LegalTech, Day 1: initial impressions

As many vendors (and participants) told us, last year’s show was indicative of the crashing economy:  low attendance, lackluster enthusiasm.  But this year the number of folks attending seems to be up although according to some of the “veteran vendors” (participants who have done 5+ LegalTech shows) say overall vendor participation seems down. 

But there does seem to be a more positive buzz, positive energy as our colleague Joshua Gilliland (@BowTieLaw on Twitter) told us, and Josh knows this market very well.   There seemed to be a more update feeling about the strength of the e-discovery market. 

The two “big” technology launchs were:

1.  Thomson Reuters Legal’s launch of WestlawNext, the self-proclaimed “next generation in legal research”.  There was a major press conference, and first-class multimedia show which touted “the most comprehensive and expensive R&D project in the company’s legal history”.  We’ll have a more detailed report in our technology wrap-up later this week.

2.  LexisNexis announced their tie-up with Microsoft. Their new offering, LexisNexis for Microsoft Office, aims to “empower lawyers to search and find relevant research in the Office applications they already use”.

InsideLegal (@InsideLegal on Twitter) counted 96 eDiscovery/litigation support vendors present and as they commented — and we agree — everybody’s theme was predictable, up-front, and simple to understand pricing.  We’ll have a more detailed review of the technology at the show in our technology wrap-up later this week which will include 5 minute video “snapshots” of a large number of the vendors.

As regards the sessions, they were more varied and much more detailed this year, with a lot e-discovery education on tap.  The major themes:

1.  E-discovery and governance, risk and compliance have merged, a trend we have reported on in the past.

2.  E-discovery is moving quite quickly to corporation law departments

3.  Advanced searching, predictive coding, data analytics and statistical methodologies are gaining traction, a rend we have highlighted in our interview series (click here).   Later this morning we’ll be posting our interview with Craig Carpenter of Recommind and discuss predictive coding and analytics.

4.  Cloud computing technologies have greatly impacted e-discovery data preservation, collection and processing.

5.  The increased focus on project management and the use of dashboard technologies.

Each of these deserves a longer post and we will do this week and next week in our LegalTech follow-up.

One of the most intriguing was a session sponsored by Applied Discovery and CPA Global which demonstrated a new model for managing e-discovery and discussed the “nuts & bolts” of their relationship with Rio Tinto and other corporations which usurps the traditional role of outside counsel, and offers a dramatic new use of contract attorneys.  We are meeting with CPA Global during LegalTech and we’ll have a more detailed report later.

Now, on to Day 2.