Canadian Lawyer

32 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m LawGeex's Shmuli Goldberg: "Recognize the exact pain points facing many in-house lawyers. Businesses want to see their lawyers doing tasks more strategic than contract review and approval. Focus on doing one thing very well. Despite the hype about AI, we are very honest with customers about what we can and cannot do. This engenders trust and builds sustainability. [Also, entrepreneurs should remember that] lawyers are change-averse, meaning you must make a very good case for change, and then show your customers value very early on so they can then show it as soon as possible to their CEOs and CFOs. Other success drivers? Prioritizing prospects and customers who were streamlining their opera- tions and looking for tangible, quantifiable return on investment." Prosperoware's Keith Lipman: "[We grew big] by carefully manag- ing cash flow, focusing on understanding client workflows and processes, and because of our deep domain expertise and great software engineering experience. Many lawyers try to become engineers without software experience, while a lot of developers try to jump into the legal industry and solve its technology problems." Relativity's Nick Robertson says that his company's success driv- ers included bootstrapping and making a profit for more 10 years before raising US$125 million from Iconiq Capital in 2015. Meanwhile, Relativity has focused com- pletely on e-discovery for 10 years, says Robertson. Furthermore, it has always invested heavily in free 24-7 customer support, documentation, training and online user communities. In addition, Relativity uses its marketing budget to add value to customers instead of for outbound marketing. For example, "our Relativity Fest user conferences in Chicago and in London, England connect thousands of customers and certified Relativity professionals during hundreds of unique edu- cational sessions." ROSS Intelligence's Andrew Arruda: "We were founded at the University of Toronto — one of the world's leading AI institutions — by students, including AI researchers, and former attorneys. My advice for legal tech entrepre- neurs? Build something you love alongside people you love working with whose skillsets complement yours." Clio's Joshua Lenon says ensuring great service and a "clean, easy" user experience can turn customers into "evangelists." HOW TO BE A B2B LEGAL TECH TITAN Furthermore, most rounds have been small. "This suggests that while there's healthy interest in legal tech, venture capitalists are not willing to go 'all in' unless there is a proven, com- pelling business case." Addison Cameron-Huff, a Toronto lawyer and computer programmer who follows legal tech closely, agrees. "Canadian venture capitalists really want to see revenue or, ideally, profits. They are conservative compared to U.S. counterparts," Cameron-Huff told Canadian Lawyer via email. About hype, he says, this applies mostly to artificial intelligence legal tech startups. Machine learning and analytics … Nick Robertson is chief operating officer at Rela- tivity, an 860-employee, Chicago-headquartered B2B legal tech company with offices in London, Krakow, Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne. Set up as a software company in 2007, Relativity attracted US$125 million from Iconiq Capital in 2015 and claims 180,000 users in 40 countries, including 198 of the 200 biggest U.S. law firms. Robertson says the big change in legal tech right now is an upsurge in machine learning and analytics. Adoption is up a lot during the past five years, he says, with "85 per cent of Rela- tivity's customers currently licensing machine learning across all their matters." Robertson says he's seeing one person get through multi-million-document sets in days. That's "staggering" given that five years ago that probably would have taken months and hun- dreds of lawyers. … Improved documentation and drafting, too Toronto-based Carla Swansburg is general man- ager of the Canadian operations of Epiq, a 30-year-old U.S. company that employs 4,200 people and outsources document review to lawyers. She says big current legal tech develop- ments include better document automation and Legal adjective tech noun The application of technology and software to help legal services organizations (e.g., law firms and in-house legal teams) with practice management, document storage, billing, accounting and e-discovery.

• Cover