called upon that information every day in the operation of my firm.   The vendor expo has the leading and emerging law firm tech providers there to answer questions and I can learn about and evaluate the best tools for my firm. Finally, I am going back because as Technology evolves and improves, I want my firm to do the same.

Time is running out if you want to join me at TechShow but the discounted rate DEADLINE has been extended to February 25thABA TECHSHOW

Members of Computer & Technology Section can register for ABA TECHSHOW 2023 at an additional special reduced rate of $100 off the standard rate using discount code EP2312 at checkout, but the rate increases soon!

ABA TechShow 2023 – Early Bird Deadline is EXTENDED TO JANUARY 25, 2023

ABA TechShow 2023 Early Bird Deadline is EXTENDED UNTIL January 25, 2023!!!

$100 Off price for Friends in the Computer & Tech Section,

State Bar of Texas

use PROMOTER CODE: EP2312  (links at bottom)

What: The best legal tech show for solos and small to medium firms in the country.

When: March 1-4, 2023

Where: Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker, Chicago, Illinois

LowdownMark I. Unger w/ Mitchell Zoll

For the first time in several years, ABA TechShow is back in all things “live!” in Chicago, March 1-4, 2023.

If you’ve never been, this is a significant opportunity as there are more legal technology startups and providers than there have ever been in my recollection. In addition, expect massive pushes by those who have gobbled up or been gobbled up as a result of the disruption that occurred during Covid.

All prognostications I’m seeing in the news seem to imply a bad year financially. I truly hope this is not the case, but the key to surviving if not thriving this next year will, IMO, be creating efficiencies. These often come with some of the legal tech solutions offered over the last 10 years and refined over the last 3.

I’ve been fortunate to attend most years over the last 15 and every year is a ramp-up, but this year, I’m expecting really significant things from them. If you go, I hope you soak in as much as possible between the CLE tracks and topics as well as the Vendors on and off the beaten path.

Key tracks include:

I.             Core Concepts

II.            Financial Management

III.          Futures

IV.           Litigation Tech

V.            Operations

VI.           Transactional Tech

VII.         Client Experience and

VIII.        Marketing

Key topics that stand out at first glance

Wed PM:

Start-Up Pitch Competition with Bob Ambrogi Robert Ambrogi (legend of a nice guy and pitches from maybe a dozen startups looking to hit it big w/lawyers and law firms; my favorite part of TechShow).

Thursday + Friday:

Tech Competence: Now that 40 Jurisdictions mandate some form of the ABA trickledown model rule comment regarding technology as a part of competence, this panel boasts 4 well-known though leaders on the subject. As relevant now as it was before Covid, probably more so.

Billing 101 With Tech – I could spend a day talking about this and how practice management systems, apps, snippets and workflows cut my billing entry down to 15-30 seconds per, but why not start with this; this is low-hanging fruit for consultants because with the right tools, it’s basically creating what I call “free money” (that which you can get back in time and money for ‘efficiencizing.’

Using AI and Data Analytics in Litigation

Legal Marketing Trends: Where Should You Spend Your Marketing Resources?

Early and Often: Better Client Communication through Automation – Regina Edwards (“Lawyer on the Beach” FB Group) is on this panel and is, IMO, extraordinary in workflow efficiencies. This will be a no-miss.

The Security Challenge for Microsoft 365: In Plain Language You Can Understand— Ben Schorr is old school, but even previously as a consultant who Microsoft bought, ‘er hired, he’s the best as all things MS; veteran TS speaker, another no-miss.

Web3 and Law Firm Financials

Using AI and Data Analytics in Litigation

Leaving the Law Firm for Greener $$ Pastures

Mac Hacks – With my friend Brett Burney (probably one of the top 5 technology consultants in the country and an overall phenomenal guy; and from Texas originally, to boot.

Practicing with Bots: Where to Draw the Ethical Lines?

