Technology

5 Things I Would Have Told You At #ILTACON2017

Making it toLas Vegas for #ILTACON2017? I'm officially jealous.

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For those who are making their way out to Las Vegas for #ILTACON2017, I’m officially jealous. Not because I enjoy Vegas — I don’t. But, as I’ve sworn to my wife on several occasions, legal technology conferences are about as close as I ever come to celebrity status. Oh sure, I’m no Casey Flaherty, but I will get the occasional, “Zach Abramowitz? The ReplyAll guy!”

Not gonna lie, it’s pretty great.

But, this year my wife and I goofed and “planned” the birth of our fourth child smack in the middle of ILTA, so I had to pass up attending one of the premier events of the legal tech year. Rookie mistake, I know.

I usually spend these conferences meeting with people and engaging in deep conversations, which given my background is not exactly shocking. While no two conversations are the same, what I’ve found is that I usually have four or five nuggets of information that I will repeat in almost every discussion. So, since I’m not going to be at ILTA because of the aforementioned (and very much impending) baby arrival, I decided to share said nuggets here.

  1. Maybe it’s because I come from a transactional background and because I like legal companies founded by lawyers, but I’m quickly becoming a fan of Doxly. Anyone who’s ever worked on a corporate transaction knows that there are two types of junior associates on each deal: a monkey and a babysitter. The monkey is responsible for doc review and any ad hoc research that comes up. Companies like Kira, Luminance, eBrevia have been working on automated solutions so that, ideally, you wouldn’t even need a monkey. But the babysitter, or what Doxly founder and former Ice Miller partner Haley Altman calls a “deal champion,” is responsible for making sure the transaction has everything it needs to close. The way that firms do this now is creating transaction checklists in Microsoft Word, which are then manually updated and sent around as the deal progresses. If you’ve never worked on a transaction, trust me that process is as clunky as it gets — and it leads to errors and delays that can hold up a deal. Doxly has created a smart workflow that keeps all parties in the loop as a transaction moves forward. Plus, Doxly reduces, if not completely eliminates, the risk of error. If you missed my live interview with Haley Altman (sponsored by eDiscovery tech and service provider Planet Data), make sure to check it out. Now that I know about it, I can’t imagine doing a deal without Doxly. Would love to hear from lawyers who have demoed Doxly, signed up for a subscription or are doing something else to manage “smart” transactions.
  2. The recent news about the partnership between Axiom and Kira Systems is a big deal and both legal technology companies and lawyers should take note. Axiom may look like a simple alternative legal service provider, but if you’ve spoken with Axiom founder and chairman Mark Harris, you quickly realize that he has a much bigger vision than simply less pricey attorneys for more mundane tasks. When he started Axiom, Harris believed that the legal industry wasn’t ready for technology solutions, so he started “modestly” by sending legal consultants into Fortune 500 companies to rejigger the legal department and make it more efficient. The larger goal, however, was to lay the foundations for technology to be introduced into these legal departments. Now that legal departments are bringing more work in-house, hiring legal ops teams and greatly reducing the number of outside law firms it seems that the time may have come for Axiom to transition into a legal technology player. The hiring of new CEO Elena Donio, a veteran of Silicon Valley tech and consulting companies also suggests Axiom moving in this direction. Axiom may develop its own technology, but they also have the network and trust to be the most influential channel partner in legal.
  3. I recently interviewed Vincent Cordo, the head of litigation sourcing at Shell who, among other things, has reduced the number of outside law firms that Shell uses from ~400 to 20. Not only that, but he’s very comfortable speaking about it on the record and at industry conferences. Why? Because he wants to create a blueprint that other Fortune 500 companies can replicate. This would make me nervous if I was in a practice group not recognized as domain experts. How many legal departments reducing their outside law firms is it going to take before law firms start getting pinched? How is this not is the most disruptive trend in legal?
  4. Artificial intelligence in legal is having a bit of a down moment. I keep hearing more and more attorneys and industry insiders who are underwhelmed by the some of the flashy offerings and believe that most of what we’re hearing about AI is hype and marketing speak. That’s not to say that it has no disruptive potential (see #’s 1 & 2 above), but there are more interesting things being done right now.
  5. Speaking of more interesting things, Ironclad is my new company to watch in 2017, and I was raving about them before Accel Ventures led their recent $8 million dollar Series A round. Founded by Fenwick alum Jason Boehmig and backed by early stage investor Y Combinator, Ironclad has the potential to completely transform how companies think about contracts. Want to know more about why I love Ironclad? Sign up below to follow my conversation with Jason which will be unfolding live right here on Above the Law later this week.

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Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

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