Technology

Biglaw Firm Brings On Technology Development Ninjas

Why wait for a legal tech solution when you can build it yourself.

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Legal technology is typically the domain of third-party vendors and startups busting their humps to build a better mousetrap that presumably leverages machine learning and blockchain. It’s the logical division of labor: let lawyers be lawyers and let techies be techies. But in the Bay Area law firms have a penchant for blurring the lines between themselves and the startups that surround them.

The result is Orrick Labs, a small project under the Orrick roof that looks to build products that its lawyers need:

Jackson Ratcliffe, a recruit who had been consulting for the firm on several technology projects, joined as Orrick Lab’s technology architect in July. One of the lab’s first products is a dashboard system for the firm’s technology practice group that helps the lawyers organize client documents, and provide useful, if mundane, information like lists of directors and fax numbers designed to expedite service.

Ratcliffe had an epiphany while attending a Google Cloud conference in San Francisco last spring, he said. He could build an enterprise document collaboration tool for all the firm’s lawyers that took advantage of cloud-based tools such as translation and workflow checklists.

Frankly it’s shocking that more big firms aren’t doing this. With the resources large firms can bring to bear, they have the opportunity to build bespoke solutions that take advantage of their existing processes easier than a third-party vendor can adapt their existing products to fit a firm’s legacy systems. No one’s saying that Orrick is going to replace the big-ticket solutions out there, but for certain collaborative functions, building the right solution from the ground up will generally be better than backing a general product into particular constraints.

Zuklie said not only clients, but laterals and even law school students ask what the firm is doing to innovate and provide legal services in a more efficient way — and Orrick Labs is part of the firm’s response.

“I think we’re at a tipping point,” where advancements in technology, client demands, a war for talent, AI, and disaggregation are creating an environment for innovation, Zuklie said. “We’re an industry that has lagged behind.”

Note the past tense there. We’ve all given the legal profession a world of grief over failing to embrace technology as it comes, but that’s all changed in the last few years. Firms understand that remaining competitive requires innovation. Now some firms are realizing that they don’t have to wait on the market — they can go out and build the solutions they need themselves.

Law Firm Creates Internal ‘Skunkworks’ to Develop Tech [Big Law Business]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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