Technology Assisted Review – Not sure where we’ll end up, but if dealing with ESI (now which identification and location is mandated under the new Texas mandatory disclosures’ rules), then this might be a good place to start learning. Mostly used with big discovery, we are ripe for a turn towards turnkey, small law solutions. #FingersCrossed

I Didn’t Know PDFs Could Do That – Darla Jackson and Dan Siegel – we all need regular CLE on this every year, myself included

Law Firm Efficiency Overhaul: Optimize Your Tech Stack for Maximum Performance – Including our own Texas Attorney, Alex Shahrestani, this is one for everyone looking to review what software apps you are using and where you can up your game.

Transactional Word Document Automation Workshop, Part 1 (and Part 2 on day 2) Kenton Brice   runs the OU Law School Library currently and more importantly is the Director of Technology Innovation there. He is outstanding and a great person to know and bounce things off of; together with massive veteran knowledge of Ivan Hemmans, Barron Henley and another top 5 pick Paul Unger, this room will be packed.

Follow the above with —

What’s Up with Word for discussion of newer features again with Barron Henley and Ben Schorr.

NFTs and Web3: What are They and How Does Intellectual Property Law Apply?

The market may have cratered, but some of the cryptocurrencies are still around (as is Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.)

Countering the Cyberthreat Tsunami: Start with the Basics

w/ Legend veteran David Ries

Automating the Transactional Client Lifecycle

With Sofia Stefanie Lingos and Andrea Sager, look to this to complement Regina Edwards workflows and presentation tips.

Hacks to Command and Control Your PC

Former TS Chairs Debbie Foster (now part of the biggest legal tech consulting merger of companies I’ve ever seen) and Ivan Hemmans, on legal hacks or shortcuts…these are likely going to be gold at a time when gold is desperately needed.

Designing an A+ Client Experience including another top 5 Catherine Reach

Justice Tech: Using Innovation to Reduce the Access to Justice Gap

No Code, No Problem: Unleash the Power of Automation to Transform Your Law Firm – follow-up from day one

Contract Management Systems

Getting Things Done: Overcoming Procrastination and Implementing Technology to Better Manage Your Time (I’ve got five bucks that says ‘pomodoro’ will be mentioned multiple times). Paul Unger

Data-Driven Tech: What’s your ROI?

Document Management and Compliance

60 in 60

Closing out the sessions, for the first time now on Friday at 4:30 instead of Saturday morning, this is the most entertaining 60 minutes in legal technology (with a couple nods to keynotes in past years including Ben Stein and David Pogue and Lawrence Lessig, among others.

CLE

The ABA will seek 9 hours of CLE credit in 60-minute states, and 10.8 hours of CLE credit for this program in 50-minute states [including 2 hours of Ethics CLE credit in 60-minute states and 2.4 hours of Ethics CLE credit in 50-minute states]

Links:

All information: https://www.techshow.com/

Registration:

https://web.cvent.com/event/0cdb462b-ec0b-4b11-b371-cc1c376dffa7/regProcessStep1

Travel/Accomodations:

https://web.cvent.com/event/0cdb462b-ec0b-4b11-b371-cc1c376dffa7/websitePage:9427a9e4-afa5-4f64-8aa4-a95694b3b74f

#legaltech #Techshow #ABATechshow #Chicago #LegalTechnology #ContinuousImprovement #LegalPracticeManagement

GraphDoc – A User-Friendly Tool to Generate Your Own Decision Trees

For those of you who use DocAssemble, but dislike writing out all that YAML code, this tool is for you. The law school at Maastricht University developed the tool specifically for use with DocAssemble. It is free (no account necessary), and is available online so you don’t have to install anything. Just go to the website, and start working up your decision tree. At the end, you’ll get YAML code that you can copy/paste to your DocAssemble playground.

The school posted a demonstration which is available at LinkedIn. However, if you want a quick explanation on how to use the tool, merely click the “Load default example” button and you’ll get the idea.

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