Canadian Lawyer

w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 33 more sophisticated drafting tools. Meanwhile, Swansburg also sees increased "visualization" of legal research — with tools such as NexLP and Brainspace creating "powerful ways to present information and quickly absorb data." "In the U.K., some of the larger firms have automated initial drafts of suites of deal docu- ments like financings, [while] in Canada the focus has been on automating NDAs, employ- ment agreements and other, less complex docu- ments," says Swansburg. It's the cloud, stupid Yet it's cloud computing — and the legal opera- tions-related opportunities it's enabling — that dominated the more than 20 interviews Cana- dian Lawyer did for this story with legal tech lawyers, leaders, academics, techies and com- mentators. Jon Kerry-Tyerman is a vice president at Everlaw, an eight-year-old, 100-employee U.S. legal tech firm that attracted US$35 million in funding in 2018. He told Canadian Lawyer via email that, while "two or four years ago, some purchasers still avoided the cloud and treated it as a fad," nowadays, the legal services industry regards it as "inevitable." Relativity's Robertson agrees, saying cloud computing — along with the growth of legal software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools — is impact- ing e-discovery in a "big way" as organizations increasingly move their data to the cloud. For example, says Robertson, 96 per cent of Fortune 500 companies use "at least one Microsoft cloud offering," with a rise in cybersecurity-related risk among the forces pushing lawyers into the cloud. "A few years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that the most secure solutions were on private clouds. That's no longer the case, given the mas- sive investments being made by companies like Microsoft," says Robertson. He adds, "If a company's data starts in the cloud, they don't want to move it for purposes of an investigation or e-discovery . . . SaaS delivered via the public cloud offers customers unparal- leled flexibility and an increased confidence about hitting deadlines and responding to the courts and regulators." AP whats …? Cloud computing has, in turn, enabled legal tech's other big news — application program- ming interfaces, or APIs — which is computer code that allows apps to work well together. The technology has fuelled much of the growth at legal tech heavyweight Clio, a 320-employee company based in Burnaby, B.C. Clio's lawyer in residence, Joshua Lenon, says that Clio published its first API in 2012 — a "pioneering" move that allowed Clio to offer customers integration with other best-in-class software solutions such as Fastcase and Quick- Books Online. Essentially, says Lenon, APIs have allowed Clio to take a "collaborative market approach." Alongside acquisitions such as Lexicata and col- laborations with Alt Legal — a New York legal tech firm focused on IP docketing — Clio has used APIs to solve problems "we would have had to tackle." Says Lenon, "Together, APIs and acquisitions have allowed us to focus on our core strengths and [to subsequently] leapfrog our development forward by years." After all, says Lenon, "some user needs are so niche, Clio cannot build them any time soon." One constant remains One not-so-new defining characteristic of the state of legal tech is, of course, mounting client pressure on law firms for less cost and more transparency. Keith Lipman is co-founder and CEO of legal tech company Prosperoware, an 85-employee, nine-year-old U.S. legal tech company with more than 300,000 users, including half of the biggest U.S. law firms and a quarter of the U.K. ones. He says bigger and bigger in-house teams are apply- ing "tremendous pricing pressure" to law firms unprepared for the "fundamental shifts" being unleashed by legal tech. Relativity's Robertson agrees, saying in-house lawyers are seeing an imperative to treat legal and litigation as an operation "like any other in their business." Canadian Lawyer also approached Anaqua, Concord, Disco and Work- share for interviews. Boston-headquartered Anaqua (approximately 180 employees, founded in 2004) helps clients better manage patents, trade secrets and trademarks. With more than 20,000 users, Anaqua has attracted invest- ment of US$125 million. Anaqua has two other U.S. offices and six more in six other countries. Anaqua owns established legal tech company Lecorpio. Robert Romeo is CEO. In 2018, San Francisco-head- quartered document management company Concord (approximately 100 employees, founded in 2014) had raised more than US$51 million. Concord, also in Paris, works with more than 200,000 companies. Matt Lhoumeau is CEO. Austin-based e-discovery com- pany Disco (200+ employees, founded in 2012) has attracted US$50 million, including US$20 million in 2018. Used by 50 of the top 200 U.S. law firms, the company's software automates and simplifies complex and error- prone tasks. Kiwi Camara is CEO. London, England-based Work- share (approximately 180 employees, founded 1999) helps lawyers and other professionals compare, protect and share documents across devices. With offices in the U.S. and Australia, Workshare's website says it has more than two million customers in 70 countries. Michael Garrett is CEO. OTHER TOP B2B LEGAL TECH COMPANIES

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