The legal profession and related industries are known for being slow to automate. There are actually good reasons for this. It's not that the legal profession is inherently resistant to technology, but that it has unique problems that require tailor-made solutions. Moreover, there's more fault in the software sector, because developing software for the legal field requires both expertise in computing and law, two deep-study professions which seldom attract the same kind of student.
The challenge in developing software for the legal profession is that the software has to save time instead of wasting it. The output has to be increased while minimizing inputs as much as possible. Basic office tools, such as spreadsheets and email, are doing fine in the legal profession, but the real bottlenecks come in processing data. The average day at a legal firm will see data collection across multiple phone calls, emails, PDF forms, and contracts. All of this has to be collated and entered manually.
Evisort has attracted attention from investors such as Village Global, Serra Ventures, and Amity Ventures, which count among their backers such tech luminaries as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Evisort's clients include Fortune 500 companies and AM Law 100 firms. Evisort has implemented contract management systems tailor-made for the legal departments at everything from the largest retail banks to municipal civil engineering firms.
Evisort was a joint venture of Harvard and MIT graduates, uniting their strengths to come to the legal profession with a labor-saving AI contract software. As their CEO mentions, many professionals in the legal field never thought to look into AI for efficiency solutions. Recent leaps in deep-learning AI methods have enabled what couldn't be done a couple of decades ago. Evisort is designed to be integrated with other popular office software to make a solid base for increasing workflow efficiency.
Smokeball is an Australian-founded company based in Chicago, offering a case management software suite to legal firms. Another exciting Silicon Valley startup, they've seen acquisitions and steady growth in a few years. The corporate culture is unique, with a laid-back atmosphere encouraged by the CEO, inspiring each employee to take a "see it, own it" approach to fixing issues.
It's not aimed at the enterprise level, but individual employees at a firm might find use for MyCase anyway, since it's a personal app that turns any phone into a legal briefcase of sorts.
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The challenge in developing software for the legal profession is that the software has to save time instead of wasting it. The output has to be increased while minimizing inputs as much as possible. Basic office tools, such as spreadsheets and email, are doing fine in the legal profession, but the real bottlenecks come in processing data. The average day at a legal firm will see data collection across multiple phone calls, emails, PDF forms, and contracts. All of this has to be collated and entered manually.
Evisort
The field of Artificial Intelligence is making improvements on that manual process. Evisort, a new Silicon Valley start-up profiled in Forbes, has implemented an AI-driven system that can digest a 30-page contract in a matter of seconds. Evisort mines the data from contracts and files away key data points such as terms, cash amounts, dates, and other details into an easily-accessed database. This wipes out a huge chunk of the data collection process, replacing the need to manually read and parse contracts.Evisort has attracted attention from investors such as Village Global, Serra Ventures, and Amity Ventures, which count among their backers such tech luminaries as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Evisort's clients include Fortune 500 companies and AM Law 100 firms. Evisort has implemented contract management systems tailor-made for the legal departments at everything from the largest retail banks to municipal civil engineering firms.
Evisort was a joint venture of Harvard and MIT graduates, uniting their strengths to come to the legal profession with a labor-saving AI contract software. As their CEO mentions, many professionals in the legal field never thought to look into AI for efficiency solutions. Recent leaps in deep-learning AI methods have enabled what couldn't be done a couple of decades ago. Evisort is designed to be integrated with other popular office software to make a solid base for increasing workflow efficiency.
Smokeball
Another challenge in the legal field is coming up with project management software that suits the needs of law offices. Most project management systems are designed more for work other then the legal field, having features which don't address the needs of law firms and legal departments. What legal department need instead is case management software. While it doesn't require the great leaps of AI that automating the data-mining of contracts does, it does need to be created by somebody who understands the needs of a law firm.Smokeball is an Australian-founded company based in Chicago, offering a case management software suite to legal firms. Another exciting Silicon Valley startup, they've seen acquisitions and steady growth in a few years. The corporate culture is unique, with a laid-back atmosphere encouraged by the CEO, inspiring each employee to take a "see it, own it" approach to fixing issues.
MyCase
The above is all fine for major corporate firms, but what about single-practice professionals in a small office? With a free trial offering, MyCase is a small-sized legal management software suite that still strives to be an all-in-one solution. A cloud-based app which runs from mobile devices, MyCase is an organizer for documents, messages, and contracts, with some time-tracking and billing features.It's not aimed at the enterprise level, but individual employees at a firm might find use for MyCase anyway, since it's a personal app that turns any phone into a legal briefcase of sorts.
Clio
With an individual account user base at over 150K lawyers worldwide, Clio is the legal case management software with the highest user base by head count. Another cloud-based app with a focus on individual practitioners rather then full-scale law firms, Clio is set up to be user-friendly and have a full suite of tools for intake, invoicing, time-tracking, document overview, and more. It's an app-sized document manager with a slick interface.Conclusion
It comes as no surprise that the legal profession is a growing market for AI and cloud software technology. A long under-served field, the legal profession went so long without software innovation that any news in this area generates excited headlines in both the tech and legal spheres. The advances happening now could well shape our future, streamlining business and government alike. The market could even get more competitive for small practitioners, since smaller legal firms can afford to do more work with less overhead.
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